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 cultural and individual preferences.

Ta dah! Presenting the students who met from 9:00 to 10:30 AM from May 7^thto May 24^th. I love the the neighborhoods created in this photo! Those from Japan gather on one side and those from Panama on the other. For the arrangement, the "chicas" decided they would stand, leaving the guys to sit. Something to notice.

What follows is a brief day-to-day summary or  “noticing” for each of the twelve 90-minute classes that made up this “Talk More 1 (InterPlay)” course:

TALK MORE (INTERPLAY & ESL) WEEK ONE

Day #1, 1.5 hours of instruction

We met from 9:00 to 10:30 AM. I introduced basic concepts of breathing, using easy focus, witnessing, babbling, noticing, moving, embodying English, and having fun! 

Day #2, 3 hours of instruction

I noticed a lot of close listening in class today. Students leaned into their speaking partners. I’m witnessing the magic moments when new friendships are crafted. InterPlay offers forms which allow people to incrementally explore new behaviors (expanding gestures and vocalization) in new cultures while having fun and activating their creativity.

Day #3, 4.5 hours of instruction

We began class today with writing down one word thoughts, filling simple line images of heads. We moved around the room, stretched our bodies, and shared stories about our thoughts incrementally. We expanded thoughts to one-sentence stories, to three-sentence stories, to movement and longer stories. We looked at student “contracts” for the class which invited students into some basic rules of improvisation – to say yes, take risks, to fail, to have fun and discover something new.

Day #4, 6 hours of instruction

In the last class of our first week, I engaged students in exploring the musicality of English through incremental steps offered by InterPlay using movement and vocal play. We did “following and leading” in whole class formations, small groups, and pairs. We made three-breath songs and babbled about simple words like book or computer integrating the English language with musical tones. We took time to notice how all of these activities felt in one-on-one conversations. And we explored the 15 vowel sounds of English with movement in order to expand the vowel. What a rewarding week!

FREEDOM TO NOTICE. Students are invited to share what they are experiencing in the moment with their partners. Everyone gets to choose if they want to stand or sit on a chair or the floor. The student below surprised both his partner and me with his choice to spread out on the floor!

TALK MORE (INTERPLAY & ESL) WEEK TWO

Day #5, 7.5 hours of instruction

On the first day of the second week, we focused on “affirming the good” and saying “yes.” The fun was in playing with all the parts of us that make us human - at least what we can identify and make use of in a classroom. We breathed, made tones and returned to three-breath songs. We moved and connected with one another. Our Walk, Stop, Run (an InterPlay form) was filled with good mornings in English, Japanese and Spanish. We opened our minds and created visual images of what was “released” during our movement using sharpie colored pens on paper. From these images, new stories emerged and a wider range of vocabulary came forward. 

The “noticings” (being present in the moment to our experiences physically, mentally and emotionally) we are now making in this second week are getting “deeper.” Students are beginning to move beyond their automatic responses of “sleepy” and “hungry” (I have been surprised in all of my classes with teenagers to young adults that they are always in need of more sleep and food). I heard words about family, friends, sushi, Panama, American food, love, and happiness. And yes, I heard noticings of sadness. The students after 90 minutes of movement, vocalization, and storytelling were more fully present. As an educator, these results feel magical and mysterious to me - students become more embodied humans ready to connect, share, explore and discover.

Day #6, 9 hours of instruction

We explored the “musicality” of English. To get a sense of the strong and weak beats of English, we played around with speaking slowly and quickly 

(modeled on “sloth and rabbit talk” in the movie Zootopia) and movement. After the InterPlay Walk Stop Run form, we added movement or “dancing” - whatever that might be. Putting on salsa music from Panama really got most of the six Panamanian students moving (not everyone from that country is comfortable moving). Upon hearing the rhythmic tunes, several of Panamanian students squealed and jumped into dancing to the amazement of their Japanese classmates. Soon the Japanese students were pulled into partnership with a Panamanian classmate to move and feel the beat. There was such enthusiasm- moving and sharing! What a fun way then to understand rhythm. Afterwards, we moved into a lesson on stressing important words- making them the strong beat so that the listener can hear them. Body and language were aligned. We practiced affirming the good.

