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A STAR IS BORN! TRINITY STARS WORKSHOP - Session II

WARMERS AND ICEBREAKERS

Cat and Mouse One person is the cat and another is the mouse. Everybody else gets into pairs and finds some space in the classroom. The person who is the cat chases the mouse, for the mouse to escape, he/she links one of the pair and the ‘unlinked person’ becomes the mouse and the chase continues. When the mouse is caught, the mouse becomes the cat. Triangle tag In groups of four – three people make a triangle and the fourth is the ticker. Out of the three in the triangle, one person decides to be the ‘tickee’ the ticker tries to tick the tickee while being protected by the other two in the triangle. Once ticked, the students change roles. Rubber Chicken Classic warmer/energizer. Shake your right arm vigorously and quickly count down 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 - then your left arm, right leg and finally your left leg all the time counting down each time. Repeat, but this time start from 7…then 6 etc. until you get to 1,1,1,1 and jump about shaking your body like a rubber chicken and clucking at the same time! Simon Says The teacher tells the class to do certain actions, but the class only does them when it’s preceded by ‘Simon Says’ (or in this case it was ‘John says’) So if you say: “John says jump” everyone jumps, “John says stop” everyone stops, but if you only say “Stop” if not everyone has to continue doing the action. Variation The students say an action and not just do an action eg. “John says count to five” FOCUS ACTIVITIES If your class gets a bit overexcited here are some ways to focus the group. Mirrors Put the students in pairs. One person is the ‘mirror’ and the other person is the ‘mover’. The ‘mover’ does some actions very slowly and the ‘mirror’ copies as if s/he is a mirror. After a couple of minutes the pair changes roles. Clap Put the class in a circle. Make sure that they are watching you and then clap once. Encourage the class to copy you. Then clap twice and wait for the students to copy you again. Slowly increase the number and complexity of the claps. When the students understand the activity, nominate one of the students to be the leader. Variation Add a different action to the clap, egg. slapping your thigh. Variation Pass the clap around a circle. Students can decide on the direction it goes in.

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Hot Potato You need a ball or a soft toy for this activity. The class forms a circle you give out a ball, which they pass from one person to the next. After a few seconds you then shout “Hot Potato” and the class start to count down from ten to one. The person who has the ball (potato) when you reach number one has to go down on one knee. If this person is caught out again, then he/she goes down on two knees.

Sit in 60 seconds Tell the class to get into a circle and focus. When you say ‘go’ the students have to guess when 60 seconds have passed by and sit down. The winner is the person who sits down nearest to the 60-second mark. Stretching Ask the class to sit on the floor with their arms wrapped tightly around their legs, and their heads on their knees. Ask them to tighten all their muscles in the body. Then, starting from the head, say “Relax your face, now your neck, next your shoulders ...”. Then ask them to slowly stand up and stretch as much as they can, including their mouths and eyes. In the end the students should be standing on tiptoe. TRUST ACTIVITIES Human Seat Tell the class to form a very tight circle (you need at least ten people for this). Then they all have to turn to the right and place their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. Once everyone is ready, tell them to bend their knees and to slowly sit down on the lap of the person behind them. Stretcher-bearers In a group of at least 10, the class crosses their hands holding the hand/wrist of their partner and the group form a stretcher. Somebody climbs on and you move this person around, lift them, roll them etc. Follow the leader Put the students in a line, the person in the front is the ‘leader’ and moves around the classroom. The rest of the students do the same. Change the leader after a minute. Copycats The class forms a circle, then you do an action and encourage the students to copy you. Then ask someone else to be ‘it’ and the class copies what action they do. This person then chooses someone else to be ‘it’. Keep the amount of time the student is ‘it’ short.

Who Am I Talking About? Ask the class to stand in front of you and tell them that you have written one student’s name on a piece of paper, but don’t show it to anyone, including the chosen student. Tell the class that they have to find out who it is by asking you yes/no questions, eg. “Is the person a girl?” If the answer is ‘yes’, all the boys sit down. Students continue asking questions to narrow down the group until there is only one person standing.

