Throughout the past weeks I have learned the importance of oral language and drama within the classroom context. I have been focusing a lot on it trying to develop my students’ oral language to help build their confidence. I have found that it really helps the students become more comfortable and confident in the classroom. Drama particularly lets me see the students come to life and let themselves go. They really grasp the content and embrace themselves in role-play. At the start they weren’t really interested in taking part in drama because it was out of their comfort zone, however over the past few weeks drama has really helped them to come out of their shell and develop short role-plays of their own.
Throughout the past few weeks I have used warm up games such as:
1. Mirror, Mirror: one students has to act as the other student’s reflection.
2. Tongue-Twisters: One-One was racehorse, I thought a thought, but the thought I thought
Two-Two was one too, wasn’t the thought I thought I thought.
When One-One won one race,
Two-Two won one too.
3. Aladdin role-play: Acting out scenes from the cartoon in memory of Robin Williams.
We are also trying to introduce a whole-school approach to oral language through:
1. Text-rich school environment
2. Oral language checklists that will ensure that we know what students need help with.
3. A weekly/monthly/ termly theme/focus on a specific area of oral language.
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