One of the things I am responsible for as a Language Arts teacher at my school is to put on a play. The experience brings me to the brink of a nervous breakdown every single year. To me, there’s nothing scarier than putting on a 45 minute show for all the parents and the entire administrative team to watch (and judge).

So many things could go wrong. In my worst nightmares the students forget their lines, mispronounce words, stress the wrong words in the wrong way, mumble, and have forgotten everything I ever taught them about timing, intonation and vocal quality…

 It is that time of year. We started the Wooing Wed Widing Hood rehearsals today. Before the holiday I told the kids that their lines better be memorized by the time they come back to school, or else. To my great relief they seem to have taken me (somewhat) seriously!

 Another thing that made the first day back to school surprisingly pleasant was that my new “trick” to get students to stress the words in their lines correctly has worked!  

My "trick" was simply to bold the words I wanted stressed in the script before I gave it to the kids. (I do hope playwrights don’t mind that teachers take liberties like this with their work!).   

 Here’s an example to make it clearer:  “I am Red” (not you), “I am Red” (really!) and “I am Red” (not blue). The meaning of the sentence changes depending on what words are stressed. Bolding the words made it easier for the kids who otherwise would have had to figure out the stress pattern by looking at the context. Such a simple little “trick” but it made a big difference in the rehearsals today!

 ;-) CoffeeAddict