When I visited Bu Cathy in South Australia some time ago, she told me how she sometimes asked all her students to act out a story while she narrated. I thought the idea sounded great, but was reluctant to try as I imagined chaos in the classroom. But I was getting tired of doing the same thing each lesson (using only a few students to act out the story) and also tired of them complaining they weren’t getting a go! So I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go. We were working on Caterina’s Snake story. (see below)

I changed the names in the story to Murid Satu and Murid Dua. I put students into groups of four. Each student had to decide whether they were going to be Ibu Anne, ular, murid 1 or murid 2.

Then I explained to them that we were doing a special silent play. The only noises allowed to be made were the snake vomiting and Ibu Anne exclaiming ‘Aduh!’ We discussed how to use actions to show others what to do if they forgot their parts, instead of using our voices. The ular had to stand with feet spread apart, making a ‘mouth’ with their legs. When M1 (murid 1) was eaten, they crawled through this tunnel and then stood behind ‘ular’ and stood with their feet spread apart, so M2 could later be eaten. We used red unifix cubes for the chillis. As the students were vomited out, the snake made the vomiting sound effect!

Students loved it and even Preps were able to follow directions and act out the story in groups! It gave me great feedback about how well students understood the story and followed instructions. It had them all listening and moving and best of all, they ALL got to have a go! We did it over and over, each time swapping roles. They probably would have been happy to do this for the entire lesson, getting lots of valuable reps and having fun. Give it a go, I am now a convert and you should be too!

Snake Story for Preps (Catharina)

Ibu Anne punya ular besar.  (Ibu Anne pats Ular on the head)

Murid 1 mau lihat ular. (Murid 1 goes to ular and looks)

Ular makan murid 1! (crawl under ular’s legs)

Bu Anne berkata, “Aduh!”

 Murid 2 mau lihat ular.

Ular makan murid 2!

Bu Anne berkata, “Aduh!”

 Ibu Anne beri ular lombok. (places/throws cube under legs)

Ular muntah murid 1. (as child crawls through legs, ular makes vomiting noise once)

Ular muntah murid 2.