Meeting the Kids and Getting Ideas for our PlayNovember 24, 2011 Marley Emerich

Strengths

I’m terrible with children. I really am. But knowing that we had to work with them for a very long time I pulled my act together and I got the job done. We first introduced ourselves. I met:

Junior (Jr.) – From ThailandAnnie – From ChinaHanson – From SingaporeKazuki – From Japan We talked about what Child Rights were and how we wanted to incorporate that into a play. We also talked a lot about each other so I could get a good impression on who had a stronger personality and who’s English was better. My biggest strength this first lesson was I go to know all the kids well and I got a good solid idea of what I wanted to do for this play. I handled the situation quite well, balancing games and work very well.

WeaknessesI did have a few weaknesses. One of them was the fact that I wasn’t a

complete saint with the children. I tried my best to not loose my patience every five seconds with them. They had a pretty short attention span and we weren’t comfortable with each other so it go hard to make them concentrate on the play. So control was my main weakness. That, and insecurity about what we were doing. This was very new to me.

Feedback/Improvements

Mrs. Rankin didn’t give us much feedback for this lesson because we didn’t do any actual rehearsal because we were gathering information for our scripts. I do know that we need to control our children better. This is something Mrs. Rankin told everyone. Next time I could do a game that requires more exercise before so I can wear them out and they can be calmer.

December 1, 2011

Strengths

The kids were very distracted today. I was very stern and strict with them. So, I took chance of that control and played one game in the beginning to wind them down quite a bit. We played Egg to Einstein to calm them down but the good thing was we didn’t need to explain it because they already knew it. After the game we then re-introduced what we were doing and what child rights were because they had forgotten. After a quite… annoying and long re-discussion we handed out the scripts for the first time. We spent most of our time going over and over the script trying to make sure they had the right voice and expressions. I made sure I explained what we were doing as simple as possible so it was easier for them to act it out. We even started adding the actions to the scenes. I thought that was a good start. I was also a lot more comfortable with the kids, which made it easier to interact.

Weaknesses

Today I was very strict with the kids so we didn’t have many issues. But they are still quite shy so they don’t speak loud even though I push them to. Acting is not something that came very easily to most of them so it is a very big weakness right now. It’s something we really have to work on. In the end, it’s the actions and well… all the basic acting things that we need to work on because at the moment it’s not looking very well. But we just started so it should get better.

Feedback/Improvements

Today I was really nervous about the length of our script because I don’t want our performance to be too short. Mrs. Rankin said 4 to 5 minutes is a good length and with the right practice our play should be just the right length. I know that we need to now focus on the acting and basic drama skills like not turning your back to the audience and speaking loud and clear. Next time we might do vocal warm-ups and focus more on this.