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Sit down With the class standing in front of you, tell them that you are going to make a statement and that if it applies to them they have to sit down, eg. “Sit down if ... you’ve got blond hair. Sit down if ... you’re wearing trainers”. Continue until only one student is left standing. Shout! Tell the class to close their eyes and tell them that they are going to count up to 20. The thing is that only one person at a time can shout out the number, so if two (or more) students shout out at the same time, then they have to go back to the beginning. Variation Count down or use days of the week or months instead. Good morning Invite five children to come to the front of the class. Explain that you are going to secretly tap one child on the head and that he/she will say ‘Good morning’. Tell the rest of the class to close their eyes or put their heads on the table. Tap one of the children. The chosen child says Good morning. Tell the class to open their eyes and guess who said hello by pointing to the correct child or saying his/her name. Repeat with a new group of children. Thumb wrestling Before starting, the thumbs bow to each other and you say. "One, two, three, four I declare a thumb war!" http://www.wikihow.com/Thumb-Wrestle Maths In groups of threes or in pairs - one person says ‘go’ the other two students pull their hand out from behind their back with outstretched fingers and the first person to add up the fingers is the winner. Other options are using two hands or multiplication. Shoelaces Put people into pairs. Tie shoes laces around their wrists, the pairs have to untangle themselves. Once someone has worked it out, they show the other how to do it. Shower curtain Island On a shower curtain or piece of large plastic - in groups of about 10-12 the group have to turn over the sheet of plastic without stepping off it. Solution - the groups have to work together. Talk to the class afterwards about the moral of the exercise.

SIMPLE IMPROVISATIONS Funny walks The class stand in a large circle, one person walks into the middle doing the funniest walk that they can, pause look at someone and walk towards this person. Then this person does the same.

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The catwalk Set up a catwalk in the classroom by drawing it with a piece of chalk. One person is the commentator, the others are the models. The MC comments on what they are wearing. Gobbledygook One student speaks in gobbledygook and the other student translates. Creating characters Ask students to think about how actors create characters. Encourage them to talk about how actors copy people to convince us that what we are watching appears real. Ask students to think about how different people move. Eg. Small children, old people, soldiers, police officers. Try to keep the students focused on being real and not caricatures. To add voice, start by getting the students to think about how this person would greet his/her friend, using a simple greeting like “Hi, how are you?” or “Good morning” Walk in the style of... Ask students about actors/film stars they like. Ask them why they think they are such good actors. Explain to the students about how they are excellent at observing situations and copying it. Students try to walk like other characters eg. cowboys/girls, police officers, toddlers, pensioners, soldiers, astronauts. Introducing masks Discuss students' ideas about masks, encouraging as many views as possible. Do they likes/dislike them. Eg. Carnival, parties. Why people wear them. etc. Focus on disguise and deception Students examine masks used for disguise or deception, and discuss why people wear these masks. Eg robbers etc. Focus on masks for magic Show students pictures, artifacts and/or masks from other countries where masks are designed to scare away evil spirits or invoke the power of the spirit world to protect the owners or wearers. Focus discussion on the feelings aroused by the mask. There are lots of links on the internet – some are here.

WEBSITES AND LINKS Trinity Stars http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/site/?id=2953 Masks http://www.cln.org/themes/masks.html Mask making for art class http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/files/masks.htm Pin interest – lots more links here https://www.pinterest.com/mnlearncommons/esl-and-ell/ Masks to print off and use in class https://www.google.es/search?q=Esl+masks&biw=2560&bih=1133&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=J53KVIrSD4KvUZ6CgfgB&ved=0CCkQsAQ

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Multicultural art lesson http://www.ehow.com/info_8318314_elementary-multicultural-art-lessons.html www.curriculum.edu.au/.../The_power_of_mask Halloween Masks http://www.eslsprouts.com/halloween-esl-lesson-masks-body-parts/ An examination of the history and use of masks and why the Zapatistas cover their faces http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/lesson-plans/mask/ Drama Lesson Plans sorted by age http://www.childdrama.com/lessons.html Tips on how to set up role-plays http://lovelearning.co.uk/uncategorized/making-role-play-work/ More role-play ideas http://www.learnenglish.de/Teachers/roleplays.htm Making masks http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/files/masks.htm Using masks http://www.childdrama.com/papermasks.html Animal masks http://www.easy-child-crafts.com/fun-esl-activities.html Halloween Games and masks http://www.eslkidstuff.com/HalloweenGames.htm Simple masks and costumes http://esl-puppetry-and-more-page3.blogspot.com.es/p/images-for-animal-masks-for-children.html Making African masks – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcFEnqZGJKU More Drama ideas http://www.freeeslmaterials.com/drama.html Role Play Websites http://iteslj.org/links/TESL/Lessons/Role_Plays/ 50 Role-play lesson plans, handouts and ideas http://www.eslflow.com/roleplaysdramatheatregames.html Why use drama? http://iteslj.org/Articles/Boudreault-Drama.html Humanizing Language Teaching http://www.hltmag.co.uk/aug09/sart07.htm

CONTACT

I hope you’ve found the session useful. If you have any comments, feedback, questions you can contact below. Have fun in the class! John Harrop stars@trinitycollege.eu