pupils

Comment

Comment by Reina Reiner on January 9, 2010 at 5:15pm

I did not intefere with the adaptation of the stories - just a little help in directing here and there (I leave that up to them also unless there are catastrophes) .In fact , I tried to convince them against this story despite the 'catchy' phrase "not by the hair of my chiney- chin- chin, so Ill huff and puff and blow your house in" (although the kids caught on to that pretty fast too ). As you probably guess - as orthodox Jews, pigs are not our favorite animals since they fall under the catagory of non kosher (unedible) ...The ending we changed: the students did not like the ending and decided to demonstrate that there is a possiblity of living in peace with a former enemy if we can just believe in each other's good intentions...

Comment by Gary Carkin on January 9, 2010 at 12:55pm

Thank you so much for the background information related to your pictures. The information may encourage others to try similar things. I wam intrigued by the change in the Three Little Pigs and the Wolf becoming the pigs' friend. A nice ending indeed! Did the students decide to do that...or was it "encouraged"? Either way, I thought it an appropriate and creative ending! Thanks so much for your contribution.

Gary

Comment by Reina Reiner on January 9, 2010 at 12:47pm

The performance took place in small neighborhood schools in Holon - near Tel Aviv - last spring. The students of our English Department who take our course "Communicating with English" (takes place every two years) worked with me on acting, directing and adapting materials from prose/poetry to drama during the first semester.Then we decided to focus on chants, fables and famous children's stories and we created a 3/4 hr show in English which presented and adapted "jack and Jill " (also as rock /punk stars, old man and woman, two babies ) "Three little Pigs" (we changed the ending so that the wolf became the pigs' friend) , the fox and the grapes fable and we taught them the song of The Wheels of the Bus" Whenever we could we got the kids to participate even by asking questions in the middle to get their advice, to come up to participate onstage. At the end the students gave them a very short - clear questionnaire in English to see if they really understood the humor as well as the story.They were very happy to participate and the answers were very accurate.We are talking about pupils in the 5th and 6th grades of very weak schools. IT was a very good experience for the pupils who realized they could understand English and the students who learnt that drama was an important teaching tool.

Comment by Gary Carkin on January 7, 2010 at 9:02pm

Thank you Reina. Your pictures are intriguing. Could you tell us more about the performance? Where was it, who did it, what were the stories, how were they prepared?

I hope other members will contribute in the same way!

Gary