Fri, 31 Mar 2006

Teaching Set Dancing - the right way
I'm gradually building up a set of techniques to teach new sets, and more complicated ones. The methods I have so far are:

• Don't teach anything new in the last half of your class.
• Demonstrate it first with an experienced set that you've either practiced it with beforehand or are good enough to be able to do it to your call.
• OTOH, only demonstrate the minimum you have to do show how something works. Walking and dancing through something will teach it far quicker and better, and they're more fun for everyone.
• Take it apart and teach small units first. For instance, teach 'slides' as a unit and get the class to the stage where people can do all of the slides from the single call with no other prompting.
• For 'meanwhile' bits, walk each concurrent part through separately. Then walk it through with everyone doing it simultaneously. Pause frequently at logical points (e.g. where everyone swings) to maintain time synchronisation.
• Do not allow people to walk ahead of the call, to talk to their partners while you're instructing the set, or to 'play around' and add stuff in to a set that others are still learning. No matter how experienced they are, it confuses everyone.
• Once you've taught the 'meanwhile' bit, dance just that bit. If necessary, dance the first part of the dance, then the second, then both together, then the third, and so on.
• Once the set(s) can dance the whole figure through, move the men between the sets. This keeps everyone in their original orientation but changes partners around so they can't say "I go to Fred and then to Bill and then to Jim". Dance it again. Then move the ladies around the circle clockwise, so everyone has a new partner and half of the people are in a different orientation. Dance it again.
• Swap people in after you've moved everyone on. If two real beginners are together after all of this, swap people around and/or swap people in from the sidelines so that you've got a more even spread of experience.
• Have a break for a drink of water, or tea, or whatever, reasonably regularly so that people can relax and think and talk. It's a social occasion, after all...
• Compliment them frequently on how well they're doing. Point out people who did something particularly well and use that as a lesson for the others. I know this sounds rehearsed but I usually find this flows out of me unconsciously - if people are doing the right thing tell them so ASAP!
• Try to keep correcting individuals to a minimum - instead tell the whole class of the thing you want them to avoid. But if someone asks you a question, do not hesitate to answer it and help them work out the problem they're having.
• Once again, demonstrating something is worth a thousand words. Walking it through with the other person to show them how fast a turn is or how to hold the other person, for example, will always work much better than just telling them what to do.
• Once you've taught an entire set, immediately dance the whole thing through again from start to finish. Read the top item of this list again.
• Have a couple of stock dances, like the Caledonians, the Balleyvourney Jig Set, or the Clare Lancers, that you know everyone can do to fill in the time at the end of your class rather than try and teach another set late in the class.

All posts licensed under the CC-BY-NC license. Author Paul Wayper.