CONNECTED THROUGH MOVEMENT & NOT LEAVING. Even though class is over, students stay to continue dancing. Movers and those witnessing are fully engaged. Friendships are forged and authentic communication takes place in this language classroom. 

Day #7, 10.5 hours of instruction

We played around with physically embodying small and large; talking about things large and a small as well as likes and dislikes, understandings and not understanding; and we searched for finding similarities and differences - all in 90 minutes of finding ways to speak English more confidently and comfortably. The class began with a popular song from Japan about fishing in response to the salsa music played the day before. Offered by a couple of the Japanese students, this song was a catalyst for the other Japanese classmates to make large rhythmic dance moves! Their Panamanian classmates watched in surprise and awe and then tried to follow their movements. I loved watching the tables turn from the day before when the Panamanian students were teaching their Japanese classmates dance moves. 

All in a day’s class grounded in embodying English through InterPlay forms and tools. We returned to the concept of musicality of English, connecting large movements to stress (strong beats that are high, loud, and long) and focus (the strongest beats - key words - which are the highest, loudest and the longest) and small movements to reduction (weak beats that are low, not loud, and short). I believe many of the students “got it”! They connected the movement with the rhythm of English – this is embodied learning. This is playing and teaching the “whole student body.” We finished with a Walk Stop Run with a three-sentence story (movement and language combined)! What fun!

Day #8, 12 hours of instruction

12 hours into embodying English at the GT Language Institute with students from Panama and Japan. Today, we played around with small and large, fast and slow, slow and large, fast and large, slow and small, and fast and small. As an English Language educator and InterPlay leader facilitator, I experienced a breakthrough. All along I’ve connected two things together for the embodiment of English - nonverbal language supporting the expression of verbal language. “Love the vowel,” I advise my students, and we practice lengthening the stressed vowel and making it higher in pitch and louder in volume - head bobbing, moving our torsos, and extending one or both hands as we speak. 

But today something different emerged after yesterday’s moving “big” to the Japanese fishing song. Then - in contrast - moving “small” or subtly. Our movement became metaphors for the rhythm of English. Large movements representing English content or focus words and small movements representing the English function/grammatical words. I witnessed students really expanding their communicative abilities. And the students were fully engaged not only in playing physically and verbally with the language but also with saying something important to connect with each other. Relationships had formed. Week 2 completed. One more week to go.

TALK MORE (INTERPLAY & ESL) WEEK THREE

Day #9, 13.5 hours of instruction

We began the step-by-step process of telling side-by-side stories. What fun it is to play with different ways of telling our stories in the community of our classroom! Today, we made a leap from solo stories although we spent a large part of our time “babbling” or short tellings, pairing and re-pairing. Students spoke, moved, listened, and reflected on their own and shared experiences. Forty minutes into our 90-minute class, we moved incrementally through the steps to tell side-by-side stories. 

This fun but challenging InterPlay form allows stories to unfold in a symphony of voices. Participants are given permission to speak while the other partner is speaking – something as children most of us are taught is rude behavior. In the language learning classroom, side-by-side stories are a wonderful way to consider how we make ourselves “heard” while in community with others and in close proximity. These questions emerge:

How to process ideas when there is so much competing “noise”? 

How to get the listener’s attention? 

How to move in the environment? 

How to cooperate with another “co-speaker”? 

And even more importantly - How to have fun, engage in play, and discover something about yourself and others? 

SIDE-BY-SIDE STORIES. Here a student from Panama (seated on the table, right) makes the choice to leave her seat and move behind one of her classmates to whisper. Meanwhile, her Japanese partner in the side-by-side story chooses to learn forward and make physical contact with her listeners. 

I can report that chaos ensued initially with the evil twins and tricksters emerging from the participants. Culturally, most of the students from Panama were eager to raise their voices and move in conjunction or competition with their partners. And while the students from Japan were “surprised” by the “requests” of the activity, after some hesitation, they jumped in with commitment. 

FREEDOM TO CHOOSE. These students from Japan are making choices to use verbal gestures to connect with their listeners as they tell their stories.

