Vol 3 Test 1 Part 4

section four,

you will hear part of a lecture for teacher trainees on using drama activities in the classroom.

First you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40 on page eight.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40

So, now we're going to look at some of the reasons why it's beneficial to include drama activities,
such as roleplay. In your teaching practice in a range of subject areas. There's a lot of evidence to
show that drama helps a child's personal development. Firstly, creating the space for children to
express themselves freely in a group situation helps to give them confidence in their own
opinions and ideas. And of course, drama activities can work especially well for shy or
introverted children who usually don't participate in other types of classrooms situations.
Secondly, unscripted improvisation activities, where children work from their imagination, ifdone in a supportive way, give children the opportunity to gain experience in taking risks, and
encourage them to say things that they might normally be afraid to say.

Drama can also support the child's educational development. For example, the emphasis placed
on cooperative activities and drama means that group members must learn the value of listening
to one another. Being involved in any sort of performance, which relies on everyone working
together. And playing their part also helps children to be responsible not only for their learning,
but for their general behavior. These are just a couple of ways in which drama can benefit a
child's learning.

Now I'd like to look at how roleplay can be such a valuable learning tool in the classroom. The
value of roleplay for children who are having difficulties as a means of therapy is now widely
accepted. The experience of doing a roleplay where children act out aspects of their own life
without explicitly stating that it is a direct representation of their own experiences can help
children to judge their own behavior in an objective way.

One obvious example would be doing a role reversal with a bully role playing a victim. Because
this approach doesn't involve direct confrontation, it may help the bully to see his or her behavior
in a different light. More generally, roleplay also allows the teacher to explore potentially
controversial or taboo subjects in a safe setting in which children feel at ease. It's obviously
essential for children to feel they won't be criticized or judged for voicing certain views.

getting children to examine their thoughts and opinions carefully, can lead to a deeper self
knowledge and a stronger

more awareness of morality. This is an important factor in developing social skills.

Let's look at a specific subject area now and think about how drama can enrich the learning
process for the study of history.

Bringing characters from the past to life in the classroom by doing classroom drama activities is
an easy way to improve the level of the children's participation in the lesson. So drama in the
history classroom makes for a livelier atmosphere. But getting children to reenact scenes from
history can also be extremely useful, as it helps them to remember what happened and why it
was important, as well as helping to bring the past alive. Another way of doing this is to ask
children to find solutions to historical problems using roleplay. This can help to focus attention
on why certain decisions were taken. For example, children can be asked to decide how best to
defend their town from attack or where to build a new settlement. Okay, what I'd like to do nowis to think about your next teaching practice session, and in groups discuss how you would
incorporate an element of drama into your lesson plan.

That is the end of section four. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

That is the end of the listening test. You now have 10 Minutes to Transfer your answers to the
listening answer sheet