At the start of the curriculum unit, students will be asked a series of questions about how stories are told – through words alone, written on a page or in a book, recited, or told through illustrations? They will discuss and give examples of various ways of telling a story, including those using new technologies, such as digital stories and applications like Talk'n Photos, Storybird, and Book Creator. Students may be greeted at the start of class with related cartoons, projected on the board, from websites such as Cartoonstock.com to generate motivation and engagement. Several images on this site are directly connected to the cave paintings and the Bayeux Tapestry.
The Lascaux Cave Paintings
I plan to introduce this curriculum unit to my sixth-grade students early in September, not long after the start of school. This coincides with the anniversary of the discovery of the Lascaux cave paintings, September 12, 1940, and starts students off relating French words to illustrations instead of English translations.
Using illustrations in text, video, and internet resources, students will learn the words for various animals and colors and begin their "pictogram" note-taking (French vocabulary accompanied by sketches).
The Lascaux Cave is located in the Dordogne region in southwestern France, an area known for its rich prehistoric cave art. What set Lascaux apart was the state of preservation of the cave paintings when, in September, 1940, four teenage boys explored a previously sealed passage and discovered the immense underground galleries covered with colorful animals, birds, and hunters. Although word spread quickly of the boys' amazing find, world events intervened and Lascaux was closed due to World War II. In 1948, the cave was opened to the public. Despite having maintained their color and brilliance for over 17,000 years, the cave paintings began showing damage from exposure to heat and humidity. In 1963, after only fifteen years, the cave was closed. Twenty years later, a replica of the Lascaux cave was created to allow the public to view this magnificent example of our prehistory.
Various theories exist about why prehistoric artists painted Lascaux. The paintings may have been a historical record of the animals and their behavior; they may have been illustrations of legends and stories important to these unknown artists and their society, or given inspiration for a successful hunt. A recent article even suggests that the cave paintings were ancient cartoon illustrations.
Whatever the reason for their creation, the Lascaux paintings provide a well-preserved glimpse into the lives of our ancestors.
Suggested Classroom Activities
I will introduce my students to Lascaux and the cave paintings through a picture-walk, using Emily Arnold McCully's picture book,
The Secret Cave: Discovering Lascaux.
Instead of the printed, English text, we will "read" the pictures accompanied by my simple, condensed French adaptation of the story. (See Appendix 1.) Students will begin to make connections to French vocabulary for animals and action verbs as we describe the discovery of the long-sealed cave. Using images from the official Lascaux website, student drawings, and other sources, we will create flashcards and, later, a mural of the animals and figures depicted at Lascaux, with students writing descriptive labels in French. Resources, such as
How to Draw France's Sights and Symbols
, will help students to create replications of the Lascaux cave paintings.
Students will experiment with a powder-blowing technique used by the cave painters to "sign" their work on the mural.
Further exploration of the official website of the Lascaux cave
will allow students to go on a virtual tour of discovery of the cave paintings, using French vocabulary to describe what they see.
Students will learn simple action verbs to describe the pictures, e.g.
la vache rouge court
– the red cow runs. They will imitate the motions depicted as they are learning the words, using total physical response (TPR), a tool for teaching language through actions.
Students will assemble several images from the cave into a sequence that they can narrate in simple sentences. To construct sentences, they will use basic expressions such as:
il y a
(here is/there is), and
(it is). They will be introduced to sequencing expressions to help them narrate their stories in the proper order:
(at the beginning),
à la fin
(at the end), and
Students will take a virtual tour of the Lascaux Cave and locate specific animals pictured on a worksheet. They will locate Lascaux and the Dordogne region on a map of France. Working with a partner, students will use flashcards of animals from the cave paintings to play a matching and slapping game, (e.g.: call out an animal, touch/slap correct picture). They will use adjectives of size and color to describe various animals. Students will assemble and label sequenced images to tell a story. Students will work in pairs, asking and answering questions to describe images from the cave paintings. Together, the class will describe scenes – from single words, progressing to nouns with adjectives, short phrases, and simple sentences. (See Appendix 3, Figure 1.)
