Bula! Welcome again to my blog - hope you are not getting bored with my blog yet?!On today's blog you will see photos of my 1-hr drama workshop with deaf students at the Deaf Primary School. I directed students in a short performance they may use later this year at their school's official opening ceremony. Performance involved greetings of all kinds inc. deaf greetings; signed poetry about sign language being a silent beautiful visual language; & a friendly bow to the audience (which the students loved to do!) The students really enjoyed themselves & learnt what I taught them - so fast! We had the performance directed, choreographed & remembered within 1hr 15mins!!!! That's a record time for me in terms of directing students in a 'semi-polished' short performance. They were so quick & so eager as they never do drama. I will be back again next week to polish the performance some more.
Also you will see a photo of a student's art work from one of my art classes - just brilliant I thought! The task here involved doing a coloured line drawing on the theme of rhythm & art - draw lines then colour to match the rhythm of Fiji's famous 'meke' islander dance music. (Ermm ... you can also see my attempt at doing the line drawing too - which I showed to the class as an example just in case some students were not clear about what they have to do for me. My drawing was helpful as some did not know how to colour or develop their line drawings. Now all students fully understand the task at hand - I hope to see lots more next week to put on this blog & I am sure they will be better than my pencil drawing).
Today I tried out 'formal peer assessment' with students in my drama class. This is the 1st time I have tried this in school since learning it at university. We used a custom made criteria sheet to mark fellow students when presenting their Shakespeare lines in front of the class. The class really enjoyed assessing each other - me too as this kept students busy & out of trouble as this is a very noisy & chatty drama group. (So thanks to my uni teachers for sharing this new teaching strategy - it works so well!!!)
And lastly, you will see a few photos of my Aussie interpreter who has just arrived today & will stay with me until end of June (she is standing next to the school principal - in the photo); a photo of school children playing football in the school yard; a photo of deaf children on the hostel school bus (many deaf children here stay in hostels as their homes are far away in the villages or on the smaller islands); & a photo of students buying Indian sweets or savouries at the school entrance gate after school has finished.
My next 2-weeks are very full! In addition to classes I have to teach at Gospel High & Gospel Primary School for the Deaf, I've also been requested by Hilton Special School (a primary school & Fiji's first school for deaf & disabled students) to deliver drama workshops for their 37x deaf students & Deaf Awareness Training for their teachers; & a professional development training workshop with my interpreter for Interpreters in Suva. The diverse experiences I'm getting here is just fantastic! I feel very grateful for the support, variety & enthusiasm!
Bye for now!
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