I VOTE TO READ: RAW participates in the Lagos Books and Arts Festival

The annual Lagos Books and Arts Festival took place in November this year hosting a range of exciting events for families. RAW was very pleased to take part in this year’s programme and run a workshop for pubic and private schoolteachers in Lagos.

Storytelling and drama exercise

The workshop focussed on introducing creative activities into teaching to enhance classroom learning and help their students development a depth in their understanding. Thirty teachers gathered at Freedom Park, Lagos to take part.

First, the workshop touched on useful ice-breaker games to get students focussed and energised. Games are an important element in teaching. They can include core elements like speaking, listening, building confidence, developing and justifying arguments and they help your students to relax, re-energise and enjoy what they are learning. Playing games such as ‘If I Rule the World…’ and ‘Word Association’ are great ways to encourage students to be creative and use their imagination. 

Here is how to play ‘If I Rule the World’….

If I Ruled the World… Ask each member of the group to finish the sentence “If I ruled the world, I would…” choosing the one thing they would do if they had unlimited power for a day. e.g. “If I ruled the world I would…send every child in the world to school” You can also ask students how they would do this, and why they would do it. e.g. How? By building more schools and training more teachers. Why? Because all children deserve to have the opportunities that education gives.

Average time: 10-15 minutes Use with: all age groups. Primary + Learning Objectives: -        Opportunity for the students to relax and speak in front of each other. -        Come up with a simple yet original speech. Start constructing sentences. -        Explaining how and why they would achieve their wish makes their students think about justifying their statements.

The workshop also looked at speaking and listening exercises using an alley debate as an example. There are many benefits of using exercise like debating in the classroom.

• Enriches your teaching.
• Builds confidence and thinking skills.
• Social advocacy – teaching the communication skill necessary to campaign, communicate.
• Activities are suitable for a mixed ability class.
• A tool for exploring topics across the curriculum – debate topics can be formed around any subject to further understanding.
• Improves speaking and listening skills.

Here is how to do an alley debate:

1. Ask one student to be the judge in the debate, and divide the rest of the students in two groups. The groups will try to help the judge decide on a dilemma.
2.  The first group will act as the good conscience (or simply yes) and the other group as the bad conscience (or simply no).
3. Line up the groups in two lines facing each other, and ask the judge to stand between them.
4. Taking turns between the two sides, every member of the group makes a short statement to persuade the judge to join their side.
5. The judge moves closer to the line who are being most persuasive and at the end, the team who the speaker has moved closest to, wins.

The workshop ended with what was probably the most entertaining storytelling RAW has seen from any teacher workshop! Storytelling and creative writing asks students to be spontaneous, to think on their feet; not only a valuable life-skill but vital when it comes to exams. Creative writing exercises allows students to improve their reading and writing skills, develop a wider vocabulary and to think creatively when problem-solving. RAW asked the group to practice some hot-seating exercises. This exercise is particularly useful when getting students to think about a story or a character in more detail. It can be used from primary right up to secondary level!

Here is how to hot-seat:

Hot-seating Use this activity once children are familiar with a story. It can be played as a group or in pairs. -        Ask the group to divide into pairs and sit in two chairs facing each other. -        Ask the group what they know and think about the character in the story you are planning to focus on, e.g. Cinderella. -        Explain in a moment they will get to meet the character. Ask for the group’s ideas and help them prepare questions they would like to ask. -        Explain that as soon as you sit in the ‘hot seat’, you will become Cinderella and have to stay as Cinderella until you stand up again. -        Sit on the hot seat as an example acting as Cinderella of course! Then ask for a volunteer.

Average time: 20-30 minutes Use with: all ages Learning Objectives: -        Requires students to think about relevant questions to some playing the role of a character. -        Think more in-depth about a character and a story e.g. by considering moral issues. Tips: -        You play a central role, which clearly models for students the dramatic convention of taking on a different identity and role. There is no need for you to change you accent or voice; more important is to convey the attitude, opinions and personality of the character you are playing.

The workshop was great fun to facilitate and gave the teachers some creative ways to make learning fun and worthwhile for their students. Although all the activities in the workshop were a lot of fun to do, they are extremely worthwhile. They can stimulate creative thinking needed for reading and writing in ALL subjects, they can develop language and problem-solving skills, they can be used to introduce or revisit a topic and consolidates learning.

For more information, or for a copy of the worksheet from this workshop with details on all the activities covered and more, contact rawnigeria@gmail.com

Teachers at the workshop