Anyone who came to my talk about drama at IATEFL, Glasgow on Tuesday will have seen two groups of children performing two traditional Palestinian stories (Jbene and The farmer who followed his dream) live and remotely from the UNRWA field office in Gaza city.
Read MoreThe difference between theatre and classroom drama is that in theatre everything is contrived so that the audience gets the kicks. In the classroom, the participants get the kicks.'So how can second language learners benefit from performing in a play?
Read MoreLast Saturday we had a rather special zoom meeting between Sahar Salha's class at the Elementary co-ed “A” UNRWA school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza and Alex Guzik's class of kids in Krasnodar, Russia.It started with the Russian children performing their own excellent interpretation of the traditional Palestinian story, The Farmer who followed his dream.
Read MoreI can't remember where I first heard this story but I included this version of it in the introduction to the Stories Alive material, and its central message about the power of personalisation in learning has always resonated with me.
Read MoreOne thing about chanting is that is encourages use of connected speech: it challenges learners to speak in chunks, rather than in isolated words. This is a central idea of the Lexical Approach. When chanting words flow into each other, and pauses occur naturally between chunks of language, rather than after each word (as often occurs in the speech of beginners).
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