Creativity  memorable learning

1. Creativity  memorable learning Rachel Hawkes Assistant Principal, AST, SSAT Lead Practitioner Comberton Village College, Cambridgeshire www.rachelhawkes.typepad.com/linguacom

2. Using drama to develop skills physical theatre hotseating • memorising • pronunciation • creativity • fun • making the learning experiences memorable using props character role-play

3. physical theatre This is a term borrowed from drama terminology that pupils at KS3 will be familiar with. It describes a physical picture or ‘tableau’ they form as a group of 3 or 4 in response to an idea they have been working on. I have used it as an activity to check and accelerate comprehension of simple phrases. E.g. I say ‘ Vivo en la costa’ and students have 4 seconds to form a picture that represents this idea. It is very enjoyable and invokes voluntary repetition of the language in question as they create the image together. Pupils have reported that it helps them to remember the meanings too.

4. hotseating This is another term borrowed from drama terminology that pupils at KS3 will be familiar with. It can be used at a very simple level just as a way of assigning language phrases/identities to individuals sitting around in a circle but also more creatively if a pupil is given a role (e.g. of a child living in a TL country that has been the object of study) and other pupils ask him/her questions about his/her life in that country.

5. Using props This is something pupils are used to doing in drama. I have used this to enhance the memorising of key vocabulary – i.e. by giving out props that cue the specific language items to different pupils in the class. Pupils have said that holding and seeing an object that links to the new word helps to fix it in their minds. I also use this category of activity to describe activities using puppets, which although not strictly speaking ‘props’ do serve to enhance the learning experience, by freeing pupils from the inhibitions of being themselves.

6. This is something pupils are used to doing in drama. I have adapted this for language role-play in that pupils choose one of eight different character cards, which have very brief TL character descriptions. They are not meant to be detailed or complex but it is incredible how they change the role-play task in language lessons into something highly creative, imaginative and ‘real’ for pupils. In discussion with pupils, they have described how the character cards denote them as German so therefore they try to sound German. This strategy has made role-play much more central to language learning in my lessons – pupils do learn their parts (that they have written) off by heart and often bring props/costumes to the performance lessons. Character role-play

7. On the next slide is an example of a role-play you would find in any KS3 textbook. By giving the character cards from the following slide, the activity became something engaging and creative, in which pupils were motivated to write their own versions of the situation, learn their ‘lines’, act their parts and really sound like members of the TL community. These were rather different outcomes than those I was used to when using role-play activities in class.

9. Charakter 1dooflacht vieljünger als die anderen Personen Charakter 3schüchternspricht sehr leise Charakter 4 sehr energischbewegt sich viel Charakter 2selbstbewusstspricht sehr laut Charakter 6sehr schlechter Launehört sich launisch anstampft mit dem Fuß Charakter 7enthusiastischlächelt und klatscht in die Hände Charakter 8nachdenklichkratzt sich am Kopfstarrt vor sich hin Charakter 5kommandiert gernunterbricht ständig