PLAYING & TEACHING THE “WHOLE STUDENT BODY”
Using InterPlay in the English Language Classroom A license to play in the classroom! Imagine these teaching objectives for an elementary English as a Second Language class called “Talk More”: 1) Help students find more comfort and ease when speaking in English. 2) Increase students’ sense of English language efficacy and communication confidence. This past May, being given the permission to use “pure” InterPlay in a 3-week intensive English “Talk More 1” course consisting of 18 hours of instruction, thrilled me! I would engage the “whole student body” – body, mind, and heart! This kind of “whole body” engagement was going to be especially important in this unique class comprised of students from two distinctly different cultures – six Panamanians and six Japanese! I expected the students from Panama to have more expressive ease than students from Japan, but I didn’t know how this 50/50 combination would blend the differences, allowing the students a give-and-take of cultur