As the facilitator, I savor the influence of these students’ different cultures upon one another. There is a disciplined strength and calm (reserve) from the Japanese students and a freedom from inhibition (mostly) and unbridled energy from the Panamanian students. Together? Sheer beauty! An explosion of comingling differences. Lots to notice and enjoy!

Day #10, 15 hours of instruction

Powerful moments occurred today regarding movement in this English language classroom. “Who are you as a ‘mover’”? was a question I wanted to explore with these students from Panama and Japan. This question took us on a journey. First, we warmed up our bodies with an InterPlay warmup and then did a long series of different partnerships moving (flying, swimming, playing tennis, riding bikes, jumping, running, etc.) with short tellings ( babbling ) about our experiences, likes and dislikes. It is fun seeing the students find new partners through Walk Stop Run with music. 

Before introducing the Four Movement Patterns(Ginny Whitelaw and Betsy Wetzig), I asked students to do the following: 

Describe the kinds of movement they enjoyed doing

Review their lives as to when, where, how, and with whom they were active. Had their activities changed over time? 

What activities did the want more of in their lives now? 

We engaged in all of this talking and moving before offering the four movement patterns of swing, thrust, hang and shape. Here in this photo, you see students in the last phase of of playing around with “hanging out” and talking about how often they hangout alone or with friends. My goal for today was achieved partially by the conclusion of class when students were able to choose a movement pattern that felt good to them and expressed something about their behaviors using this movement pattern. They also had some idea about what kind of movement they needed more of in their lives. Hurray! The noticings they had were that they felt energized, excited, curious, and connected! One student said this was a fun way to bring two countries’ people together!Yay!

Day #11, 16.5 hours of instruction 

What makes you happy? We played around with this topic at the end of today’s “embodying English class.” We clapped out rhythmic phrases exclaiming the stuff of life that brings us joy. High on the lists were sleep and eating! I continue to be happy when I see their lists expanding to friendships, family, music, movies and video games. Students created their happy dances in pairs. It was such an energizing way to finish class allowing the happiness to flow out into the world! We had begun class with reviewing the four movement patterns by moving and “drawing” with colored sharpies to express the movements. These records of movement became the source of short tellings and the foundation for discovering what more or less movement everyone needed. I love witnessing the choices students are making with regard to what their “bodies” need when partnering for telling and listening to stories. Tomorrow is our last class! Stay tuned!

HAPPY DANCES IN PAIRS. With a partner, students were invited to tell stories about what makes them happy using the InterPlay form - DT3 - or dance then talk times 3. 

Day #12, 18 hours of instruction

Today’s final class filled with joy and ease! We all came to a sense of being “completed” in 3 weeks and 18 hours. What an awe-inspiring journey we’ve been on! Two cultures (3 if you count mine) embarked in this class on an embodied journey of communicating in English. The planning was brilliant - 6 students from Panama and 6 students from Japan! Imagine these young internationals meeting 4 days each week for 3 weeks to do InterPlay first thing in the morning for 90 minutes before their other classes! What do you think? Does everyone look more comfortable with an increased level of confidence! Community building in the classroom works magic! Yay!

INTRODUCING THE WHOLE STUDENT BODY. After 18 hours of InterPlay, the whole student is engaged in communicating and connecting with the class. As the "whole student body" of the individual is engaged so is the "whole student body" of the class. In this final class group photo, the neighborhoods initially established because of nationality are now dissolved. Notice how well integrated the six Japanese and six Panamanians are integrated. This integration displays the magic of InterPlay!

 As an experienced master teacher with more than 25 years of experience, I am a teacher transformed through InterPlay. It has only been through my certification as an InterPlay leader that I have discovered the teacher can create “spaces” for something magical to happen in the classroom. Enough direction must be given to create the "happening" and then the students must be given enough “freedom” to be themselves so they can try new ways of communicating. Thank you for sharing this part of my journey to “educate the whole student body.” More to follow! Thanks to the co-founders of InterPlay, Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter.

Meanwhile, here is a short video of photos taken of both Talk More 1 classes that I taught during May 2018. The second class not featured in this blog but present in this video was a larger class. Comprised of 18 students, it also had participants from China, Saudi Arabia, and Korea.