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New course combines speech and theater
by Mac Markstaller
MAR95002@BYUI.EDU
Scroll Staff
As the education program expands at BYU-Idaho, it is providing more options for students in a variety of education majors. Its newest option provides a required class for both communication and theater education majors, called Theater and Speech Methods.
This class is required for all those who are theater and speech education majors and minors and needs to be taken before students complete their student teaching.
Theater and Speech Methods is designed to give students tools and practical methods for their student teaching. It helps students get real-world experience teaching, rather than just studying the theories that apply to teaching. It is a class that helps students transition from those theory-type classes to their student teaching, Roger Merrill, Theater and Speech Methods professor, said.
“The greatest challenge for a professor teaching this class is finding opportunities to get college students into high schools before they do their student teaching. There are only so many high schools near Rexburg that we can go to. We are now trying to find different experiences to help them, such as being a sort of teachers’ assistant in some of the classes here on campus. This is a great class to get students involved in teaching,” he said.
One section of this course will be taught each school year. It will rotate semesters in which it is taught.
“I’m really excited about this class. It will also be a fun and practical class,” Sharon Marotz, a junior from Ashton, Idaho, and a member of the class, said. “We will actually be doing things rather than just talking about doing them. I’m looking forward to going into the high schools ... and actually doing some teaching,”
For more information on the class, contact Bro. Merrill, Ext. 1274. His office is located in the Snow building, Room 203.
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