The Bayeux Tapestry
Students will move from prehistoric France to a pivotal time in French history – the Norman Conquest – as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. This sequence is logical as it relates to the school calendar, as the tapestry story ends on October 14, 1066 with the Battle of Hastings. It also transports students from southwestern France to the northern coast, continuing their discovery of the diversity of the country's geography and culture. Students will locate France and England on the map, as well as the English Channel/
and Normandy (Bayeux) and Sussex (Hastings).
The Bayeux Tapestry more closely resembles a long cartoon strip than an actual tapestry. Stretching nearly two hundred thirty feet in length and only twenty inches high, it is an embroidered linen record of the invasion of Great Britain by Guillaume de Normandie – William the Conqueror. Named for the town in Normandy on the northwestern coast of France where the epic tale begins, the Bayeux Tapestry follows the far-from-smooth transfer of power from the dying English king Edward to his Norman cousin William. King Edward sends his brother-in-law, Harold, to tell William that he will be the next king. While in France, Harold swears allegiance to William, but once back in England, he is crowned king when Edward dies. William gathers his army and sails to England to claim his throne from Harold.
The tapestry was made in about 1070, only four years after William was crowned king of England on December 25, 1066, possibly commissioned by William's half-brother, Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux.
Researchers debate whether the tapestry was made in England or France. Whether the tapestry is propaganda – depicting William's victory from the French perspective – or historically accurate is, again, a subject for debate, dependent, perhaps, on which side of the Channel (or
) one is. It does, however, give a contemporary insight into life in the eleventh century.
Suggested Classroom Activities
The tapestry is filled with action – soldiers and kings, scenes of battles, animals and ships – that will encourage description and classroom discussion. The images of pitched battle between William's and Harold's forces should have enough action to appeal to my video-game loving students. Embroidered in wool on nine linen panels stitched together, over six hundred people, fifty dogs, two hundred horses, and forty ships populate and animate the fifty-eight scenes that recount the victory of William over the traitorous Harold during the three years culminating at the battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066.
Students will follow a simple "story walk" through the major scenes of the tapestry and will be asked to make predictions – what will happen next? They will explore the tapestry in depth using museum websites, reference books, and even an animated YouTube video of the historical "cartoon."
Building on vocabulary and expressions practiced with the cave paintings, students will describe the animals, colors, and actions that they see. When creating their own tapestry stories, students may decide to change the outcome of the battle and discuss what changes that might make to history.
Discussion of the tapestry's historical setting will include connections to language arts and cognates as students explore the linguistic result of Norman-French influence in England for nearly three hundred years. The success of William's quest for the throne helps explain the vast number of words English has borrowed from French. French became the language of power relegating English to secondary status. It is estimated that over a third of English words come from French,
essentially giving our students a "head-start" as they begin their language learning.
Students will continue the individual, paired, and group activities used with the Lascaux cave paintings – naming, describing, and developing French sentences. (See Appendix 3, Figure 2.) They will use technology to sequence and create their own re-telling of the Norman Conquest. Several excellent websites provide thumbnails and paneled segments of the tapestry that can be manipulated by students to create a new version of the Bayeux epic.
Students will use interactive tools and images from the website of Britain's Bayeux Tapestry at the Reading Museum to create a "Bayeux comic strip" using French vocabulary – an individual tapestry Bayeux Tapestry slideshow.
Students will read or listen to descriptions of scenes from the tapestry and match the pictures to its description (class and paired activity). Scenes from the aforementioned Reading Museum website will be matched with mixed-up French captions. (See Appendix 2 for sample French sentences.) Students will discuss storytelling through sequential pictures and rearrange a series of tapestry scenes based on chronological clues given in French. They will draw and label an ending for the Bayeux Tapestry, which ends abruptly with Harold's death. Students will share their ending with the class, describing the scene in simple French.
Students will mark the length and width of the tapestry in a hallway. Perforated computer paper or a blank paper roll can be used to create a student-drawn condensed version of the Bayeux Tapestry with simple French captions.
