Week One

The first week of Dance, we were introduced to Kari-Lynn Winters who was our professor for the semester. I was very happy to have Kari-Lynn as our professor as I had the pleasure of working with her the year previous. I was very anxious to learn about dance but was put at ease knowing that the professor was someone that I knew I could trust and rely on to teach me in a safe and judgement free environment.

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We began the day by starting with a warm up. We did a syllable clap warmup and each student was in a circle around the room and we were asked to clap out the syllables of our name. Then we were asked to think of a movement to use to again make out our name, but without clapping. We went around the circle several times, using the the clapping method and we copied each persons name. Then lastly, we went around but only clapped without speaking.

This is a great strategy for ELL students as it allows them to copy their peers, listen to the repetition and opt out of speaking if necessary. It allows them to listen to the syllables and pronunciation of their peers names if they the are struggling.

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The Teacher placed a chair in the middle of the room and told the class that it represented dance. She then asked everyone to chose a position in the classroom and create a pose that represented how everyone felt or related to teaching dance. Once everyone was in their position, the teacher told everyone to relax. Then she pre warned the class that she was going to tap people in and ask them to share their response but that they would be able to pass if they chose to. The teacher asked every student to share their position and feelings, but gave a warning by asking if she could come to them next, which gave students time to think of their response, prepare or ask to deny a response. This was focused on ELL learners and how it would best support them. As a class we discussed that this could be a useful strategy to use with students as they would be able to share how they feel about dance without having to speak but that it may be difficult for students who have special needs or are ELL learners as they may not be able to translate their feelings or thoughts into a position in the classroom.

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We began to discuss who ELL students were and how we could support them in a diverse and multicultural environment to ensure that we as teachers reach all of our students. As a class, we discussed that there are a large number of children who immigrate to Canada every day, children who come from communities where English isn't their first language or children who come from francophone homes. We also discussed ways that we could accomodate and modify dance for these students to ensure they would be included across all curriculum. 

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Laban's Movement Analysis theory is a method and language that describes, visualizes, documents and interprets all variations of human movement. This theory focuses on where we move, how we move and what moves. His theory focused on four main areas: body, effort, shape and space. In turn the concepts work in conjunction with Body, Energy, Relationship, Space and Time (BERST).

Body:What we move

Energy:How we move

Relationships:With whom/what we move

Space:Where we move

Time:When we move