How to Approach Speaking and Listening through Drama
How to Begin with Teacher in role
Why use teacher in role?
The most important resource you have
as a teacher when using drama is yourself. Learning demands intervention from
the teacher to structure, direct and influence the learning of the pupils. One
of the best ways to do that in drama work is to be inside the drama. Therefore,
at the centre of the dramas that we include in this book, is the key teaching
technique that is used, namely teacher in role (TiR). Many time we have watched
trainee teachers with a class of children struggling to get attention when
giving instructions in traditional teacher mode. Yet, as soon as they move into
role, they obtain that attention more effectively.
For example, a trainee was talking
out of role to a class to explain that they were about to meet a girl who was
having trouble with her father and needed their help (see ‘The Dream’ drama
based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream). The class were calling out and not
listening properly. She was talking over them and trying to teach without
getting their full attention. Then she explained that they could ask questions
of one of the roles from the story and that she was going to become that role
when she sat down. She picked up a ribbon with a ring threaded on it and put it
round her neck as the role signifier. When she sat down as Hermia, they were
focused entirely on her and were listening very closely, putting hands up to
ask questions and taking turns in a very orderly way. They were interested in
her problem, which was her father’s insistence on deciding whom she should
marry. The trainee was not doing anything different apart from using role and
committing to it very strongly. She looked far more comfortable.
You are not effective as a teacher
if you do not at some point engage fully with the drama yourself by using TiR.
Remaining as teacher, intervening as teacher, side-coaching, structuring the
drama from the outside, and/or sending the class off in groups to create their
own drama must at best restrict and at worst negate any opportunity for the
teacher to teach effectively. It is far more effective for the teacher to
engage with the drama form as artist and be part of the creative act. It is
very useful in a Literacy lesson for the teacher to use roles from the text. The
very fact that you take on a key role can provide important ways of
defining and exploring the text.
Teacher as storyteller
The teacher as a storyteller is
something all primary school teachers will recognise. Good teachers slip easily
into it and use it frequently. In its most observable guise it occurs when
teaching the whole class and engaging them with a piece of fiction. The
teacher’s role will be to communicate the text in a lively and interesting
manner, holding their attention and engaging their imagination. In making
judgements about the quality of this method of teaching, the critical questions
will be around whether the content of the story interests the class and holds
their attention, whether the delivery of the teacher, i.e. voice, intonation
and interpretive skills, are good and, where relevant, whether accompanying
illustrations have impact and resonance. The connection between the teacher as
storyteller and the teacher using drama, lies in the fact that they both use
the generation of imagined realities in order to teach.
Preparation for the role
In preparing to be this kind of
storyteller the teacher must have made particular decisions about this child. Begin
by asking the class out of role what they want to ask the child and the order
of those questions. Before the drama session, decide what attitude you are
going to take when questioned by the class. You are going to be telling them a
story but it will be as if they had just met you and it will not be the voice
of the narrator re-telling someone else’s story but in the present tense as if
it is happening now. all these things are possible from the text of a book;
however, the pupils will be defining what is important, which are the most
important questions to be asked and how to handle the mood of the storyteller,
whose views on the events may be very different from those of the audience whom
he addresses.
Teaching from within
Moving in and out of role – managing the drama and reflecting on it
We are describing using role as
‘teaching from within’ because the teacher enters the drama world, but it is
very important to step out of the fiction often and not let it run away with
itself. When using TiR, the teacher is operating as a manager as well as
participant and must spend as much time stopping the drama and moving out of
role (OoR) to reflect on what is happening and give the pupils a chance to
think through what they know and what they want to do. This OoR working is as
important as the role itself. It manages the role and therefore the drama; it
manages the risk, establishes where the class is and helps pupils believe in
the drama. It provides time and space for the teacher to assess and re-assess
the learning possibilities.
The requirements of working in role
The teacher, working in this way, is
an important stimulus for the learning. It is not necessary to use role
throughout the piece of work. It can be used judiciously to focus work at
strategic points or to challenge particular aspects of the children’s
perceptions whilst other techniques and conventions are used to support the
work and develop it. In order to make the TiR most effective, we need to look
at educational drama from the point of view of the ‘audience’, an audience who
in this instance are participants at the same time.
Disturbing the class productively
Discovery/uncovering – challenge and focus
The ownership also arises out of the
way the teacher operates. The teacher’s function is to provide challenge and
stimulus, to give problems and issues for the class to have to deal with. The
drama is developed through a set of activities that build the class role, which
is usually a corporate role. We have to help them into the drama, making them
comfortable, and then disturb that comfort productively. The fact that, as in
any good play, the class discover things as they go along provides the
possibility of productive tension.
The teacher–taught relationship
In all teaching situations there
exists a power relationship between the learners and the teacher. The learners
are bound together as a group merely by being the learners and, of course, as
there are more of them than there are of you, they hold the power.
In the classroom, the pupils enter
into an agreement with you the teacher that you are in charge. This may be a
tacit agreement, it may depend upon many factors but in it the teacher is in
charge and there are certain rights and privileges attached to your role. The
power relationship is asymmetric. Of course, in drama we have the possibility
of shifting the power when we are inside the fiction because we may choose a role
that has low status and has little power. This shift in status and power is very
engaging for pupils. It can result in a different kind of dialogue from the
usual teacher/pupil one and this can be very attractive to pupils.
So what are the possibilities in
terms of power and choosing a role? There are five basic types of role and
mostly can be illustrated from the ‘The Dream’ drama.
The authority role : This is a role like the Duke in the ‘The Dream’ drama, who is
presented with Egeus’s problem and has to rule on it. This figure is usually in
charge of an organisation and has the class in a role subordinate to him/her.
The opposer role : This is a role that is often in authority but dangerous to and/or
creating a problem for another role and, by extension, the class. Egeus is an
opposer role who is against Hermia and therefore in opposition to the class role,
as they take her side against his dictatorial treatment of her.
The intermediate role : This is often a messenger or go-between, as the servant role used
in the ‘The Dream’ drama. This role is then caught between opposing sides and
can appeal to the empathy in the class to help them out of the predicament.
The needing help role : This is a role like Hermia, who is in need of help to fight the
injustice of her father’s decision. This role, like the servant described above,
is the best way to get empathy from a class and most raises the status of the
class, putting them in a position of responsibility and thus generating interest
and learning possibility because the teacher is the one who does not know what
to do for once.
The ordinary person : This role is in the same position as the role given to the class.
We do not have this sort of role in our ‘The Dream’ drama but the Steward in
the ‘Macbeth’ drama is like this.
