Comenius Mobility “Drama Techniques for Teaching English” Exeter, England 30 th September – 11 th October 2013 Rotaru Mirela LTMA Iaşi

International Projects Centre Organiser: International Projects Centre, Exeter, England IPC has organised language courses and trainings for English teachers since All courses combine rigorous academic content with touristic and cultural activities meant to familiarize the participants with the beauties of the area that surrounds the City of Exeter. Other courses: Developing Oral Fluency, CLIL, Practical Ideas for Teachers of Adults Learners, Practical Ideas for Business English Classroom, etc.

Course description Most of the training was organized as practical workshops, being very interactive. Each class started with warm-up activities and ice breakers, many of them including physical exercise, which was quite different from the usual courses I had previously attended.

Course description Types of activities: role-playing, storytelling, hot-sitting, improvisation, monologues, miming and a wide variety of language games. They ranged from simple games suited for young learners to very complex projects, such as writing a play starting from a real-life story.

Course description Notable: One of the activities that I particularly liked was a role-playing intended to teach social skills and raise awareness on status. Each participant gets a number from 1 to 10 that is stuck on his/her back. Then the whole group act out a party and they have to guess their number based on the way the others behave around them. They walk around the room and interact with as many colleagues as possible, trying to figure out if they are important or not. After a few minutes they form a line, each of them placing himself/herself according to their assumed number.

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Course description Evaluation a) individually – each participant had to prepare a micro-lesson ( minute activity) to share with our colleagues b) group work - we had to write and perform a short play based on a situation we witnessed during our stay there and included typical aspects of the English society. Moreover, we had to include colloquialisms in the script.

Course description Benefits of using drama techniques They:  provide opportunities to speak / communicate  have an emotional aspect  have a social aspect, it’s collaborative, stimulate students to work together  are motivating / fun / engaging and increase confidence  for young learners it is natural to act something out  present language in context, in chunks  are cross-curricular  can add pace or change the mood of a lesson  are a good way to discuss moral /ethical / social issues  are learned –centered rather than teacher-centered  it allows them to manifest their personality and creativity as there’s no wrong way of doing things.

The host

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The City of Exeter

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Trips

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To conclude with …. I whole-heartedly recommend this course to all types of English teachers. Here are a few reasons:  Great content, engaging and motivating  An impressive number and diversity of activities  Personable and very professional trainers  A very knowledgeable and charming guide during the trips  Nice hosts with awesome garden (and five cats )  Well organized and friendly administrative staff  You get to see the Atlantic Ocean