William Shakespeare claimed that
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139–143
Having all the above in mind, I decided to have my students use their carnival accessories and costumes, as their inspiration to create their own skits, working in groups! It was actually the day, the school Carnival party would take place during the last two teaching hours, therefore all the kids were in the spirit of Carnival fun and came to class wearing Carnival masks and costumes ! It was difficult to have a..proper english lesson under the circumstances, therefore, I decided to ask them to use their costumes and masks as realia and write and act out their own skits, working in groups! The outcome, was amazing! It was hilarious! I love it when my students become creative!
Although, my students used their own scenarios , I also asked them to play one favourite drama game :
“Scene from real life”
Procedure:
1. Divide the class into groups of 3-4 students each.
2. One member of the group must tell the others a true story about an event in his/her life. Encourage him/her to describe it in as much detail as possible. This person becomes the “director”.
3. The director then chooses members of the group to play the various characters involved in the scene (including him/herself).
4. The actors then improvise the scene in front of the director.
5. After each run-through, the director should give notes. Then the group improvises the scene again. The goal of the director is to make the scene as believable as possible.
6. Once the directors of each group are satisfied with their scenes, have the groups share in front of each other.
With my very young learners, we tried several Carnival fun games such as ” The Carnival King says…”
“The Carnival King says…”
or many Carnival-themed vocabulary games such as the one shown in the photo below, called” The Carnival masks dictation” , played in teams!
“Carival Masks Dictation”
I also, had my afternoon students make these special LEG puppets
Leg puppets
and use them to play ” Musical chairs” or ” Freeze”! I finally asked my older students to use the leg puppets in order to act their own puppet shows!
Improvisation , was the key issue in that, too!
Working in teams to create the story!
That was an alternative english lesson, which we all enjoyed , as you can see in the photos!
Highly recommended to all teachers!
