The Friday Show has been a usual fixture at the summer camp. For this week, my group of students (9- to 11-year-olds) came up with a short sketch.
Since it was my first time using drama in the 'classroom', I decided to let things develop without a fixed plan.
Day 1, Monday
The students worked in two smaller groups. One group came up with the plot while the other group chose a song and transcribed its lyrics.
As most of them were at level A1/A2, they talked in L1 but produced written language in English.
Day 2, Tuesday
Having taken note of what the students came up on Day 1, I prepared a worksheet for the group by typing their original plot on Word.
For the day's main task, I had identified six 'scenes', for which short dialogues would need creating, in the plot. The students were therefore split into six pairs. Each pair had to write short dialogues for their designated scene.
Again, they discussed the finer ideas in L1 but produced written language in English. The weaker students needed support since they didn't have enough language for writing; word spelling was a key problem for them too.
Day 3, Wednesday
The students worked on the other items for the show.
(In the meantime, the script was more or less ready behind the scene - several mistakes in the student-generated dialogues were ironed out. I also added a small number of simple structures at level A1/A2 to it.)
Day 4, Thursday
The students rehearsed the sketch and improved on a few places in the script. Support on pronunciation was given to one or two weaker students.
Day 5, Friday
The students had a final rehearsal on their own.
About half of the group were already able to memorise their parts, which was an excellent sign in terms of learning and using the language. This was, however, not compulsory as they were told they could always rely on the script. Having said that, only one student read directly from her piece of paper due to pronunciation-related challenges.
The final result was satisfactory given we had a few hours to create a sketch. In terms of language learning, it would have been better if error correction had been elicited from the students.
With hindsight, I shouldn't have overlooked stage choreography in the rehearsals. Apology for being the perfectionist here. For maximum performance effects, the students should be encouraged to adopt clear diction and appropriate tones, speak with audible voice levels, and pay attention to their body gestures (i.e. avoid facing the audience with their side or back).