Activities

Techniques for teachers

“You have to follow the crowd, you don’t want to be the one left out”

 

The following sections offer a number of drama and language based activities for developing skills in the classroom. They do not require specialist skills, but descriptions of the basic techniques are included for those who have not used them before. If class control is an anxiety for teachers inexperienced in drama, plan your lesson well in advance and ideally run the session with the support of another colleague or a classroom assistant.

1 Getting Started

• a) Establishing ground Rules

  • Ground rules can be very valuable for promoting a safe, positive and cooperative warning environment in the classroom, especially when working with a potentially sensitive topic (a pupil may want to recount a traumatic experience). In generating these rules it is important to make the whole process a two-way discussion rather than the teacher imposing rules on the pupils. Working with the whole class or small groups, pupils and the teacher should identify ground rules they would like to operate during these sessions.

• b) Positive Statements

  • Write them down, preferably as positive statements, e.g. 'Everyone has a right to their own opinion'. As a whole class, discuss and clarify all the suggestions. Approve only the rules which the whole class can agree to and display them for all to see. You might also want to consider the sanctions for breaking the rules.

    Previous groups have agreed on the following: confidentiality, give people time, no 'put downs', listen to each other, sense of humour, show respect, a right not to contribute, a right to your own opinion

2 Drama Techniques

• a) Hot Seating

  • Someone takes on a particular role or character and is interviewed by the rest of the group. S/he sits in the 'hot seat' and faces questioners, as if in a media or news interview, a chat show, or a court of law. The teacher may wish to choose children they feel are confident enough to take the hot seat. The person in the 'hot seat' could play the role of a parent of a victim of a drink-driving accident, a teenager who has been binge-drinking in order to fit in with mates and thinks it is cool or a girl who has had to have her stomach pumped out due to excessive drinking.

    Suggestion - Ask pupils to take on the role of newspaper reporters. Tell them that they are going to interview key characters from the Bottling It Up program in order to gather information for an exclusive story they are going to write for their newspaper. Decide which people (Sean? Emma? Kate?) they want to interview, what they want to find out and how they can put the interviewee at ease. You could sit in the hot seat yourself or ask a pupil to do so. Use the information the pupils glean from this activity to write newspaper stories.

• b) Still Image

  • The creation of a still or frozen image using a group of people who 'freeze' in a pose to capture a particular moment, idea or theme, as in a photograph or painting. This technique has distinct advantages when a teacher is exploring ideas and themes which pupils find complex or vague. To create a single concrete image requires thought on the part of the pupils so that their image is precise and not interpreted. Particular attention should be given to body posture and facial expressions. How do others interpret the still image? Who do they think is depicted and what is happening? Allow time for adjustments for clarity and dramatic effect.

    Suggestion - A Polaroid camera will help to capture the still image for participants before creating the next image. It also provides a useful documentary record.

• c) Forum Theatre

  • In groups, pupils can improvise scenes about potentially dangerous or risky situations. Ask them to end the scenes at the moment of crisis and then show them to the whole class. Replay the scenes inviting the observing pupils to stop the scenes at a point where they would have behaved differently in order to bring about a positive outcome. Ask them to step into the scene and show everyone what they would do. The teacher should remain as a neutral facilitator throughout, encouraging the pupils to consider the consequences of their actions. The aim is to get the pupils to practice how they might cope in risky situations, or avoid them altogether.

• d) Teacher in Role

  • Teacher in role is a central feature of educational drama work. It enables the teacher to shape drama from within by adopting a role. There are four 'modes' of teaching in role.

    MODE	EXAMPLE	PURPOSE
    Authoritarian	Police office, school crossing patrol	A way to start, control, guide, advise, etc
    Messenger	Witness, parent, parent	Used to move the story on, give extra information, which can change attitudes
    Questioner	Newspaper reporter, police officer	Someone who needs the expertise of the children, thereby giving them status. Helps children to discover share and verbalise knowledge.
    Victim	Child involved in accident, driver	This can put children in position of responsibility, where they are caring and offering advise.

3 Where do you stand?

• Learning objective: To share attitudes towards alcohol use
  • 1) Explain the purpose of the activity. You are going to read out some statements about alcohol and the group will be asked to stand on an imaginary line across the room - one end represents STRONGLY AGREE and the other end represents STRONGLY DISAGREE with NOT SURE in the middle.
  • 2) Choose statements from the list below, adding any of your own or ones that the group wishes to discuss. Read a statement and ask the pupils to move so that everyone is standing at a point along the line that best reflects their view. e.g. if a pupil only agrees with a statement rather than strongly agrees with it, then they should stand mid way between 'not sure' and 'strongly agree'.
    
  • 3) Once everyone is on the line at a point which represents their view discuss the statement before moving on to the next one. It is best to hear one argument at a time from the opposing positions on the line and you will need to chair any discussion to make sure all the opinions are heard.
  • 4) Once the various opinions have been heard offer pupils the opportunity to move to a new position if they feel their attitude has changed following the discussion.
  • 5) Repeat this process for all the statements, keeping the discussion brief. To finish, conduct a round of 'the most important thing we have discussed is.........'
  • Possible statements to discuss are:
    Adults have double standards when it comes to drinking
    All/ very few young people drink alcohol
    There are never any problems using alcohol
    Most drinking problems involve young people
    Peer pressure is the reason why young people drink
    Young people with high esteem are less likely to drink
    We have a serious problem with drinking in this area
    Legal drugs (alcohol and tobacco) do more harm to society than illegal drugs
    We learn our attitudes towards drinking from our families
  • The continuum exercise can also be used reflectively to measure responses at the beginning and end of a project in order to determine if learning aimshave been met.
  • Complete the statement
    Either in small groups or as a whole class ask pupils to discuss and complete an unfinished statement
    Suggested statements
    The main reason why people drink is…
    The main problems caused by drinking are…
    Parents and teachers are very ignorant about talking to young people about alcohol because…
    The best people/places to get information about drinking are…