Wednesday, July 31, 2019

The Wizard of Oz Readers Theater

     At the end of July,  I was sent and completely edited a silly version of "The Wizard of Oz" for a Readers Theater from a middle school in south of Taichung; that's all I was told.It had many errors of grammar, lacked fluency, and was contextually wrong. I deleted some references that weren't in the original film and put entrance of Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion (that had no teeth! not a bad symbol for cowardliness) ahead a minute in the plot. The theme was 'good prevails over evil, teamwork is vital, and home is a place worth returning to.' It could be read in under five minutes; the Reader' Theater limit.  It wasn't easy to do the revisions with the on-line script attached to the e-mail and keep it under the time limit, but it was done. I would love to go help produce the show with the school and hope they request my assistance, but I was not told which school had requested it. I visited a few times on assignment from Kang Hsien Publishing. I was sent a dialogue adapted by one of their teachers. 
          Flash ahead three months to October. I was returning to Dong-Nan Girls Middle School, the paradise I visited  and wrote about last January (Read "Dong Nan Girls' Middle School Paradise in Yun-Lin" here.) I had visited the school a few times on assignment from Kang Hsien Publishing; . Now they wanted to perform a Readers Theater they had been practicing and get my opinion; that's about all I could do. There was no time to make any changes with the contest approaching a few weeks later. 
     I was handed a Readers Theater script as I walked though the beautiful classroom to a subterranean dance studio where the troupe would perform for me to review. I was surprised to find the script to "The Wizard of Oz" I had edited before summer for an unknown recipient! How was I to know the script I edited was an adaption by one of their teachers? I heard that the school had asked another textbook publisher to send a foreigner to coach them. They hadn't asked me because the Kang Hsien agents changed and the one that brought us yesterday wasn't made aware. Not satisfied with the other's review, they contacted me. Unfortunately, there was only a half hour to hear and make adjustments to their presentation. I'm afraid my efforts will go for naught at the competition in a few weeks; they are not ready. I have to take it all in stride. Sometimes, if you wish real hard, the dream that you dare to dream really come true. 


The Wizard of Oz

All (Sing): Somewhere over the rainbow. Way up high, there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

Narrator 2: Hello, everyone. Today we are going to take a journey with a girl, her dog, and a team of special friends.

Dorothy (Yells): Toto, come here! There’s a tornado coming!

Narrator 1 (as all hum ominously “da-da, da-da, da-da-da…”): That tornado was so strong it ripped Dorothy’s house from the ground and blew it way over the rainbow landing on a wicked witch.

All (Stamp twice)

Narrator 2: When Dorothy stepped out of the house, she heard little voices; the Munchkins.

Munchkin Mayor (Sings and bows): And we welcome you to Munchkin land.

Dorothy: Why do you thank me?

Munchkin Mayor: Let Glenda, the Good Witch, tell you.

Narrator 1: Look! Under the house! Dorothy can see a pair of feet with beautiful ruby slippers.

Narrator 2: Just then, the good witch appears.

(All sprinkle confetti over Glenda)

Glenda: Hello, Dorothy. The evil witch’s powerful slippers now are yours. Use

          them for your own good.
Narrator 1: But then, another evil witch arrives.
All (Yell): Ohhhhhhhh!
Bad Witch: What have you done! You destroyed my sister! Now I want her shoes! Give them to me right now!
Glenda: Now the shoes belong to Dorothy!
Bad Witch:  We’ll see, my pretty. I will leave now, but I’ll find you later. Ha, ha, ha!
Dorothy (Crying): I want to go home.
Glenda: Be tough, Dorothy. The Wizard of Oz will help you.
Munchkin Mayor: Follow the yellow brick road.
Good Witch: Go to Emerald City. Follow the yellow brick road, and your wishes will be all granted.
Narrator 1: On the road Dorothy meets a scarecrow
Scarecrow: I want a brain
Narrator 2: And a Tinman.
Tinman: I want a heart.
Narrator 1: They join her and walk on to Emerald City.
All (Sing): We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz.
Narrator 2: But the bad witch kept her promise and sent evil to scare her.
Narrator 1: Look! Here comes a lion!
Lion (frightens, then comically sings):  If I were King of the forest. Meow!
Narrator 1: Look! The lion has no teeth!
(Dorothy, Toto, Scarecrow and Tinman laugh)
Cowardly Lion (crying): Don’t laugh at me. It scares me. I am afraid.
Dorothy: Then join us to see the Wizard of Oz. He will give you teeth and
                make you proud.
Tinman: Me a heart.
Scarecrow: And me a brain.
All (sing): We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz.
Narrator 2 (as bad witch sprinkles confetti over the travelers): But the bad witch follows them out of the forest and puts them to sleep with magic dust. She kidnaps Dorothy as they sleep.
Scarecrow (wakes first and wakes the others): Oh no, what can we do?
Narrator 2: The bad witch put Dorothy in her castle.
Bad Witch: Give me my ruby slippers, my little pretty, or you will be sorry!
Dorothy: What a horrible person you are! My friends will find you!
Narrator 1: Dorothy clicks her heels twice and her friends appear.
Evil Witch: I’ll take care of you, Scarecrow!
Narrator: Look! She lit his straw on fire!
(Dorothy takes a bucket of water and douses the Evil Witch with it)
Evil Witch: Oh, No. I’m melting! I’m melting! What a world!
Tinman: I’ll take her broom…
Lion: and show the Wizard of Oz what we did.
All (sing): We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz. 
Narrator: In Emerald City, they approach the Wizard.
Wizard of Oz (Happily receiving the broom): I see you killed the witch! Now I will give you what you need.  Scarecrow, here’s your brain! Tinman, your heart! And Lion, your pride!  
Dorothy: (Crying) I want to go home!
Wizard of Oz: Oh Dorothy, I thought you knew! Your shoes can take you home.
Dorothy: But how?
Wizard of Oz: Tap your heels together twice, and say: “There’s no place like home”
Dorothy (Tap twice): There’s no place like home… Goodbye, my friends.  
All: Goodbye Dorothy!
Narrator 2: When Dorothy opens her eyes, she is back home.
Dorothy: Thanks to the ruby slippers, I have returned safely home. All my friends worked together to defeat the bad witch.
All: Working together: Teamwork! 
Scarecrow: And Respect for your friends’ dreams
All:  All work together for a common dream. And the dream that you dare dream really will come true.
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Teacher David's Coming to Town for the Holidays

