This study focused on the turning point in the growth of one effective instructor in implementing expressive exercises at an elementary school. By understanding how this subject improved his/her skills as a instructor from the time when he was unskilled, through interviews with the study subject himself/herself and other people who were involved, as well as through analysis of the teaching materials in which the study subject had a part in, the aim was to come up with a guideline for helping dance coaches improve their skills. As a result, we summarized the skills required of an instructor in expressive exercises into the following three points: “Basic concept of instruction,”“Children’s perspective” and “Method of implementation.”
・Understand what movements the children find interesting to express. Always capture this greater relationship between the children and the expression.
・To not let the children’s expressiveness end simply as mimicking, the instructor himself/herself should accurately capture the characteristics of the movements examined in the material and guide them by mixing in his/her own movements.
・In order to encourage distinct (extreme) movements and a variety (diversification) instead of repeating the same movements, use words to guide the children’s movements to an interesting direction. <Basic concept of instruction>
・When children feel that expressing is a good thing, they naturally adapt on their own.
・It is not good if children can only make movements that they have been taught. Value the importance of children taking the initiative to create movements on their own. <Children’s perspective>
・Be committed to providing lessons that make the children happy and train their eyes so that they continue learning with their fellow students and capture the essence of the expressions.
・When encountering a new instructing method or learning style, flexibly incorporate the advantages of that method into your own practice. <Method of implementation>
View full abstract
