NET Scheme News 2024 Spring issue 45

We were invited to organise a professional development workshop at Joint Carmel Schools Staff Development Day on 3 November 2023. All of the primary and secondary NETs attended the workshop where they shared some of the achievements and the vision for the school sponsoring body. The focus was enriching the English language environment and we chose to present a process drama workshop which introduced some transferrable skills for students.The topic on ‘the use and impact of food delivery robots in certain Hong Kong locations’ seemed difficult, and our task involved taking teachers through highly scaffolded processes that they could then use with their students. We chose teacher- in-role drama as it is highly engaging for students of any age and is a medium which makes it possible to present topics which may appear very challenging, yet in a more accessible way. Teachers analysed poetry and images about the detriment of mechanisation; watched videos about delivery robots and finally used role cards to present the view of related stakeholders. Interestingly these stakeholders may have had entirely different views to the ones held by the teachers. The ‘in role’ stakeholders attended a public meeting which was run by the CEO of the robot food delivery system and aired their views about having robots in their neighborhood. This was engaging and explosive as teachers took on their roles with energy, arguing with the CEO, supporting each other and validating their points with strong evidence and examples. The teachers were debriefed and then used the ideas presented within the drama to have a discussion about the same topic. Teachers at all levels felt that this would work in their classrooms and could see how the ‘in-role’ drama gave students an opportunity to become an expert in expressing and validating an opinion. Our thanks go to the Carmel Schools’ Management who organised the day and facilitated the interaction between the primary and secondary teachers. Luana Hasell and Craig Robertson, Regional NET Coordinators NET Section 16 NET Scheme News Issue 45 Enriched Learning Experiences Widening Life Experience without Leaving the Classroom