Drama with children

1.4 Find your partner

1,2 A ,B TIME___________15 + 15, including revision o f dialogue

AIMS; DESCRIPTION; MATERIALS Language: to practise vocabulary of feelings and to practise a short dialogue. Other: to practise showing emotion with voices, faces, and bodies. The children work on short dialogues (2-4 lines) which they have been studying, and are given a card which tells them how they feel. They mingle with the others in the class, trying to find another person who feels the same way as they do. Small cards, each with one of these words on them: happy, sad, angry, bored, hungry, tired, hot, and cold (seeWorksheet 1.4).There should be enough to go around the class, and at least two of each card: it does not matter if there is an uneven number. PREPARATION IN CLASS 1 Prepare the cards above. 2 Prepare the dialogue you want the children to practise. It can be based on the unit of the book you are doing, or revise something from a previous one. It could be connected with a topic. Or if you are preparing a play to perform, you can use a key dialogue. 1 Review the dialogue you are going to use. It can be as simple as: A Hi! B Hello! A Do you like the new teacher? B Yes! 2 For ideas on learning and reviewing dialogues, see pages 93 and 94 in Chapter 5. 3 Present or elicit the feelings that are on the cards you have prepared. You can do this through mime and using your voice, asking. How do I feel? How are you ?or

using the pictures in Worksheet 1.4. If these words are new to your children, you may want to write them on the board.
GETTING STARTED 17

4 Tell the children to work in pairs and choose one of the feelings words. Ask them to practise the dialogue they have learnt, saying it in the manner of the word they have chosen. Go around the class monitoring and commenting. If there is time, they can choose another word and repeat the dialogue using the new word. 5 You may like to ask some of the children to demonstrate their dialogues and ask the class to guess which feeling they are acting. This can be an alternative to step 6 if you dont have enough space for a mingling activity. 6 Give out the cards. Tell the children that they are going to act as if that is how they are feeling at the moment. Explain that they should mingle with the rest of the class, finding partners and saying the dialogue in the manner of their word, until they find someone who feels the same as they do. When they have found a partner, they should stand at the front of the class. If there is an uneven number of children, tell them that there will be one group of three. If you have a large group, it is best to divide the class in two. Let one group do the activity while the others watch, and then let the second group have a turn. 7 When all the children have found a partner, ask some pairs to say the dialogue while the rest of the class guess the feeling. 8 Give the children feedback on the activity, both the language they have been using, and the way in which they carried out the activity. COMMENTS________ If you want a more structured mingling, get the children to stand in two concentric circles, those on the inside facing those on the outside. The children move in opposite directions until you say stop. The children facing each other say the dialogue. If their feelings coincide, they leave the circle. VARIATION 1 Instead of a set dialogue, each child can prepare a question to ask in the manner of the word. VARIATION 2_______ Children who are more fluent in English can be asked to improvise using an initial question such as Where are you going?