Universal Miming Tool

Aims of the tool

The activity attempts to combine several elements of the educational process, starting with either miming or general knowledge questions, through use of modern communication technology, to brainstorming an issue based on previous experience and knowledge, to the final miming/drama act as well as identifying other students’ miming, followed by a discussion about the chosen topic

Description of the tool

The game starts with the teacher distributing pieces of paper with two phrases relating to one topic. These could be: animals, emotions, nationalities, sports, etc. There are always two of each animal, emotion etc. and through miming the students have to find their “partner” in the group.
Alternatively, the phrases may be totally out of the blue and students collectively would have to figure out the connections, to find their partners. For example these “assorted” pairs might include: a chemical molecule’s name and symbol, a date of an event and its significance, a writer and his novel, a country and its capital city, a continent and its unique animal, a colour and what it universally symbolises. Depending whether you want to test students’ general knowledge, or recycle particular material you could choose one area, or a mix of various subjects.
Once all the pairs have found one another, [it might be a good idea for them to perform the same animal sound – to avoid confusion, or explain their way of thinking while agreeing with their partner that, they should be together]. Next the students receive a task which is to come up with a couple of different concepts connected by one denominator, discuss them and by the means of miming present to the whole group, so that other students are able to guess the concepts’ meaning. A variation to the traditional way of simply distributing the slips of paper with the subjects written on them may be to put two parts of a QR code on the other side of the cards that were initially used to
combine students in pairs. After being read by means of a special phone application, these QR codes could translate into the subject area [up to 300 characters] that is to be covered in the second stage of the lesson or lead to another intermediate task, before the final section of the lesson…
Once the pairs have discovered their subjects, they are asked to brainstorm the issue at hand and come up with 3-5 different concepts connected with it. Also here the subjects may be organised around a certain area (say a revision of material before a test intended to recycle certain concepts) or simply concern a set of odd topics. [Alternatively the students may be asked to present a particular issue connected with one common area, which might later be used during an extensive debriefing]

Sample areas include: historical periods, political systems, natural disasters, sports, social problems, climate zones, IT concepts, astronomical terms, biological terms, human rights, music styles, art styles, etc…
Sample subjects developed by the students might include:
- Historical periods: ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, medieval times, renaissance, etc.
- Political systems: democracy, communism, dictatorship, feudalism
- Biological terms: photosynthesis, GMO, vaccination, evolution
- IT concepts: firewall, computer virus, resolution, laser printer
- Social problems: poverty, homelessness, homophobia, affirmative action
After coming up with a list of the concepts connected with the main subject, the students discuss with each other the way they will present them and later, act out their miming routine to the remaining groups. The students in the audience are informed about the area that the presenting team covers and have to guess what particular issues are being presented by the mimes.

QUESTIONS FOR [AN EXTENSIVE] DEBRIEFING

- Why did you focus on these issues within your subject matter?
- [Which one is the most pressing? Why do you think so?]
- [Which one mostly affects individuals, which affects communities?] - optional
- Which one was the most difficult to present?
For the audience:
- What made you guess each concept?
- What would you show differently? How?