2013 UWI Schools of Education Biennial Conference

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Browsing 2013 UWI Schools of Education Biennial Conference by Author "Cooper, Mariette"

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    Primary school Spanish theatre production as a strategy for building confidence in student teachers [PowerPoint presentation]
    (2013-06-24) Cooper, Mariette; Govia, Rouven D.; Persad, Aarti
    Theatre pedagogy in foreign language learning and teaching has been in use for over 30 years, but in Trinidad and Tobago no research has been done to assess its usefulness in teacher education. The Ministry of Education recognizes that one factor preventing teachers from effectively delivering Spanish in primary schools is low confidence. To address these issues, a study was done to examine the usefulness of theatre as a sound strategy to advancing pre-service teachers' learning and confidence in Spanish. It focuses on a group of 14 teacher trainees at The University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), who, in 2012, created short plays in Spanish with cross-curricular content and performed them at primary schools throughout Trinidad and Tobago over a six-week period. A questionnaire was administered to them after all the performances of the plays to gain some insight into how they perceived their confidence before and after the theatre productions. Results showed: 1) a dramatic increase in confidence in oral and listening skills, which was attributed to the oral/aural nature of theatre with a high level of speaking practice done (pronunciation, intonation, stress); listening for cues in the plays; and listening to other plays which were new material; 2) a minimal increase in reading skills, which appeared to be due to lack of a clear understanding of what reading is: Reading comprehension vs. Reading aloud; and 3) an increased confidence in writing. This study reinforces the effectiveness of this strategy in the current B.Ed. programme and for potential inclusion in the national Primary Spanish syllabus