Role plays

These last classes we have been doing different role-plays because each group have to prepare one exercise at least to show to others.

Our aim was to create an activity or situation related with Uxue´s born and perform it in class. All of us had to imagine that we were teachers of Zerain school and make an role-playing about the way that we want to teach English.

Until now, two groups did the performance about the family, another group about a lullaby, another one about animals in the farm, another one about the parts of the body and our group about food. Taking into account what we see, we think that it is important to bear in mind some ideas such as:

1- The teacher has to be patient. The easiest part is to plan what we are doing in class, but improvising will be also necessary because maybe our intention has to be changed. We don’t know beforehand if our preparations will connect with them, and we will have to think about doing the same activity in another way or changing it completely, so the flexibility is also required. We have to afford any moments to teach them English, that is the key.

2- It is important to make sure that the children are interested in what are we doing. If we want to work on a song with them, we can´t pretend they will learn it at the very beginning. It is a good idea to put them the song while they are doing another activity, only to listen it and enjoy it.

3- It is necessary to talk very clearly and slowly in order to understand what we are talking about. It is a new language for them so we have to use a lot of mime and body- expression. We won´t have to translate words, we can speak in English all the time and make English learning happened.

4- We think also that it is a good idea to do some rituals at the beginning and at the end of the class, these things could help them to connect and disconnect with English and it is helpful for the teacher also.

5- The most interesting thing that we have learnt with some different role playing is to put into children’s shoes. Some of our classmates act really well as children and it turned to be a little bit difficult for the teacher (who also was acting as teacher) to manage the situation. In a real situation we learn much more than only learning theory.

So, to sum up, we can say that these role playing activities were very useful and we had a really good time looking at our friends acting. We learnt a lot and we came to the conclusion that one of the most powerful resources is each other, isn’t it?