Working with a puppet

Working with a glove puppet can give you your own classroom assistant.

You can encourage the pupils to speak by telling them the puppet is shy. Shy pupils
will often respond to a puppet when they are not confident about speaking to an adult.
You can correct mistakes by having the puppet repeat the pupils’ responses correctly
and getting the whole class to repeat after the puppet.
You can develop confidence by asking pupils to perform a song with their puppets in the
target language.
You can improve classroom behaviour by using the puppet as a good or naughty pupil
and showing the pupils your response to him or her.
You can ‘free’ your own voice by having the puppet read a story to the younger pupils.

See a teacher using puppets to model a conversation for a class of pupils on the Primary
Languages Training Zone at
http://www.primarylanguages.org.uk/training_zone/teachers/active_learning/drama
/puppets.aspx

Pupils respond well to puppets when they see them as ‘real people’. Consider how you
can make sure that your puppet becomes and stays ‘real’ to the pupils. Think about
building a ‘story’ to introduce your puppet for the first time.

Using a puppet to speak English

Sometimes you will have to explain something to your pupils in English. It is good
practice to explain the lesson objective in English, but you might like to keep speaking
the target language yourself. By using a puppet, to act as your interpreter, you can
‘whisper’ to the puppet and the puppet will tell the class in English what they are going to
do. The pupils will love this, and you can add to the fun by setting up a conversation
between the puppet, the pupils and yourself.
If your puppet is to remain real to the pupils you must decide from the outset if he
or she speaks just your language, just English or both.
Which language you have your puppet speak will affect how you use it in the classroom.
If your puppet speaks only English, you cannot then use him or her to correct pupils’
mistakes in your language. You need to be consistent.
Puppet making
Don’t go out and buy an expensive toy. Ask the school if they have any puppets.
You can make a puppet out of a sock and some buttons. You could work with the class
teacher to set up a craft activity so that everyone in the class makes their own puppet.
You could guide them through the steps in the target language and teach the words for
sock, buttons, needle, thread, scissors and cut. Younger pupils could achieve the same
results with circles of felt and some glue.
When everyone has a puppet you have a marvellous opportunity to develop and practise
simple conversations, and the puppets can be shy, grumpy, sad, noisy…
You can see some pupils working with puppets on the Primary Languages Training Zone
at
http://www.primarylanguages.org.uk/training_zone/teachers/using_the_ks2_frame
work/oracy/puppet_conversation_-_new.aspx

Another very useful resource is a story sack. This contains toys or puppets needed to tell
a story.