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some years ago I wrote this little monologue and I thought I'd share it with you today because it sort of explains how I got into teaching and how I used my love of singing dancing and acting in my elt lessons to make them more creative so I hope you enjoy this monologue hooked on drama I decided I wanted to go to acting school and become an actress so I said to my mom mom mom I'm going to go to acting school I'm going to be an actress and she answered me no you will not D lady what do you think you're thinking

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about I've always told you you've got a very big imagin ation and a very big mouth to go with it and I've told you that your mouth will get your hand one day so just stop thinking of these things by girl you won't be going on any stage in this country while I'm alive to stop you so I thought and I thought and I went back to my mom and I said mom Mom I've decided I want to be a dancer I'm going to go to dancing school and I'm going to become a dancer oh no you will

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not your lady don't you be thinking about that for one minute yeah you'll be wearing those silly tutos and those stupid belly shoes where you tiptoe on your toes and you won't be able to you won't be able to live you'll be freezing yourself to death in those things you'll be starving yourself to death like they did my an ancestors did in the famine in the Potato Famine you would be doing any of that Over My Dead Body you be doing that so I thought and I thought and I thought

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ah I know Mom mom I've decided I want to be a nurse when to grow up and I want to go and help sick people I'm going to go to nursing school and become a nurse My Dead Body you'll become a nurse what you think you're thinking of my young girl you must be stupid yeah sitting up half the night with all those miserable dying old fogies you won't be doing that no not while I'm here to give you me Pearls of Wisdom so I thought and I thought and I couldn't think what I could tell her

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that she would agree to Meanwhile my father called me into the shed in the garden and he said sit down TOS let's have a nice cup of tea and so we did and he Tau me how I had become the person I was he said let's think about this shall we let's think about what you really like doing what you really like doing is helping those wretched children from up and down the road babysitting them and also giving them private lessons and that's what you like the best and you also love going to school you love the

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reading and you love the writing and you spend far too much time doing the reading and writing when you should be doing something alog together different so why don't we think about all those Concepts that you like doing for the poor children in the area and let's think about what university you could go to you could go to university and you could read philosophy or you could read history could become a teacher so thought about it and I got together all the guides I could find from the universities around England and I found

00:04:12
a fantastic course just for me English language and dramatic arts so off I went to the University of war in the middle of England with all my knowledge of the world so far green as grass not thinking that I was going to be really doing anything and four years later I came out with my degree clutched in my nervous little hand still as green as grass so I went into my first school it was a huge comprehensive School in the middle of centry downtown centry and I was teaching remedial students of 13 and

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14 years of age I'd always done secondary students and I thought that I was going in like Florence Nightingale holding the lamp over the wounded Learners lying on the boring corridors of the school I had thought my classroom was going to be a paradise of learning no no no no no no I went to my heads of Department I was teaching five subjects I was teaching maths geography English language English literature and drama and I went to my heads of department and he said I can't do this I just cannot do it how can I how can I

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teach them if I can't even reach them they won't listen to anything I'm saying Clyde sits wants to sit on my lap every day and let me stroke his head and make him better because his father beat him yesterday that's what women do in his house and rasal he lives with women who are with the veil and they can't go out to go shopping on their own how can I boss him about he's a grown man of 14 years of age and he's going back to Pakistan next week to marry and how can he listen to anything

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I'm saying to him I can't do anything with them Kevin just kicks out everybody and everybody hits back except me of course because I'm not allowed to what can I do Venus opens all the cupboards picks up the boxes of manipulatives and throws them out of the open Windows John has suckers attached to his hands and he climbs the walls on top of the cupboards and he sits there and won't come down and it doesn't matter how many times I say John John come down you can't learn anything up there he stays there I just

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don't know what to do with them Brian's got a a big doctor's bag of venom snakes and wasp no steamless wasps and he threatens me with them what can I do said the geography head why don't you just give them a test calm them down think so why don't you read them a nice fairy story said the head of English oh yeah I know why don't you take in a big box of wooden shapes like circles and triangles and squares let them have some hands-on experience handson experience that's

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just what we need no Susan you're just going to have this to look at and to think about all on your own that nobody's going to help you you're alone in this so a thought and a thought and a thought so which of the five sub works the best I know I've got it it's drama at least in drama they do the exercises because they like them and they connect a little bit with each other and they connect with me and they connect with the subject and maybe they're not perfect but at least they follow the rules of

