Friday, May 18, 2012
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Strategies Drama Techniques

What are Drama Strategies?

Drama strategies - also known as drama techniques or drama conventions - are the everyday tools of the drama teacher. They help to develop enquiry skills, to encourage negotiation, understanding and creativity. They can enhance performance skills such as character development and storytelling and be used across the curriculum to actively involve students in their own learning.

Get started by trying out these six accessible and popular strategies:

  • Storytelling
    Storytelling is one of the simplest and perhaps most compelling forms of dramatic and imaginative activity. A good place to start is by telling stories to your pupils and encouraging them to share stories with one another. All of us can become engaging storytellers with a little practice. There may also...
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  • Tableaux
    What is it? In a tableau, participants make still images with their bodies to represent a scene. A tableau can be used to quickly establish a scene that involves a large number...
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  • Still Images / Freeze Frames Still Images / Freeze Frames
    Still images and freeze frames are both a form of tableau. With freeze-frame, the action in a play or scene is frozen, as in a photograph or video frame. Still images, on the other hand, require individuals or groups to invent body-shapes or postures, rather than freeze existing action. Groups...
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  • Spotlight
    Spotlighting is a useful teaching technique for sharing improvised drama when you have divided the class into smaller groups. When it is time to show their work, ask all the groups to sit on the floor. Explain that you will walk around the room and as you get closer to each group, that group will stand...
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  • Soundscape Soundscape
    The leader or one member of the group acts as conductor, whilst the rest of the group are the 'orchestra'. Using their voices (and body percussion if appropriate!), the group paints a soundscape of a particular theme or mood, for example the seaside, a city, a jungle. The leader can control the shape...
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  • Thought Tracking
    A group makes a still image and individuals are invited to speak their thoughts or feelings aloud - just a few words. This can be done by tapping each person on the shoulder or holding a cardboard 'thought-bubble' above their head. Alternatively, thought tracking (also called thought tapping) can involve...
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  • Teacher in Role
    Teacher in role (TiR) is an invaluable technique for shaping the dramatic process. Simply put, the teacher assumes a role in relation to the pupils. This may be as a leader, a peer, or a subservient role - whatever is useful in the development of the lesson. The teacher may ask questions of the students,...
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Primary Drama Courses

  • Drama Across the Curriculum Drama Across the Curriculum
    Wednesday 26th September 2012 10:30am - 4:30pm Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 Course Tutor: David Farmer This one-day drama INSET course immerses you in activities and ideas which you can take back and use immediately in the primary school...
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  • Literacy Through Storytelling and Drama Literacy Through Storytelling and Drama
    Wednesday 21st November 2012 10:30am - 4:30pm Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 Course Tutor: David Farmer Stories and storytelling are crucial to helping children make sense of their world. This one-day INSET course provides a wealth of stimulating...
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