Interesting journal article.

I came across a journal article which caught my eye as soon as I read the title, "Parents' goals, knowledge, practices, and needs regarding music education for their young children in South Korea'. The reason was probably because it contained the words 'music' and 'South Korea'. I was born in South Korea, never lived their but spent my whole primary school life with Korean parents and grandparents. However, when I started to read the article, I found the focus was not on 'Korea' but more on music itself, which is why I continued to read it. 

Youm (2013) states that music education is crucial for the development of children not only in the Creative Arts but within all areas. This is likely as music is a positive factor that enhances the emotional, social and cognitive development in children. However, primary school students are under the care of their parents and the music provided to these children is mostly not by choice, but by what is approved by their parents.

It is also stated that music can serve as an 'emotional bonding' activity in which the parent and the child grow a connection. I remember in primary school when I used to dread private piano lessons, but I still loved playing the piano at home. My favourite part of playing the piano would be when I would practice at home and grandfather would pop a chair next to me, watch me play and ask me to "teach" him. Although I was just learning the notes of the piano myself, at the age of five, I was teaching my grandfather all I learnt from these lessons. I think the only reason I continued to go for these lessons was so I could come home and 'teach'. This is where I grew a strong bond with my grandfather despite the fact that he was so strict and strong on discipline.

The article discusses that parents feel lost when teaching music to their children. I find that this is the way most M.Teach (Primary) pre-service teachers will feel if placed directly into a music classroom with a class of students all wanting to do something. The article continues by saying parents "seek direction wanting to do something good for their children but not knowing how" (Youm, 2013), I think this depicts my thoughts on teaching not only music but the whole Creative Arts stream. I love the Creative Arts, absolutely love music, drama, dance and visual arts. But before and during the unit of study 'EDMT5530 Creative Arts K-6', quite often I wondered, "Is it enough to love it?", "Does enjoying something mean I can teach it and teach it well?", "Will my students learn? If so, how? If not, why?". But then I think back to when i played the piano with my grandfather, I taught him what I knew and by doing this, I consolidated my knowledge and learnt even more than I knew. I think the underlying principles in teaching the creative arts can be quite similar. Although at the moment, I am still not 100% confident in going into a classroom and delivering an excellent lesson where all my students will be engaged and passionate about their learning, I have gained quite a steady knowledge of how to plan and where to look to be able to teach this KLA. This unit of study has really helped me learn about how to teach and why we need to teach the creative arts in primary school. I believe that with further practice, with further research and with further planning, I think I will be able to place myself in a position where I teach to learn and ultimately learn to teach the Creative Arts!


Youm, H.Y. (2013). Parents' goals, knowledge, practices, and needs regarding music education for their young children in South Korea. Journal of Research in Music Education, 61(3), 280-302.

Week 9, Drama.

Drama Workshop

Storytelling was the focus point in our final drama workshop. As a warm-up activity, we did 'vocal-tennis'. This is where students 'throw' words to each other by experimenting with volume, pitch and tone. We did this activity using fruit and vegetables. Once we spoke out the common ones, I found that thinking on my feet was actually quite difficult! But it creates a great atmosphere for the following drama activities. Funny enough, during my professional experience at Homebush West Public School, I was given the opportunity to observe a kindergarten mathematics class. In this class, students participated in an activity called 'vocal-tennis' as well! But, the pairs had to count up in 2s (ie: Two! Four! Six! Eight!). At the time, I thought it was a useful activity to engage the students and get them to learn to skip count. What I didn't know, was that this idea was 'sneaked' out of drama!

My favourite part of this workshop was when we were put into pairs and asked to tell each other a personal (but appropriate) story from our past. Then as a pair, we would decide who's story we would deliver to the class. To deliver the story to the class, both individuals of the pair had to 'pretend' that the story was their own and the story's lines would be shared. We would add and expand on the details and it was quite fun. Children love telling stories, and I think this would be an excellent activity to use in the classroom, especially at the beginning of the year for the students to get to know their class members better. 

Week 3, Drama.

Drama Workshop

This workshop focused on Anthony Browne's picture book, "Voices in the Park". The text was simple and the illustrations supported the text nicely. This book could easily be used in primary classrooms of various ages cross-linking two KLAs (English and Drama). This workshop gave me many teaching tips and ideas.

Activity 1:
The book was read to us. There was focus on playing out different voices to suit the role of the character in the book. This was quite engaging for an adult audience so I felt that the use of different voices would definitely engage a classroom of students.
Two characters were drawn on the whiteboard and we were asked to write characteristics on post-notes then go up towards the board and stick in in the character's silhouette. We read through these characteristics together. For a primary classroom, this is a good activity that will ensure the students truly understand what the characters are like and this will be the solid foundation by which students will use to play the roles in the following activities.

Activity 2:
Freeze-frame. We split off into groups and with one person as the narrator, we moved into three different freeze-frames as the narrator delivered the story in one character's perspective. The part of the story did not actually have to be from a page in the book. This type of flexible activity is good in the primary classroom as it encourages imaginative thinking.

Activity 3:
Free role-play. In pairs, we had to play the role of either Smudge, who had to convince her new friend to play and the other person had to play the role of Charlie, Smudge's new friend who had to refuse or 'give in'. This role play was not scripted and allowed us to think for ourselves and deliver opinion.