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engagement and what's more the there are some learning outcomes little tiny winsy Eeny weeny itsy bitsy yellow poka do bikini bits of learning outcomes but it's that Eureka I've cracked the code I'll teach everything through drama and so I did and I turned them around the other teachers said to me but how did you do it how' you do that with that group of 18 special needs students who can't speak English drama does it and that's how I became fcked undra and still out that's a great story and I've been

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loving the comments in the chat box we've been having people saying it's very relatable so real a terrible class as well Amalia loved your talk with your dad um Jesus said when he was a child he wanted to become an actor too and I think maybe he is a bit of an actor actually even if he doesn't realize it and we'll talk about that in a bit exactly so now Sarah it's over to you okay now let me tell you my story so I did I wanted to become an actress and my mother said yes I said

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Mom I'm going to go to an audition to become an actress and she said excellent that would be a wonderful experience so I did then I wanted to become a musician and my mother said yes I said Mom I want to go to music school to learn to sing and play the p piano she said fantastic you'll do great so I did but then life with its little quirks of Fate put me in the fascinating world of teaching following both my parents' footsteps I said I've decided I want to be a teacher now no you don't want to do that they

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both said in unison but I decided I want to use my sing in and my dancing and my acting in kindergarten so they thought and they thought and they thought okay then terrific go for it they both said it very positively so I did but from this one there was no turning back it was the point of no return in my first year as a kindergarten helper I I watched I observed I delved into secondhand experiences in some classrooms children were well behaved I was impressed by the teacher's ability to maintain order and

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quieten them down they were all very attentive at all times it was mainly repetition by the way drilling obvious answers to obvious questions that easy on the teacher classroom and then there were other classrooms the noisy classrooms where the children were hardly little angels but they enjoyed being there they had fun they learned they were creative they were curious they discovered they were engaged they smiled it felt exciting being a helper in that classroom I smiled and learned too that was the classroom I wanted I

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thought I want to have a noisy classroom when I become a teacher I felt very positive so I did unfortunately people do say be careful what you wish for you just might get it when I moved from helper to teacher that noisy classroom I'd wished for became a place of chaos full of naughty little Devils almost murdering each other and almost killing me off in the process I started to understand why a teacher would want an easey on the teacher classroom so I thought and I thought and I thought I need to find ways to merge these two two

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types of classrooms I felt positive so I did and I built my classroom with my own rules my own style my own objectives for learning I would be Stern but sweet I would sew the seeds of love for the language I would allow multiple opportunities to practice in creative and playful ways the children would read stories at the age of four in front of the rest of the class Once Upon a Time and they would compete the information that they knew this porridge is too hot in my classroom children would not only

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learn a language but they would learn about how to be and what to do they would learn to share play fair be nice put things back where they found them say sorry behave accordingly clean up draw unicorns build castles design their dreamhouse paint and sing and dance and play sit together wonder that would be my classroom however the class room stage was very different from the teacher stage I was Adept at standing up and saying my lines in front of people or singing in front of people but this was far removed there was no script I've

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never believed in improvising I'm a highly organized person I plan everything step by little step so I would write my own script for parts of my lessons and I would have to learn that the the rest would be left to improvisation anyway I felt very positive so I did and that's when I realized that all I really needed to learn I learned in kindergarten not only as a child but as a teacher and now as a mom and then I decided that what I wanted to do was to help other teachers develop these skills to build their own

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classrooms once more I felt positive so I did great Sarah thank you a lot of great comments in the in the chat box teaching is quite a challenge but it fills you with great satisfaction yes teaching is so rewarding lots and lots of emoticons for Joy Hearts um um fireworks and we act every day in real life and lots more fantastic great Passion fully agree teaching in the kindergarten is an adventure I always read it to my students read stories I suppose awesome inspiring can we Implement all these with adults let's

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say yes immediately because we have done agree 100% great all I ever learned I learned in kindergarten I thought it was a lovely ending thank you Sarah everybody seems to appreciate what you have said lots and lots of hearts all over the place so shall we go on yes let's go on and I think this connects a lot with what Kus was saying saying that he always wanted to be an actor so I think this next part connects to that a bit doesn't it yeah because basically we believe that everybody is born creative and that teachers

