The role playing activities we did last week were very instructive and fun; we learnt a lot while having fun, although it was a bit hard for those who played as teachers because of the constant breaks and suggestions.
There was a lot of collective learning involved, because we saw a great difference from the ones that did it at the beginning to the groups that came last. So, we all learnt and improved through the activities.
We learnt as teachers to speak slowly, use short and simple sentences, repeat sentences and useful formulae so children can learn them. We also experienced that the teacher has to start certain activities on her/his own, such as singing, and that children will join in when they feel ready. We saw that flexibility is needed to shift activities when one doesn't work or connect with the children, or to conduct the same activity in a different way. But, at the same time, we realised that flexibility doesn't mean lack of planning; on the contrary, apparent improvising is necessarily based on very fine planning, because only when the teacher has thoroughly planned the activities will she/he be able to pick the right one for a particular situation.
Another interesting part of the role playing was to get into our children's shoes. It was amusing to see that we didn't manage to act as children at the beginning, and it took us some time to take that role. It seemed as if we found it easier to act as teachers, or we knew better what teachers are like. At the same time, during the role playing we paid less attention to how well we were playing the children's role, and we made very few suggestions about that. We think that this is a very important issue for two reasons: on one hand, if we don't act as real children, the teacher's role playing will be somewhat fake and, on the other hand, if we cannot act as children, it means we don't really know them, and it will be very difficult for us to design activities that will interest them.
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