Our videoconference course "Drama in the primary English classroom" took place the 22nd and 23rd of February. 

106 early and primary education teachers from all Castilla y León were trained in the use of Drama in their English classroom with drama expert teacher trainer Gillian Fearn. 

The first session  focused on early years and lower primary levels while the second one was in upper primary levels. 

From the first moment Gillian encouraged teachers to participate in the chat as much as possible with questions like: 

• Why use drama in your EY and LP classroom? 
• What props and materials are useful? 
• How can we include EY and LP in the classroom? 
• What rhyme or song would you use for a drama-based activity? 
• What do you know about 4 talk writing? 

Teachers were involved from the beginning and their contributions in the chat were really useful and awesome. 

One of the main goals of this course was to let teachers know why It is so important to use dramatic play in their English classroom. 

    Click on the image to see GIllian ´s presentation

 We have to realize that using Drama with our students has many benefits. 

Some of them are: 

• Improve their practice social skills. 
• Develop language skills. 
• Involve all the class. 
• Use cooperative learning, total physical response, let them be more spontaneous. 
• Experience a different viewpoint,  
• Develop confidence in body and mind 

Through drama, we can also motivate students' participation and improve class atmosphere.  

  Click on the image to know more about drama in your English classroom

Using drama is not only making a play but working  the performance before, during and after. 

We have to be clear about what we want to obtain from our pupils.  

The six million dollar question is how long should a dramatic play last? 

According to Gillean Fearn it can take you only 5 minutes or an hour.  It depends on what  you want to work on and what you want to get from your students. 

One of the most successful resources was a padlet shared by Gillian Fearn, where the teachers could see different sections as:  

Games, useful articles, games, academic publications, videos, drama vocabularies and worksheet. 

  Click on the image to see the entire padlet

In the following link you can visit the metablog of the course with all the information about our course: Drama in the primary English Classroom by Gillian Fearn

https://dramaintheprimaryenglishclassroom.blogspot.com/ 

Enjoy it!