The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestry
Qui est-elle? Quelle est l'histoire? C'est un mystère. Who is she? What is the story? It is a mystery, or rather, several mysteries. The six tapestries, collectively named
La Dame à la Licorne
(The Lady and the Unicorn), are considered by many to be the greatest works of medieval art. Yet the artist responsible for creating these fifteenth century masterpieces remains unknown. One piece of this puzzle has been solved. Based on clues in the tapestries, art historians have concluded they were commissioned by the Le Viste family: the flags in each tapestry bear the family coat of arms;
the lion represents the family's town of origin – Lyon; and the unicorn, as the symbol for speed, refers to "
] meaning "fast" in Old French.
Where the tapestries were made is uncertain – most likely they were woven in the workshops of northern France, the Netherlands, or in northern Belgium
based on "cartoons" (full-sized drawings) by an unknown Parisian artist.
The biggest mysteries remain unsolved: Were the tapestries meant as a gift? If so, to whom were they given? What did they commemorate? And most of all, what do they mean? Art historians agree that the first five panels of the tapestries represent the five senses: in
, the lady holds a mirror; in
, she plays a musical instrument; in
, she weaves a garland of flowers; in
, the lady takes a sweet from a dish; in
, her one hand holds the flag, the other touches the unicorn. It is the sixth panel of the tapestry series that is most mysterious. The tapestry bears the inscription "
&AGRAVE; Mon Seul Désir
" ([To] My Only Desire). The motto is ambiguous. Is it as a declaration of love or does
signify regret as in the Latin desiderium? Is the lady, seen putting away her necklace, giving up pleasure, maybe for a simple charitable or religious life?
Or, could this panel represent an idea, common in French writings of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, of the heart or the intellect (mind/spirit) as our sixth sense?
That there is no definitive explanation of this sixth panel will allow students to form, discuss, and defend their own meanings for the final tapestry of the series. At their elementary level of French language development, a discussion of the meaning of this panel would be conducted in English. However, the interest such a discussion would generate could serve as motivation for further inquiry and engagement in their studies of French.
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries are in the permanent collection of the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Unlike the narrow embroidered Bayeux Tapestry, the tapestries are large wall hangings woven of silk and wool. The six panels range in size from over ten feet to twelve feet high by over nine feet to fifteen feet wide.
is the smallest, while
My One Desire
is the largest. In each panel, a medieval lady is depicted in the center of the tapestry. She stands on a deep blue oval against a red backdrop, both of which are populated with animals and strewn with flowers and plants. Flanking her in the tapestries are fruit trees and a lion and a unicorn bearing red standards with three crescent moons against a blue diagonal stripe. In four of the tapestries, the lady is accompanied by her young handmaiden.
The tapestries have recently undergone a major two-year restoration and have been installed in a newly-designed room of the Cluny Museum, their home for over a century.
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries owe their preservation primarily to two prominent French writers of the nineteenth century. In the mid-1800s, both Prosper Mérimée and George Sand separately learned of a collection of spectacular, but deteriorating tapestries at the château of Boussac in central France.
Recognizing their beauty and their historical significance, despite their disrepair, Mérimée and Sand entreated the French government to remove the neglected tapestries from the château. (Mérimée heard that there were other tapestries once, but the former owner had "cut them up to cover carts and make rugs out of them.")
Thanks to these writers, the Commission des Monuments Historiques of the French government intervened to preserve these medieval masterpieces and purchased the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in 1882.
Suggested Classroom Activities
Students will be introduced to the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries using the series of questions at the beginning of this section. The students will be divided into five groups, each being assigned a tapestry depicting one of the senses. (The sixth, most enigmatic tapestry would be saved for a whole class discussion at a later time.) Students would be asked to make observations about their tapestry. They would work together, negotiating in French to notice, name, and describe everything they can, using expressions that they have learned during this unit. In English, students would next discuss what they think is going on and try to determine what the tapestry is about. Students could even suggest a title for their tapestry. Each group would share their observations and interpretations, so that students realize on their own that the tapestries depict the five senses. Once students have described what they can in French, new vocabulary will be introduced using images from the tapestries to illustrate the unicorn, lion, servant, lady, etc. This technique of closely observing artworks before interpreting them is described by Friedlaender and Friedlaender of the Yale University School of Medicine and the Yale Center for British Art in their article, "Art in Science: Enhancing Observational Skills."
