A primary responsibility of dance teachers is technical instruction. However, this task does not simply involve demonstrating a particular technical skill, then having the dancers perform it. Rather, instruction is a complex interaction of physical, motor, psychological, and communication skills that occur between the dance teacher and dancers. As a result of this complexity, the education of teachers in the learning process is essential for sound teaching and effective skill acquisition.
The Learning Process
Perhaps the most central question that teachers must ask when studying the issue of effective instruction is, “How do people acquire physical skills?” Without understanding the learning process, it is difficult to determine the most effective means of teaching. Motor learning experts suggest that the learning of physical skills is composed of four steps that must be accomplished in sequence in order to produce rapid, consistent, and lasting learning.
1. Intellectual understanding.
This stage emphasizes the importance of dancers having an understanding of the incorrect and correct means of executing a skill. In other words, they must understand what they did wrong and how to correct it. Without this awareness at the intellectual level, transfer to physiomotor learning will be no more than a trial-and-error procedure. It should be noted that two groups of dancers seem able to by-pass this stage: Young children and highly gifted dancers. These individuals rely primarily on imitation to learn.
2. Kinesthetic awareness.
In order to acquire new skills or change old ones, it is necessary to develop kinesthetic or muscle awareness. That is, dancers must have a sense of what their bodies are doing and where they are in space. To determine dancers’ muscle awareness, the teacher may use a simple test. Ask them to close their eyes and to assume a ready position in preparation for the execution of a particular skill, e.g., demi plie. Next, ask them to describe their body position. Teachers will find significant error in the responses of most dancers indicating that they do not have precise kinesthetic awareness. It should also be noted that this awareness seems to be related to ability level; the better the dancer, the greater the muscle awareness.
Useful methods for developing kinesthetic awareness include having dancers watch themselves in the mirror or on video and having dancers direct their concentration onto their body during performance of a skill, e.g., focus on arm position while doing a demi plie. This refocusing allows them to gain conscious awareness of what their body is doing and how it is moving.
3. Initial motor learning.
The third step in this process is where the actual learning begins and there is the first evidence of technical development. At this point, a simplified environment is essential, in which the teacher has the dancer perform with no distracting variable, e.g., in the studio rather than on stage. Dancers are then able to correctly execute the new skill. However, at this early stage of learning, the ability to maintain proper execution deteriorates with the inclusion of additional variables, e.g., a series of dance movements.
This phase is perhaps the most crucial in the learning process. In examining the acquisition of skills, it is important to understand that motor learning involves teaching the muscles to move reflexively through a specific motion. During learning, this component should be the principal focus.
The following is a common scenario with which teachers are often faced. A teacher has her dancer make a technical change and it results in the dancer performing poorly at first. The dancer tells the teacher that the change obviously does not work because she is performing below her previous level. The dancer then returns to her more reliable but less effective technique.
However, most dancers do not realize that they are performing poorly not because they are executing the skill incorrectly, but rather because the technical change has effected their timing and they are thinking so much about the skill, they are not executing the overall performance well, e.g., thinking about the head and arms and not about the total movement. Furthermore, the only way this process can occur is through repetition of the proper movement. Once the neuromuscular training has taken place, timing with the new skill returns in a short time and dancers can then think more about the artistry of dance.
Another notable concern in this stage is concentration. Dancers’ ability to concentrate on the appropriate cues is essential for effective learning. In order to address this issue, it will be useful to, first, explain what concentration is, and then, apply it to the learning process.
Good concentration involves focusing on things that are necessary to perform. However, it is important to point out the differences between good learning vs. performance concentration. The learning phase requires dancers to focus on different things than in performance. A difficulty that often arises is that during the learning phase, dancers focus too much on the overall performance of the movement rather than on those elements that will enable them to acquire the specific skill.
The primary focus while learning should be the dancers’ own bodies, specifically their kinesthetic awareness and motor control, and the skill to be learned. If the focus is not appropriate, the new skill is forgotten, old habits return, and no learning takes place. So, contrary to popular conception, at the initial stage of learning, performing can be detrimental to learning by interfering with proper concentration.
Teachers can assist their dancers in maintaining the proper concentration. Perhaps the best method to accomplish this task is with the use of cuing. Cuing consists of repeating a word that will remind the dancers to concentrate on the learning relevant aspects of the performance rather than on the performance itself. For example, if a dancer is working on turn out, the teacher can repeat the phrase,”turn out”, continually as the dancer is rehearsing. After the correct skill has been demonstrated consistently with the cuing from the teacher, the dancer may then use self-cuing, first overtly, then covertly, i.e., the dancer says it to herself as she performs, until the skill is executed without cuing. At this point, it may be assumed that the new skill has been learned to a degree where the dancer may advance to the final stage of the learning process.
4. Generalization.
The fourth stage involves generalization of the skill to increasingly more complex settings. The generalization process for a dancer working on turn out, for example, might go as follows: working on turn out in dance class, during rehearsal, then in performance on stage, beginning with performance of lesser importance and moving up to performances of increasing importance.
Expectations and Goals
A significant influence on the successful completion of this stage is the expectations and goals that dancers develop when learning new skills. Too often, dancers have unrealistic expectations and set unreachable goals relative to learning. Typically, they learn a new skill and then expect to use it immediately and effectively during performance. The subsequent and predictable failure to achieve these expectations causes anger and frustration. As a result, they may view their learning experience as negative, thereby reducing the likelihood that they will strive to improve in the future. In addition, dancers are inclined to attribute their failure to themselves, which may result in a loss in self- confidence and a decrease in the motivation to learn. It is important for teachers to explain the learning process to their dancers, to inform them of its likely course, and to assist them in developing reasonable expectations and goals. Demonstrating the probable learning curve is of particular value. Most dancers have the misconception that learning occurs in a consistent, linear fashion, i.e., improved performance follows directly from learning. However, learning and performance, in fact, follow a cyclic pattern. In other words, the early stages of learning tend to produce a temporary drop in performance. It is at this point that the muscles are being retrained and are not yet able to respond effectively, resulting in a transient period of poor performance. However, in the later stages of learning, performance returns to and surpasses its original level.
Teachers can facilitate the acquisition of skills by educating their dancers about the learning process, the progression of generalization, and the time that is required for the process to reach completion. As a result, teachers can minimize the likelihood that their dancers will have a negative learning experience and maximize the feelings of satisfaction that are derived from the process of learning and improvement.
