Title: A Teacher’s Guide to Drama
Author: Gary Langford
Publisher: XlibrisAU
ISBN: 978-1-51449-537-7
Pages: 100
Genre: Education
Reviewed by: Jennifer Weiss
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Pacific Book Review Star
Awarded to Books of Excellent Merit
A Teacher’s Guide to Drama by author Gary Langford is a guide for teachers to help provide teachers with workshop and exercise ideas to use in the classroom whether it is oral communications, drama, children’s theatre or puppetry. He also includes a little bit of writing and performances. There are a lot of interesting ideas included in this book. Langford starts off discussing what is communication and the important different ways of communication such as body language. Each form is vital to the art of drama and performing arts. The book reads more like a non-fiction book rather than a textbook with sections, questions, diagrams, figures etc. A handbook would be a better way of describing this book rather than textbook.
Langford write his book in a way that is easy to understand regardless of teaching level. He has workshops which work great for any grade whether it is elementary children or college aged, these exercises are wonderful to try out. Everything is well developed and has alternatives to each exercise, in case it might be too difficult. For example “Puppets for Students” is an exercise where he describes students using each other as a putting (think helping hands or human props from the show “Whose Line Is It Anyway”). He describes how to act it out and then suggests making a puppet dance out of each other, but only if it is too difficult to use regular puppets.
The book itself is broken up into exercises which work well for individuals, small or large groups. Depending on the classroom, teachers can pick different things to try, based on the size they have that day. After the group activities, there are oral games and other activities to help students test the waters of their creativity. Each activity included encourages students to be creative and think outside the box to complete the task. The book may seem small but there is so much information in this book and everything is laid out so simply. A Teacher’s Guide to Drama is a great book that lets you experiment and find the boundaries of drama and performing arts.
One does not need to be a drama or performing arts teacher to benefit from this book. Small after school groups, youth groups, even team sports could benefit from doing some of these activities as it would help create a sense of teamwork, sharpens the mind and can just be generally a fun relaxing activity to do with each other. I would recommend A Teacher’s Guide to Drama to anyone who works with children of all ages in any capacity. It is very easy to understand and implement into a daily routine. This is an excellent resource for teachers to have on hand. I give this book a star rating and plan on using it more in the future. If you are entering the world of theatre education, or education in general, then this book is what you need to assist you in feeling prepared for what to expect.