     American holidays, from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, don't mean much to Taiwanese middle school students. Even Christmas, that ubiquitous commercial undertaking is a regular school day here; so is New Year's Eve. Surely some teachers in public schools pay attention to it, and EFL after-school centers take advantage of the bright lights on artificial evergreen trees  to drum up business and promote "winter camps" they run on the weeks after public school lets out in mid-January leading up to the Lunar New Year, this year falling on February 2nd. Only on New Year's Day do students have off, but if it falls on a weekday, they have to make it up with classes on a Saturday, anyway. 
     Because of my American upbringing, with special dinners and days off from school, and my Jewish heritage celebrating Hanukkah in December according  to the lunar calendar, I have the spirit and like to share it. Taiwanese students have a conception of America as a 'Christmas' country and I like to rectify that misconception . So when the Kang-Chien Publishing agents come calling me for enrichment or judging assignments at public school contests, I am happy to go.  
    On Saturday, December 8th I did a three hour enrichment program at Jia-Tong Middle school in Changhua. I did a “Season’s Greetings” program. It was the first of a number of holiday events leading up to the Lunar New Year on February 5th.

The event in Yuanlin county went very well. Twenty middle school students got a lot out of it and had a great time with my "Season's Greetings" PPT and activities.         The teacher that asked for me through the publisher's agent had never seen anything like it. She said when The Ministry of Education sent an expat for enrichment, they usually played Monopoly with the children or wasted their time. But from the start, with my ten-page booklet, I mixed the children into homogeneous groups with a 'one-to-five count off', used a reported speech introduction, and  taped the large posters  to the back wall of the classroom fir presentations after cooperative learning preparation. 
     The four group members, to the organizing and copying their report on the posters to prepare for oral presentations, it wall all a revelation that I hope the teacher, her colleague whom she beckoned, and principal who stopped by to make a cameo. They then had a YouTube viewing and singing of George Harrison's "Ding-Dong Ding-Dong" before I went into the final component; a telling of "Gift of the Magi"
that the students understood and appreciated. If I had managed time a little better and the other side of the posters were blank, the children could have then done a re-telling of the story from recollection written for reports, but I took my time and didn't rush. It all worked out well. 
 On December 24th,  I was a judge at an English choral competition. 
     Then, on December 27, I was asked to officiate at an English Recitation contest at Shuang-Wen. The students had prepared well for it but the rules were not fair;  Participants were told prepared to read three very short stories from their ESL textbooks. Then, they were randomly given one to read. The problem was the stories were not evenly difficult. 
     A foreigner from another publisher judged with me. I saw him looking over at my score sheet in amazement at the detail; 40% each pronunciation and intonation, 20% body language. I subtracted a point for each error I detected. I didn't ask how the other invited foreign judge scored. It was a pleasant end to an enjoyable holiday teaching English in Taiwan. 
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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Like a Cog in Their Spelling Bee

         On April 10, 2019, I read and judged the last oral part of a spelling bee at Chung-De Middle School this afternoon. I have officiated at a number of spelling bees in Taiwan middle schools but this one was the worst, for me and the young participants.
     The organizers of this spelling bee made up their own rules.Their rules implied a student who incorrectly spelled was immediately replaced by a substitute if the sub could spell the word correctly; a dozen times I had to read the same word and sentences, twice.
     They had me standing in the front of a full gymnasium surrounding around fifty classmates form various classes on stools wearing their class shirt with cardboard whiteboards on their laps with a tissue and marker in their hands I read the word, sentence (without the errors) and word again before some cockamamie music timed them ten seconds. They didn’t turn the air-conditioner on until well into the program and I was glad they did. 
      When they narrowed the pool down to five, the children were lined up in front of the two desks near the stage. I had stood the entire two hours as instructed but a few female teachers took the liberty to sit behind those desks for a better view. I was asked to read the word and sentence and have the finalists spell the word out-loud into a microphone, some clearly some not. One girl spelling “exercise” I had to ask twice and get closer to hear. The third time she said the word, she spelled it correctly but one teacher behind the desk begged to differ and commented that the girl had spelled it incorrectly. “Not to my ears,” I said, 
but she insisted to have her way. I told her that she could be the judge if she wanted and stepped back to the side of the finalists. I asked the MC if he wanted me to judge as well as read and he looked befuddled and waved me on. To the next two students who spelled correctly I commented, “It sounded good to me.” It was then that it seemed to me the teachers behind the desk were asked by the organizer to leave and off they went to the side. I finished judging the students spelling with no suggestions from the peanut gallery. I was not apologized to. A few students seemed to snicker at their wise-ass teacher. The MC was trouble enough jumping around the list he gave me choose words out-of-order that he thought the contests should spell. 
        I was treated like a cog in their whims and not given professional consideration . So often it happens in Taiwan schools that the foreigners asked to officiate at an event are window dressing and not respected. Though some schools do have the children's interests at heart, there is no reason to invite a foreigner unless it adds to the event's reputation. This one did not. I will not do a spelling bee at that school again if they ask me.
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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