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themselves are actually artists so we're going to be asking you some questions if you would write me or yes in the chat box and carry on with your emoticons if you'd like to to tell us that yes you do do that so my first question is to Sarah Sarah did you ever meet a teacher who wasn't creative don't think I have I think every teacher is creative in some way or another whether they realize it or not sometimes I think teaching itself is an an art form think about it we craft our lessons we improvise when things don't

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go as planned we adapt to our different audiences many teachers create their own props their materials their attractive displays for their classrooms singing puppeteering storytelling they're all art forms that we use so in a way I think we're all performers we're all storytellers we're my artists sometimes and designers and we shape experiences that engage and Inspire our our audience so yes I think there's always some form of Art and creativity involved in teaching I don't think teachers can not

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be creative you don't have to be Picasso or Mozart or Merill street but coming to think of it I think all teachers uh I've met have some kind of creative or artistic side what what kind of creative teachers have you met on your journey well I've met hundreds of creative teachers and I've got to know them quite well and I've discovered that they have a hobby which they really love doing in their spare time when we have spare time and uh they love their Hobbies so much they want to share them in their

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classrooms with their students because they feel in their element when they are doing their hobbies and they want their students students to experience that feeling of being able to do the Arts in the classroom and to be able to show how creative they are and uh if you look back on onto the session by the crystals those of you who were in attendance you will notice that they also were musicians writers actors and they have brought all that into their teaching and they have shown as a fabulous performance today so

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yes all teachers are artists maybe some of them haven't found it yet or maybe some of them haven't been able to find their creative um Spirit but we can help you do that so we're going to be asking you your questions now but it's we're still getting great comments so Sarah you okay so who here has ever sung in their classroom so use an IMG write me in the chat box let us know who here has ever sung in their classroom me a million times all the time yeah me me me me me me me me okay and from me who here has

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incorporated movement or drama in that classroom me me me me me me who's created something artistic like a display or craft or props for teaching their Learners me me me me me me me got people saying every day wonderful who's ever used an unusual object as a teaching Aid oh yes I have who's ever made their Learners laugh using a silly voice people have and finally from me who's drawn a concept on the board or on the Whiteboard or on paper to make that concept clearer for their students oh we have a lot of artists

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around today you see see how creative you already are you're not only teachers you're artists too you're teacher of artists wonderful so so it's not just us it's not just us lots of teachers out there doing the same we're going to do a sketch now and we want to show how creative we can be with words and the words we're going we were looking for for our sketch were words and expressions connected to creativity so can you use those reactions down at the bottom you've been

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using they they're lovely ones those hearts and those clapping pans and those Rockets down there at the bottom use those emojis to show us in the chat box or down there when you spot one of these Expressions that connects to creativity in our sketch okay so open your ears and pay attention pay very close attention to those expressions that connect to creativity in our sketch okay and use those little emojis or or those reactions are you ready are you got your hands ready are you ready yes okay good

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Sarah shall we get together and fly the flag for creativity in teaching and talk to every teacher in the world so that they can learn to do it think that's a bit over H yes but I do feel every teacher should have the opportunity to build castles in the air and to some extent dance to their own tune they shouldn't be afraid to dance as though nobody's watching yes but how can we help teachers to think outside the box let's do some Blue Sky Thinking and let's do some brainstorm in and let's

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get lots of ideas in the pipeline but make sure we don't break the mold too much we don't need to reinvent the wheel just take baby steps before Giants stries oh yes because this is a real game changer we have to be very careful it's a game changer for the teaching of the English language and it's way ahead of the curv many people may be thinking that we're pushing the envelope here but this is what we should be doing in the classroom where everything needs to be elastic in terms of

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creativity yes let's go for a breath of fresh air we need that yeah let's go with Cutting Edge stuff let's break new ground let's color Outside the Lines we're going to have to play it by ear with each group we meet but at least we'll have teachers seeing the bigger picture and taking creative Journeys Into the Heart of their teaching yeah let's do it let's do it what do you think are you ready to do it so lovely so tell us in the chat box how will you approach the sessions in

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this festival with curiosity with openness with excitement with creativity or anything else how will you approach these sessions for these two weeks curiosity excitement motivation epic excitement oh like a sponge ears wide open interest motivation positivity enthusiasm amazing well we hope you will and we hope you will enjoy every single minute of this amazing Global teachers Festival produced by MC melon so thank you everybody for being for being here