Readers Theaters with Love and Mouses

 The only problem I can really solve is English illiteracy, but even then, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Take, for example, the readers’ theater review I was asked to do at a middle school in Taiping. I planned to not say anything negative with a few weeks left before the contest but the lead EFL teacher there rubbed me wrong. My pedagogical competence took over.  I have to learned not to go where I'm not wanted. 

     The assignment at the middle school in Taiping was simple; watch the troupe perform the skit I had been sent a few days earlier. It was only a few weeks before the contest so I promised myself I would only comment on pronunciation and intonation abnormalities. It was easy to have that policy in Yun-lin a few weeks ago as the skit the children did was one I had heavily edited and returned three months ago; they had done their homework, saw "The Wizard of Oz" movie, and had been practicing it all but the intonation and pronunciation. 

     My job was simple and to the point, but, I was to discover,  the script sent for the day's assignment had terminal problems, namely, the passive  theme of a teacher correcting her students' grammar in the course of finding the 'thief' that stole one's lunch was misguided. Why?  Because though  'count' and 'no-count' nouns was the stated premise, the examples used for humorous interludes were 'singular' and 'plural' irregular forms.I sat and listened to the troupe do their skit, making marks on my copy about pronunciation and intonation abnormalities. 

     Amazingly, the discrepancy in the script's 'instructional objective' didn't become apparent to me at first until one on their staff took exception to a question I had concerning one snippet of musical chorus someone had added, "We will we will rock you," directed at the mouse or mice that nibbled at a student's lunch. My concern was detoured to the 'teachable moment'; "Mouses" which was corrected to "mice" unnecessarily because only one was the culprit. I understood the concern of the black-masked EFL teacher, and by intuition knew it was she that had written the script in the first place, and understood her intention. That's was when it dawned on me the erroneous inside joke. 

     The teachers, actual and characterized, were incorrect. 'Mice' is not a count or no count noun; it's the plural from of 'mouse.' A regular count noun can have an 's' or 'es' added to make it plural while a non-count must have a measure word put before it to count; for example, 'a glass of water'. The plural of 'glass' is 'glasses' but 'water' has no plural because it is a non-count noun. In the same way, 'mice' is the plural form and needs no measure word to make it countable. Most of the ten teachers present at the audition, of the teachers sat stunned, others insulted that I corrected them. I explained that, correct grammar wasn't the issue to the judges, anyway, because of their own deficiency in English as a Foreign Language; there would be no native-language English teachers on the judging panel and their error wouldn't be noticed, I said, but that only drove the foot into my mouth deeper. 

      

The next day, participating in the assembly at the school in Tong-Feng Middle School in Nan-tun went off without a hitch or incident; nothing to write a blog about. I listened to a troupe's meaningless regurgitation of what love is with the choruses of "I Will Follow Him" and "Go On" from Titanic sung; not worth analysis. I then heard four classes do the Little Peggy March song chorus with varying degrees of primitive choreography. The kids looked happy. Their eyes widened when I was asked to sing it and I did so including the verses and the coda. I looked happy. The teacher in charge asked me to say something about NYC, a place she visited in '07. I compared it to Taichung, the latter always better with regard to newness, cleanliness, and quietness, and students' interest in learning EFL. I wasn't exaggerating. 

     

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Li-Ming MS Wins 3rd Place Readers Theater

      “That’s more like it,” is what I could say after visiting the “Lace Up Against Bullying” troupe at Li-Ming Middle School, Dali, Taiwan on October 24, 2019. Sunny, who I've worked with on Readers' Theaters the past few years, was there to met us at the gate. She brought us up to the rehearsal room where two  colleagues producing this year’s skit, were busy rehearsing with the troupe of seven girls and a boy. They asked me for and I offered them pizzazz for their production. My mind was racing even as we rode up the elevator, but I held back and didn’t offer suggestions until they asked me. After Tuesday’s foot in the mouth by saying too much about another school’s script, I was being conservative, though I knew Sunny’s team had open minds and were not afraid of criticism.

     We had gone back to Dali for two hours at Sunny's school reviewing their readers theater on the heady topic of bullying; thankfully, Sunny's colleagues picked up the mantle of meaningful readers theater scripting. They had covered child labor and cell phone addiction in the past. 

Read about Li-Ming in last year's "Rush of Rehearsals" 

 I signaled my intention immediately upon meeting the students and staff and being seated with strong black coffee and cake; I wanted to know why they had chosen shoe laces as the motif against bullying and why the laces were purple and orange, but then, I sat back and asked to watch the troupe perform so I could hear their pronunciation and intonation and see their body language.  After a few minor suggestions, I asked the director man what he would like. He said the script was too plain and had no power at the end. I played for him the song I was singing on my way up the elevator: “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue, the 1992 hip-hop rock hit. The song is about prejudice, the heart of bullying. It is a fight-back anthem, and perfect to make their theme more poignant. I injected, at three junctures in the script, a character or narrator singing, “Why oh why must it be this way?” and ended the script with the troupe singing: “Before you can read me you have to learn how to see me, I said, free your mind and the rest will follow, be color-blind, don’t be so shallow, free your mind-mind-mind-mind mind-mind thump.” 

