The English Studies Department Makes the Most of the Teacher’s Voice and Body Language
Κολέγιο CITY College
Main Campus, Thessaloniki, Greece
22 March 2019

The English Studies Department Makes the Most of the Teacher’s Voice and Body Language

The English Studies Department was fortunate to host its second Personal and Professional Development Seminar on Tuesday, 19th March. Our guest speaker, Dr. Luke Prodromou, with an extensive background in drama, theatre as well as teaching (TEFL, TESOL) delivered a seminar/performance titled: Making the Most of the Teacher’s Voice and Body Language.   

Dr. Luke Prodromou delivered a seminar/performance titled: Making the Most of the Teacher’s Voice and Body Language

Dr. Prodromou began his seminar by warming up the audience. With the accompaniment of reggae music he asked those attending to stand, stretch and even sing along; in other words to warm-up their voice and bodies. After that, the audience got a taste of Dr. Prodromou’s performance capabilities as he introduced himself in a variety of ways just using his voice and body language as instruments.

According to Dr. Prodromou, a teacher’s voice is a vital instrument for getting and keeping students’ attention. Having a voice physically means we have to learn how to use it pedagogically. Our guest speaker drew our attention to the significance of the loudness of our voice, the variety that intonation and stress provide, the effect of pacing as well as the importance of pauses. Everything that Dr. Prodromou raised through his seminar he actually employed with his own voice and body language thus providing an educational and entertaining experience.

The International Faculty CITY College English Studies Department Makes the Most of the Teacher’s Voice and Body Language

The examples, however, do not end there. Dr. Prodromou also saw the need to initially have the audience reflect on their voice and how they use it. He called on the audience to observe and comment on other examples of voices, both audio – from an array of his own recordings – and audiovisual examples from films ranging from the golden era of Hollywood to more relatively recent ones like Dead Poets Society (1989) and Dangerous Minds (1995).

Pair work and group work were not missing from this particular seminar. Challenges also included trying to successfully recite tongue-twisters, to identifying the importance and effect of pauses used by teachers in film to considering the humorous and engaging effect mimicking well-known actors/characters could even have.

The final portion of the seminar focused on the importance of body language. Dr. Prodromou focused on actors portraying teachers in films and informed the audience of various studies that have been conducted examining to what extent the body language employed by these actors is actually representative of teachers or not.

If anything is to be maintained from such a seminar it is that if – to quote Shakespeare – “All the world’s a stage” (As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII), then a classroom is the teacher’s stage and ought to be used to the fullest for a successful teaching/learning experience.

 

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