Teachers’ corner

Reader’s Theater; ESL Students perform Puppet Show for Early Childhood Center
by Houda Khalid, M.Ed., North Harris College, Houston, Texas

A few weeks into the spring 2006 semester I received an enthusiastic phone call from Mary Anne Grasso who wanted to ask me how I felt about her level two adult ESL class performing a puppet show for the children in the Early Childhood Center at North Harris College. As you can imagine, I was delighted that one of my instructors wanted to apply the information she learned during the, "Reader’s Theater" workshop she attended at our biannual Teacher In-Service. I couldn’t wait to hear details about what Mary Anne had in mind.

Mary Anne told me that she wanted her ESL students to perform three or four short stories for the children at the Early Childhood Center located on campus. She gave each student a script and a "speaking part" to practice. She chose stories that were familiar to the children such as, "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Goldilocks and The Three Bears". Her class worked diligently on making detailed hand puppets and borrowed a puppet stage from the Childhood Center. The ESL students were extremely excited about this long term project. They practiced their parts during class and were simultaneously practicing literacy skills such as; reading, listening, and speaking. The students were practicing their pronunciation and learning new vocabulary as well. Reader’s Theater provides repeated reading practice which builds fluency and comprehension. Repeated reading practice also improves students’ confidence and enthusiasm for reading. When using Reader’s Theater, it is important encourage students to read aloud with expression and to practice pause, inflection and intonation. The instructor and students can get creative with the setting, props, stage or classroom, and costumes they choose to incorporate. Scripts can be found online by doing a simple search for Reader’s Theater scripts or they can be created by the students with some assistance from the instructor.

On the morning of the performance, the children filed into the classroom and sat quietly while they waited for the ESL students to entertain them. The ESL students sounded very professional as they introduced themselves to the children. They started performing "Little Red Riding Hood" and the children gasped when they saw the big bad wolf! Next, the students performed, "The Three Little Pigs" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". The children followed along and laughed as the ESL students put on a great show. As an added treat, Mrs. Grasso read the story, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" to the children as they participated by making the sound effects for the goats.

This level two ESL class worked extremely hard to prepare for this show. The students had to learn all of the speaking parts for the plays so they could fill in for each other in case anyone was absent on the day of the show. Mary Anne was the director, editor and coordinator for this performance. She was able to organize and instruct the students to ensure that they were ready for the performance. Along with literacy skills, Mrs. Grasso taught these students a greater lesson. She taught them determination, pride, and self confidence.