I wondered why they used laces for solidarity with the victim (she was bullied because of wearing one purple and one shoe lace; not very realistic) as symbols against bullying when it was too small to be seen and didn’t make a statement. Wear long rainbow socks, I said, and make a stand against the major cause of bullying; one’s sexual orientation. The socks could be rolled down by all except the victim through the performance and then rolled up and exposed to show solidarity and confront the bully. The director thought that was a good idea. The title should be “Dressing Up Against Bullies” or “Socking It to Bullies” if they get the idiom. What is left to do is add pantomime and body language; they must express what they say physically. I was gladdened when I was invited back this Thursday to see how much progress they had made and to give more advice. Not much has to be changed in the script but some children are cast incorrectly. For example, the shortest meek girl, who has very few lines to begin with, should be the victim of bullying instead of the tall more assertive girl. Also, they can’t have the bus driver playing two opposite roles. With the topical theme, good pronunciation, intonation, and musical interlude and finale, they could win after all, but they have a ways to go; they should have contacted me sooner.

After my my revisions to their script, Li-Ming won third place in their division in Taichung!  I had  lost two opportunities to be instrumental in readers’ theater outcomes; my baby, “The Wizard of Oz”, wasn’t put into my hands sooner, either, but the school didn't request any more assistance from me, unlike Li-Ming.  The third troupe Id' seen, burdened with arrogant direction and oblivious to my concerns, had no spirit from within and lost, as did the silly “What is Love”, but they didn't expect to win, anyway; it is the English experience that matters most. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Going Bananas at Da-Yung Elementary School

Day-O Banana Song

     The morning of November 15, 2019 at the elementary school couldn't have been better. The children were amazing, the staff and principal were cordial, Leona helped me set up, and Simone, Samantha, and Ted had a great time. Samantha was so cute sitting down on the auditorium floor in front of the classes brought in for the assembly program I conducted about "Bananas".  Ted took some fabulous photos of his daughter schmoozing with the students. Samantha was happy and the children loved seeing the

 

yang-wa-wa with me. The program went over without a hitch. The children sang their three-part "Day-O" pretty well and had a ball. The first group of perhaps five hundred first to third graders randomly had seventeen go onto the stage with white boards to answer questions about bananas; a correct single word answer earned them a candy. The second group of three hundred forth to sixth graders sang "Day-O", too and participated in a panel of experts’ two seventeen-student groups but had to write complete sentence answers to my questions. The second group also heard my "Jack and the Banana Stalk" story ad libbed with a twist in the plot that surprised me, too; the giant banana that grew from the plant Jack traded for with his cow harvested slices of banana that were gold coins. At the close of the assembly, the principal awarded me with a certificate and a gift bag. We took group photos and everyone was happy. Simone and Ted got an excellent example of what I do for the publisher on outreach assignments. 

Lyrics: 

Day o! Day o!

Daylight come and me wanna go home

Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day o

Daylight come and me wanna go home

Work all night on a drink a rum

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Stack banana till the morning come

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day, me say day o

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

A beautiful bunch of ripe banana

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Hide the deadly black tarantula

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day, me say day o

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day! Day o!

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day o

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Sing Along

Group 1
Day-O, Day-O

Group 2
Daylight comes and we want to go home

Group 3
six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch


1. Bananas are harvested by hand. When the fruit is ripe the stems are cut down and wet sponges are placed in between the bananas to protect them.
2. The bananas are then covered in blue bags to keep insects away. 
3. Then they are carried by cable across the fields to be washed and packed.
4. The banana is a perennial plant that replaces itself. Bananas do not grow from a seed but from a bulb or rhizome.
5. It takes 9 to 12 months from sowing a banana bulb to harvesting the fruit. ... The plants need rich, dark and fertile soils with steady moisture in the air and ground and good drainage.
6. Home growers will harvest the fruit 7-14 days prior to ripening on the plant. Once they know that it is time for banana tree harvesting, they use a sharp knife and cut the “hands” off.
7. Exposure to light after harvest makes banana skin brown. Therefore, the fruit should be protected from light.
8. Harvesting bananas at night would be the best way to limit their exposure to light.

Jack and the Banana Stalk

There was a boy named Jack. Jack's mother had no money. She gave Jack a cow and told him to sell it at the market. He sold the cow for a banana stalk. He brought it home and put it in the ground. The next day, the banana stalk grew up to the sky. Jack climbed the stalk and found an eight-foot bunch of bananas at the top. He took one home and cut it into slices. Each slice was a gold coin. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.