“The
teacher’s speech must always be vivid and alive and express his thoughts
exactly. If the speech is not cultured, this will remain in the future dancer’s
memory and will go on stage with him.” -Nikolai Tarasov, Technique for the Male Dancer, p.45, (1985)
Today I watched my students perform
in the Greater Victoria Performing Arts Festival. While listening to the adjudicators
give their feedback, it opened an opportunity for myself to think and reflect
upon an idea that I came across while reading Technique for the Male Dancer (N. Tarasov, 1985) where Tarasov
mentions that when working with different children, boys or girls, it is a good
idea for a young teacher to take speech lessons so that they know how to
appropriately communicate with children (students) of different ages. Today, I
felt I received a strong example of that thought.
While observing the adjudications,
I watched the guest adjudicator (who has excellent qualifications in my
opinion) ruin a potentially good adjudication because she didn’t convey her
thoughts with appropriate choice of words and the length of time it took her to
explain specific corrections. This adjudicator works a lot with university
level dance students, and it really showed when she was giving her
adjudications to much younger dancer students. She would speak to 8-year-old
dance students with words such as “articulate and impetus “. I realized that
none of the students could understand what she was saying to them and that they
would still just “smile and nod” rather than take initiative to ask for clarification
to the fact that they couldn’t understand what was being said to them. I also
realized that the adjudicator would speak to the students for extended periods
of time so that she lost most of the student’s attention because she didn’t or
couldn’t understand the level of concentration these students could maintain
relative to their ages.
After the performances and
adjudications were completed, I had the opportunity to speak with my students
in private. I asked them for their
thoughts on what the adjudicator had said. This is the feedback I received;
“How am I supposed to remember what she said? She talked so much I can’t
remember half the things she said!”
This was a good learning moment for me. It gave me strong reason to
reflect on my teaching methods, on when I have been invited to judge, and on adjudicating
competitions and festivals. Do I speak appropriately to my students when
teaching them? Do they understand what I demand of them? Do they have questions
that they would like to ask me, but my body language makes me not approachable?
These are just some of the questions that I have decided to ask myself about my
own mannerisms when I am in different situations where I need to express
different levels of communication.
Does anyone else have any similar experiences they would like to share?
Please comment below!
Interestingly enough I had the same experience as this adjudicator when giving feedback to dancers and choreographers in Kiev in 2013. Fortunately for me the translator assigned to me asked me to slow down and speak in shorter thoughts so he would be able to translate, ooh how I like throwing that word into this reply, so the non-English speakers might better understand my comments. Age and ability are not what sets the limitations as to the attention span of the audience. I remember Zig Zigler saying that seven minutes is when a person loses interest. Oddly enough seven years is when people tend to have changes int heir lives whether it is friendships or changing jobs. At some point young students will need to learn a wider vocabulary. The sad moment for your students and anyone else receiving comments from this adjudicator is that an opportunity for positive criticism and learning was lost.
ReplyDeleteA person who took the Dance and Writing Summer Intensive in 2016 complained because she and her reading partner were reading articles that had such big words and sounded pompous. My response was to ask who the audience for such articles was. The verbose articles were in professional journals so of course the articles used language to "prove" the knowledge of such words, phrases, and what not. I have been investigating through my research project what type of vocabulary works best within the adult populations I am investigating. Hopefully you were able to translate for your students and give feedback to the festival so the adjudicator learns from the experience as well. As I learned in Texas, "it's not what you say but how you say it". A person can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. And a judge can tell dancers they need improvement without making them feel horrible. I hope you participate in the same event next year and have a better experience.
Thank you, I was able to talk to the students afterwards, and give them a good "translation" There is a large issue in Canada right now in schools not teaching English at the level it used to be taught. My sister is a professor at a university, and she teaches writing 101. She has also noticed a large void in language skills relative to a decade ago even. I agree we need to teach student broader vocabularies I am curious to see how and when those in charge of schools will start to implement (even though it isn't just the responsibility of those organizations but more of a society as a whole).
DeleteThank you for sharing your experiences. It gives good material for reflection.
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ReplyDeleteHi, communication in class or in other dance contexts is a really interesting topic. I am also trying to have a closer look and question the way of how I communicate in class with my students. What meaning the make of my feed back. I try to ask them more questions, to have a better understanding of what "gets through". And I feel while in the dance field, there is a lot of thought and attention given to what is age appropriate for children, movement wise, there is less focus, on HOW to communicate. I remember the first time years ago, when I was involved in a dance education project, as a dancer, with very young children, even though I felt prepared movement wise to work with this age group, I was talking to them like they were adults. It has been through observing others teach, talking to school teachers, trying out (and having a family myself), that I learned and am still in the process of learning to become more aware of the context in which I communicate. I am curious to hear, if age appropriate communication has been a topic discussed in your teacher training?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the teachers course and what the teachers course is meant to address. I have found that some teachers courses focus on technique, and others focus on mannerisms. and others focus on the specifics of developing the lesson, etc. I have participated in various teacher training programmes that touch base on communication. I have gotten most of my ideas about how to communicate with children through reading though. I find the most helpful books that are used for degrees in teaching, and education. Also reading biographies of dancers give you an insight into how the most influential teachers of the great dancers were able to inspire, and grasp the concept of teaching.
DeleteHow interesting! I've actually noticed something similar teaching my young students. A lot of the analogies I use, things like a tornado or a rocket blasting off, they don't understand because they've never seen them (who would have thought third and fourth graders wouldn't know what a tornado was or what rockets looked like blasting off??), and it's a real struggle to adjust my analogies and vocab in a way they understand. On the plus side, they've definitely learned some new vocabulary in my classes, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI am finding that students are having less of what would be considered general knowledge as time passes, or the concept of general knowledge is changing and we are just being less with the times. I find using analogies and metaphors very helpful in my teaching, even if it just inspires the student to look up what an axel of a car is, or the Saturn V rocket. It still makes the class entertaining for the students, and they are still learning!
DeleteCommunication is key in all setting in my opinion not just spoken language but body language and non verbal communications.
ReplyDeleteFor students to absorb and take corrections onboard it needs to be pitched at the correct level and target audience.
This is something that I've researched into and discussed within my own reflection and practice it's also the relationship between people that impacts the way which interaction is perceived.