Italian students interviewing actors
EVALUATION OF ACTIVITY A5
A5 Interview with the actor
The aim was to encourages students to use English, to be active, urging them to perform concrete and complex tasks that not only require the use of language skills(both in their native languages and in English) but also of practical ones (organisational, action, communication skills.)
This activity took time to do it properly. We started in February and finished in June . Almost 18 students participated in it in each school.
We started this activity playing some drama games: Fortune Teller Game, Count The One, Two, Threes, Act It Out, The Truth And Lie Hide And Seek, Catching The Name. What Are You Doing , One Word Story: to encourage creativity. To develop listening and storytelling skills, to cooperate in group work.
These are the links where we found some of the games:
http://www.momjunction.com/articles/drama-games-for-teens_00400393/#gref
https://dramaresource.com/one-word-at-a-time/
https://dramaresource.com/drama-games/
http://www.dramatoolkit.co.uk/drama-games/a-to-z
https://theatrenerds.com/10-theatre-games-perfect-drama-class/
After some meetings devoted to these games we started the preliminary work to facilitate our students’ task: THE REAL INTERVIEW by inviting them to look for some interviews to famous people, in English language, and to write down the questions asked them by the interviewers
They worked in group of 4 people for an easier understanding of the spoken interviews. Then each group shared the recorded questions with the other groups.
The next step was to create some characters with the contribution of each student who supplied one piece of information about the character. After that, students were split into two groups:
Group 1 played the role of a character chosen among a set of characters created by themselves Group 2 played the role of an interviewer.
Some students pretended to be the celebrities and other students the interviewers. They also decided about an informal, chatty interview or a more formal, structured interview . The panel of students playing the role of interviewer prepared a list of questions in advance. The ones who pretended to be a celebrity built a story on his/her life. After that students practiced the interview in pairs and got the questions and information from the tasks carried out so far. Lastly they decided to play the role of an interviewer, a director and a 5 actors and improvise the interview. This activity was preparatory to the real interviews to actors. Here are the links to the set of questions selected by our students and the video made when they were practising
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ub-2m7LNumOeUZW1PLoek7ehWqOMc3Xw/view?usp=sharing
Of course the interviews was in students’ native languages but the students worked on its translation to subtitle it in English. Here are the links to the interview and to the scripts of the subtitles. It is important to say that students made everything by themselves without any teachers’ suggestions or corrections
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YJNqX6zCtsPAi4rJOSA9pd6TLXIYYNAy/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a5C6M0ezw_wJx9dkkjTa5MaAVXkMOYiN/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13vqpvT4m7NsA17G9OAFwjILQ20_QKJH0/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fh5g6tLjZmyIu2Mwy57uzhNFydZV-2z8/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dSgup2PujeCjfzSWvNWmhHZq3gNdMxT3/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ivBruFPg6XGlyvw9Im__2uiIfBkq9YHR/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oEzJMOTSLiiTnywpldAej3c_1v1kT4WD/view?usp=sharing
After the activity in each school, teachers and students had a group discussion and some individual interviews about the benefits of this activity.
The results were promising in all partners schools: This activity created an environment where every student had the opportunity to be successful. It helped them cooperate, listen and accept the viewpoints and contributions of others. It was really amazing verify that motivation to learn increased.
99 % of students answered that all the tasks performed within this activity contributed to increase their competence in foreign languages but also to express themselves in Italian with ease in formal situation. They got over their insecurities and gained self-esteem and confidence. They felt accepted by the others .They discovered their abilities and capacities. This percentage includes both low and high-achievers.
1% of student didn’t attend regularly because of his involvement in sports activities, he could benefit only partially from the activity.
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