What is Teacher in Role (TiR)?
Teacher in Role refers to the teacher working in role, within class drama. It is usually highly engaging for students of any age. The roots of TiR lie in dramatic play, when empathetic adults often play naturally and purposefully alongside children, within shared, imagined worlds. The teacher in a drama lesson might work in role but also has responsibility for structuring the drama lesson. TiR is likely to be just one of the strategies used within a lesson.
Why would a teacher go into role?
Teacher in role can be used to:
- Gain, focus and sustain the student's attention on a particular character and/or situation
- Stimulate and provoke cognitive and affective responses
- Impart information
- Gather information about what the students in role know and think within the drama and what they might want/need to know next
- Model different ways of speaking, responding and behaving in different situations
- Introduce problems and challenges for the students to consider and resolve together in role
- Shift the usual teacher/student relationship dynamics in a time-limited and safe way.
The role the teacher chooses and how they play it will influence how the students are able and likely to respond in role.
For example, the TiR might be someone who:
- needs their help
- poses a threat
- is facing the same situation as them
- brings information they want or need
- wants to find out what they know, think and feel
- brings a problem or challenge to them.
A single TiR role might involve several of the above, e.g. the TiR as a migrant washed on their beach with his raft needs their help, might pose a real or imagined threat, have information they would want to know, and also present them with a moral and practical dilemma.
Teachers can change the status and functions of their TiR
When the status and function of the TiRs vary, the level and types of demands and opportunities for the students vary accordingly.
High status: Teachers should avoid consistently adopting high status roles in the drama, which keep them safely ‘in control’, e.g. the teacher as powerful King and the students as obedient subjects. The more control the teacher in role has, the less free the students are to speak. However, a teacher could step out of role and ask the students now to speak aloud their inner, ‘in role’ thoughts about the king.
Low status roles: When teachers take on low status roles, (e.g. the migrant washed up on the beach), they give more responsibility and ownership to the students. The students can decide what happens next. The teacher (in and out of role) will ensure they engage with the consequences of their actions.
The more control the teacher in role has, the less free the students are to speak
Equal status roles: A teacher can have the same role as the students, e.g. they are all villagers together dealing with a situation.
Information-giving role: The teacher may use TiR to give information, e.g. TiR as a messenger from a neighbouring kingdom, warning villagers that warriors are approaching.
Information gathering role: A TiR can be used to gather information, e.g. TiR as the Mayor's representative, who is calling at houses in Hamelin to gather evidence of the rat infestation.
How do I start a Teacher in Role?
The class needs to know when their teacher is in or out of role. Don't unexpectedly go into role and hope the students will work it out and join in.
You don't need to be a great actor but you do need to be convincing, by maintaining the role with seriousness, commitment and purpose.
- You can simply tell the class that you will be taking on a role for a while, that you will turn away from them and when you turn to face them again, you will be in role.
- You might sign the role in some way, e.g. ‘When I am in role as the reporter, I will carry this notebook. When I put the notebook down, I am ‘out of role’ or, ‘When I sit on this chair, I am the priest. When I get off the chair, I am no longer the priest.’
- You might try first going into role for just a minute or two. You can then stop, step out of role to check the students understand the process, and then go back into role for longer.
- You can take on several different TiRs in the same drama at different times, as long as it is clear which role you are in at any given time.
- You should only stay in role for as long as it takes to achieve the objectives of the role.