This method serves as a means to enhance communication skills, as students use descriptive language to convey what they see. It also strengthens their observational skills, forcing them to focus on details.
The final tapestry would be introduced separately following this development of vocabulary and meaning. Students would be asked to make detailed observations, in French, of what they see in the tapestry. They would be asked for interpretations and opinions. How does this fit with the other five tapestries? What do you think it is about? What might it mean? Students would have the opportunity to present their opinions, along with their "supporting evidence," i.e. anything they noticed in the tapestry. Students will try to use French for their observations, if not for their opinions. Once the class has shared their ideas, students could be told that this is the final, unsolved mystery of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. The class could discuss some of the theories and vote on which they think is the most likely explanation, whether that of a scholarly art historian or that of one of the students. In his book,
Pictures for Language Learning
, Andrew Wright contends that opportunities for students to express and debate opinions strengthen their language acquisition and development.
Students will participate in the individual, paired, and group activities previously described to increase their ability to use French for descriptions. (See Appendix, Figure 3.) Students will be able to use vocabulary from the cave paintings and Bayeux tapestry to describe the colors, activities, and animals in the unicorn tapestries. They will be introduced, through tapestry images and flashcards, to new vocabulary: lady, unicorn, lion, monkey, flowers, etc. The tapestry panels themselves will be used to introduce students to the vocabulary of the five senses.
Students will compare and contrast the Bayeux and unicorn tapestries (style: embroidered or woven, border or no border, plain background or millefleurs background; purpose: historical record or enigmatic decoration; size: banner or wall mural). Students will also watch a YouTube video about the recent restoration of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries.
They will mark out the size of the Lady and Unicorn tapestries and compare the dimensions to the Bayeux Tapestry.
Students will make connections to their English vocabulary, building understandings of what words mean in different languages and how they evolve into the words and meanings we use today:
, originally meaning a full-size design for a painting, mural, or tapestry; from
(Italian) referring to the heavy paper stock on which the drawing was made – evolving into our meaning of a comic drawing.
Knowing the French word,
, for rug can help students make a connection to
(a rug for the wall) which conveys the idea that people used tapestries for warmth as well as for decoration – more like a mural that could be moved from one home to another to cover the cold stone walls. They would also notice how the English word, tapestry, relates to
from which it derives.
Students will match descriptions to pictures on the board and will work in pairs using unit vocabulary to describe a tapestry panel as completely as possible. They will use flashcards to match actions to vocabulary on board. Students will categorize images from all three major artworks studied – grouping by color, animal, action, media, etc. They will increase their geographic awareness of France and its European neighbors mapping the cities and regions where the tapestries were woven, discovered, and currently installed.
Les Bandes Dessinées: French Language Comics – Tintin and Astérix
Jumping to the twentieth century and, finally, to artwork that can be attributed to its creators, students will finish this unit learning about two of the best-known French language
. While students may not be familiar with these characters, they will be immediately comfortable with the medium of cartoons and graphic novels. The
, some dating back to before television and movies, let readers explore worlds of excitement, adventure, and mystery.
On January 10, 1929, a young Belgian reporter, named Tintin, and his faithful dog, Milou (Snowy, in the English version) were introduced to the world the Belgian children's magazine,
. Their first "assignment" was titled
Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter du Petit Vingtième au pays des Soviets. Their creator was the Brussels-born cartoonist, Georges Remi, known since the age of seventeen by his pen-name, "Hergé" (the French pronunciation of his inverted initials). Over the next fifty or more years, Tintin and Milou traveled the world, sharing twenty-three adventures. When Hergé died in 1983, at the age of seventy-five, he left a final adventure unfinished. He named no successor as he expressly wished that no other illustrator continue
Les Aventures de Tintin. Hergé, who, at fourteen years old, illustrated a magazine for the Belgian boy scouts, is considered one of Europe's most influential cartoonists. He was known for his precise, clean illustrations, a technique known now as the Ligne Claire (Clear Line). In addition to Tintin, Hergé created and illustrated numerous other cartoon characters.
