CHAPTER 9: TEACHING WITH DRAMATIZED EXPERIENCES

These are experiences where the learner can participate in a reconstructed experience, even though the original event is far from us in time. The students immerse themselves in “as if” situations.

A dramatic entrance is one that catches the attention of the audience and has an emotional impact. A dramatic teaching touches the students’ hearts and stirs their brains, making them interested. Thus, they will listen and the event will become unforgettable for them.

Dramatized experience can range from the formal plays, pageants to les formal tableau, pantomime, puppets and role-playing.

Formal plays- Depict life, character, or culture or a combination of all three. They offer excellent opportunities to poverty vividly important ideas about life.

Pageants- Usually community dramas that are based on local history, presented by local actors. An example is a historical pageant that traces the growth of a school.

Tableau- A picture like scene composed of people against a background. Often used to celebrate Independence Day, Christmas, and United Nations Day.

Pantomime- Art of conveying a story through bodily movements only. Its effects on the audience depends on the movements of the actors.

Puppets

• Types of puppets

Shadow puppets- flat black silhouette made from lightweight cardboard and shown behind a screen.

Rod puppets- flat cut out figures tacked to a stick, with one or more movable parts, and operated from below the stage level by wire rods or slender sticks.

Hand puppets- the puppet’s head is operated by the forefinger of the puppeteer, the little finger and thumb being used to animate the puppet.

Glove and Finger puppets- make use of old gloves to which small costumed figures are attached

Marionettes- flexible, jointed puppets operated by strings or wires attached to a cross bar and maneuvered from directly above the stage.

Role playing- Is an unrehearsed, unprepared and spontaneous dramatization of a “let’s pretend” situation where assigned participants are absorbed by their own roles in the situation described by the teachers. It can be done by describing a situation which would create different viewpoints on an issue and then asking the students to play the roles of the individuals involved. 

                We learn things easily with dramatized experiences because it awakens our feelings. Dramatized experiences can also cater the multiple intelligence if the students, but we cannot use this experience all the time since it will bore out the students and there are certain subjects which makes dramas inappropriate (ex. Math). Therefore, we should know when or where to use dramatized experiences.