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American Acting Techniques for Teachers and Students:

A One Week Teacher Training Course in collaboration with Europass Teacher Academy (Erasmus+ EU approved course provider): 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Acting is playing. The purpose of this course is to learn to have fun while teaching! In addition, participants will learn how to improve their communication skills, presentation skills, and teacher-student engagement. The instructor takes a playful approach to teaching Stanislavski oriented techniques for the craft of acting, which are the foundation of the “American” style of acting. This course will also provide teachers who direct their schools’ theatrical productions with best practices for communicating with actors with clear, specific and actionable language that will set their students free to “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”

Participants are guided through exercises selected from: the Meisner Technique that builds spontaneity, authenticity, and listening skills; Viola Spolin’s “Theater Games” that teach actors to live in the moment, responding truthfully and intuitively to their surroundings; and script analysis from David Mamet’s “Practical Aesthetics” which helps actors choose specific playable actions to influence their fellow actor.

Together, these approaches help teachers bring more enthusiasm to their lessons, think creatively on their feet, remove self-consciousness, and improve verbal and non-verbal expressiveness for more effective classroom productivity.   

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Participants will learn how to:

 

The goal of this course is for teachers to learn through practice, the techniques and procedures of an actor’s craft in order to teach with a greater sense of play, enthusiasm, confidence, and effectiveness in the classroom.  

The exercises, which emphasize "a sense of play” are designed to help teachers to:

  • Improve listening skills in order to listen more deeply and acutely to students, just as the best actors do with each other in their scenes. 

  • Bring more enthusiasm and performance energy to their lessons. 

  • Help participants to find their own voices as teachers, and to teach in their own original way with confidence.

 

Teachers will gain an enormous sense of being present with students, as well as confidence and enthusiasm for making lessons that enrich both teachers’ and students’ lives on a daily basis. 

José Angel Santana, PhD is a Professor of Directing Actors for Film at Columbia University Graduate Film School. He teaches his Communication Skills Training course (The Art of Connecting) for executives from the world’s leading media companies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His doctoral work is in the area of reaching at-risk teenagers, “Honoring Dionysus: Listening Deeply to Young People’s Lives also informs this course, as does his years of acting and directing in mainstream theater, film, and television.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Teachers: primary, secondary, vocational, adult, special needs; Teacher trainers; Careers officers, educational guides and counsellors; Headteachers; Principals; Managers of schools

COURSE LOCATIONS/SESSIONS:

*Regrettably, due to the worldwide outbreak of COVID19, all 2021 in-person workshops are currently postponed until further notice. We plan to resume as soon as it is safe to do so. We will update you as things progress. 

Florence: TBD

Berlin: TBD

Florence: TBD

COURSE DETAILS:

Length of the course: 1 week Mon -Sat;

Course Schedule: 9:00 -  14:00 (first turn) or 14:00 - 19:00 (second turn)

Number of participants: max. 14;

Cultural activities included: City Guided Tour and 1 day Excursion;

Price: € 480,00 

To make a reservation for this course, please click here to fill out our online application

You will then receive confirmations from TESOL Drama and Europass Teacher Academy. Please do not book flights or accommodations until you receive a final confirmation from Europass Teacher Academy.

 *Accommodation and airfare are not included in the price. Participants must book their own airfares. Please let us know if you need assistance with accommodation. 

Acting for Teachers & Students 2019 Course Reviews

 

“I am more than happy to testify that this week in Florence with Marisol and José was a great opportunity to improve my knowledge in drama and to practice very useful workshops. I have already shared this experience with my colleagues, and they are convinced that drama techniques are useful to improve the relationships between students and develop social and emotional skills. José and Marisol made us feel very comfortable while practising drama.” 

- Vincent Gravouil, Secondary School Teacher, France

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Thank you very much once again for the fantastic and inspirational course in acting on the classroom stage I took part of this past July. I enjoyed every minute of it! It was wonderful to be disconnected from the Internet and communicate with the facilitators and other participants of the course through Viola Spolin's and Meisner's games and exercises. We are starting this week and I hope my students will enjoy it too! The course turned out to be the most fascinating adventure and introduction to the improvisational theatre

and its techniques.

 

Although I am a theatre-goer, I haven't heard about improvisational theatre much before coming to Florence. I imagined myself and our group staging scenes from Shakespeare in the Florentine environment. Recently, I have watched lots of films on improvisation and found out that there are some improvisational comedy clubs in Warsaw as well as improvisation schools. I am eager to develop my improvisational skills in order to teach students how to speak and communicate in a foreign language.

 

I will let you know about the results. I am also going to have a presentation about your course in our school and encourage my colleagues to come to the course.

 

Moreover, I hope to participate in one of these courses again.” 

- Małgorzata Maras, Language Professor, University of Warsaw, Poland

FOR MORE REVIEWS, CLICK HERE

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