Every Tuesday, two groups of our ESOL students head down the road for a drama workshop with Chichester Festival Theatre. These sessions offer asphaleia ESOL students the chance to express themselves in creative ways, while also practicing their speaking skills. It gets them up and out of the classroom, into a safe space to move around, joke, laugh, relax and engage with each other in an informal setting. Last week, as a lot of our learners are currently observing Ramadan, the workshop coordinators decided to have them engage in a relaxed drawing session.
It is important for young learners to be given the opportunity to be creative, as education is not only about progress and test scores. In previous sessions, the young people discussed things that make them happy. Answers varied from tangible and intangible things and gave the young people an opportunity to look at the big picture.
The recent session prompted the young people to draw some of those things that make them happy. They started by drawing the first letter of their first name and then were encouraged to decorate it with what joy and happiness means to them. Each young person interpreted this prompt differently and the end product was a lovely mosaic of individuality.