Activity 4:
Conscience alley is an excellent activity in the classroom but often, it is difficult for the whole class to participate as a long line of thirty students wanting to speak out their idea will be time consuming and towards the end, many children will have overlapping thoughts. A new strategy was introduced to us where pairs would share their idea and speak out their best one. This activity supports classroom inclusivity and encourages collaborative thinking.

Activity 5:
Writing in role. We were then given time to write in the perspective of a 5th person that does not actually exist in the text of the storybook. This allows students to use their imagination and be creative.

Week 2, Drama.

Drama Workshop

We started this workshop with different warm-up activities. The first was a clapping activity in which the class got together in a large circle and we would send our clapping in certain directions (left or right). I was surprised as to how engaging this activity actually was, as at first, it sounded like an early stage 1 skills activity. It got the whole group settled and enhanced our ability to focus. I would use this warming up activity in my class as it is simple and can be used with all stages. 

In today's workshop, we did reader's theatre. Maybe it was because I went to primary school overseas, or maybe it was just my primary school that did not do this activity, the first time I came across the term 'reader's theatre' was last semester in English but this was the first time I actually took part in it. The class was split into three groups and was given about 15 minutes to read through and prepare how we would present our script, "The Ning, Nang, Nong". We had about 4 people in three rows. First row sitting, second row standing and last row standing on drama boxes. As I had initially thought reader's theatre was an activity for English to enhance fluency in reading, I had been oblivious in that reading out aloud and collaborating as a group were fundamental skills for drama! "... reader's theatre is the is an interpretive reading activity in which readers use their voices to bring characters to life."(1). By incorporating various types of stage, voice and movement, our 'production' of the ning, nang, nong was drama cross-linked with english as another KLA. I found this activity fun, engaging and inclusive. In the typical ESL classroom, students with low confidence in English have the tendency to back away from drama which requires delivery of memorised lines. But reader's theatre allows groups of students to say the same line, it does not necessarily have to memorised and hence, is a rather welcoming activity for all types of students. 

I assume that reader's theatre would be more challenging in kindergarten or high ESL classrooms as students may often have difficulty reading and understanding the text. To accommodate for these students, in my classroom, I would focus one or two English lessons in reading and deconstructing the text together as a class. I would show the students a sample video or read it out to them to give them a general glimpse of what the final production may look like. After I am certain the text has been understood and the class in comfortable with the text, i would incorporate this into drama lessons where students will have the opportunity to explore use of voice, tone, gestures and enhance their verbal delivery skills using their script. 

Reference:

(1) Martinez, M., Roser, N., & Strecker, S. (1999). "I never thought i could be a star": A reader's theatre ticket to fluency, The Reading Teacher, 52(4), 326-334.

Week 1, Drama.

Drama Workshop

I love watching movies, theatre and musicals as well. All of these are performance-related modes of drama. My only experience with drama myself would be back in my primary school years where I always took part of the school's end of year performances. As an outgoing and fearless child, drama was fun and performing in front of an audience was not that different to telling my parents what I'd learnt at school that day. But as I grew out of primary school, the outgoing child in me stayed but the fearless one developed a friend named minor stage-fright. I don't faint with nervous anxiety but I don't feel the pleasure in acting or singing in front of an audience I'm not 100% comfortable with. So when I saw that drama was part of the creative arts unit, I must admit, the nervous friend 'stage-fright' jumped on fearless. 

In the first drama workshop, as a warm-up activity we walked around the room making eye-contact with every person we walked past. Some of the students I knew well, some I didn't know at all. So surprise, surprise... making eye contact with "strangers" was uncomfortable and even though time passed it was still quite awkward. However, as a teaching strategy, this warm-up activity in a primary classroom where all the students would know each other, would be a good one to set the children into the focused mood you want them to be in. 

Topic: The Green Children. 

Activity 1: 

Read the excerpt from 'The Green Children' and generate a list of questions on what we would like to find out further about the story, the characters etc. 

  * It was interesting to see that overall, our class had focused mainly on the green children themselves and almost forgot about the other characters in the text (ie: Village people). 

Activity 2: 

In groups, we produced a freeze-frame (Also called still-scene/still-frame) of a section of the text and delivered one line of speech each in the voice of the character we wished to portray. 

Tip: 'Tap-in' the students and emphasise they are to say one sentence each. 

Tapping the students to 'life' allows the audience to hear each character at a time without overlapping conversation and if a line is in need of being repeated, we can tap the student again. By setting out that only one sentence is to be said, it gives each child an equal chance as the students who enjoy speaking out and the students who prefer to stay quiet will all have to participate and contribute in equal parts. 

Activity 3: 

Draw a map of the village in which the green children were found. 

The village map was to have the cave area where the green children were found, the main source of produce for the village and a threat to that source. 

Our group decided that our source would be beef and bread. Hence, we drew cows in the paddocks and a farm for wheat. Our village name was MOOCH and the threat to our community was a soon-to-be-coming McDonalds. We decided that our underlying secret of the town would be that the cows were actually modified dogs, and that only the people of high authority in our village knew this. (So MOOCH = MOO for cow + POOCH for dog). 

I thought that allowing the students to draw their own village was an excellent idea as it give the students the core element of 'possession' and 'authority' over their work. Hence, they will be more eager to and confident in speaking about their maps. In the primary classroom, it is common that when students are asked to present something that is not theirs, they feel as they are being tested and try to withdraw from speaking. 

I can definitely see myself adapting and using these activities with students in my class for all stages! Hopefully, in my upcoming professional experience I will be able to try them out. 

"Drama is life with the dull parts left out."-Alfred Hitchcock-