So I am also interested in seeing the wonderful ways that we all come up with in terms of teaching beginning and intermediate kids to dance.
For me I can say for the beginner.....keep them interested! They can lose their focus so quickly so I try to mix games and questions I know they can answer into dancing to make it a full rounded experience for them. Ill ask them " Whats 3 + 2?, you have to answer me by doing that many piques" (gets them to think about the answer) and you have to pique on this dot(gets them to stretch their leg)" Finding little things like that activates mind and body to work together!
More on intermediates soon!
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Yes I agree it is a very fine
Yes I agree it is a very fine line to follow as you are wanting your students to think and move. All to often the end gain is pushed "Gotta keep them moving so we can tire them out!". When I was growing up we actually had far shorter classes. My first class was only 30mins long, then it progressed to 45mins and so on. I think the length of a class is quite important. A student can learn something deeply within a short space of time and after that nothing else sinks in.
I have seen some hilarious extremes in an approach to teaching beg/int classes. The one I actually enjoyed the most was an all boys class with actually 35 of them (shock horror, they were young) and we had a tag team of teachers. We were all together to begin with, we then split up to other rooms, we rotated and then all came back together again. I know this is not always possible but it meant the level of focus and energy could be maintained and the students always had something new to experience.
So many fun stories to tell!!
I've worked with a lot of
I've worked with a lot of beginner and intermediate dancers. I agree that working with this group requires creativity! Finding interesting images and new approaches to teaching the technical stuff is essential. Also including critical thinking skills is important - asking questions like "Why do you think that is?" "What would be the best way to correct this?" "If you do this, what do you think will happen?" - it engages the students' minds (as you stated above) and gets them thinking about technique without feeling like they're being lectured. I think there is also a tenuous balance of doing and talking about it w/ beginners. I have a tendency to want to talk about things but beginners like to DO so I try to pick one focus for the lesson or one thing to work on and limit my "discussion" to just that thing.
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