Astérix le Gaulois
(Asterix the Gaul) was introduced on October 29, 1959 by French writer, René Goscinny and his partner, illustrator Albert Uderzo (French-born of Italian parents) in the first issue of their magazine,
Les Aventures d'Astérix
follow a fictional hero of village in Ancient Gaul and his companions as they battle the invading and occupying forces of Ancient Rome. For nearly ten years after this debut, Goscinny and Uderzo collaborated on Astérix while each also worked on other projects. In 1968, however, Uderzo devoted himself entirely to illustrating Astérix albums. The two created twenty-three albums of Astérix adventures until Goscinny's death at age fifty-one during a stress test. Since that tragic event, Albert Uderzo continued alone to write and illustrate the Astérix stories. It was announced in 2012 that the new team of artist, Didier Conrad and writer, Jean-Yves Ferri would take over for a retiring Uderzo. In October of 2013, the thirty-fifth album in the Astérix saga,
Astérix chez les Pictes
, was published.
Suggested Classroom Activities
Students will be introduced to these iconic
through albums in both French and English. They will use observational techniques with the French versions of these adventures: describing what they see and naming the colors, characters, animals, and actions that they have learned in French. Students may work with partners to "read" the pictures together. While the language may be difficult, the illustrations will enable them to make guesses or even to invent their own stories. Students will gain increased geographic awareness mapping the global adventures of
. Discussions of the Roman occupation of Gaul portrayed in the Astérix adventures will strengthen students' connection to their social studies courses while giving them the historical context, even if fictionally based, for the evolution of the French language and civilization from this Latin influence.
are still protected by copyright and their images are not available in the public domain for reproduction here. Images are easily found online for individual use and the books in these series are readily available in libraries and bookstores, in both French and English. The official websites for these
, listed in the Internet Resources of the Bibliography, provide lists and descriptions of the titles. Adventures to share with students might include
Tintin en Amérique
Le Secret de la Licorne
(recently released as a feature film), as well as
Astérix le Gaulois
Astérix chez les Belges
(the last story written by René Goscinny). Titles could also be chosen to use in conjunction with social studies units.
Throughout this curriculum unit, students will be informally assessed on their interpretive understanding and mastery of vocabulary. Students will listen to descriptions of various artworks – cave paintings, tapestries, cartoon albums – and choose the corresponding label or sentences. They will read descriptions of different scenes from the tapestries, and then put the pictures in the correct order of events.
The classroom activities will act as informal interpersonal assessments. As a more structured assessment, students will take turns playing a French guessing game with classmates, describing one out of a series of tapestry panels pictured, while their partner tries to match the description to corresponding picture. Each student would gain points for correct guesses, indicating comprehensible input and output – the speaker used enough language and vocabulary to be understood, and the listener understood enough vocabulary to correctly identify the picture. Students would take turns describing multiple scenes. Classmates would be encouraged to ask for clarification, allowing students to use French expressions and vocabulary to negotiate for meaning. The guessing game would be created using print and online sources and would feature a variety of scenes – differing colors, backgrounds, animals, settings, humans – to enable students to practice vocabulary and expressions from the entire unit.
Students will create, as a final presentational assessment, three panels of a cave painting, tapestry, or cartoon following a narrative of their own devising, in the style of one of the artworks studied. The panels would be sequenced to show a beginning, middle, and end and be captioned in simple French sentences (or as a differentiated assessment – labeled in French). The panels could be original images or manipulated versions (digital or drawn) of artwork studied in this unit. Students should show their understanding of the visual components of the artwork they are replicating, i.e. a tapestry in the Bayeux style would be "embroidered" in basic colors on a plain background with borders of animals or plants, while panels in the style of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries would feature a central figure in a richly-colored background that is vibrantly populated with flowers and animals. They may also use characters from the Franco-Belgian
for their projects. Students may use online comic strip creators or other digital applications to tell their sequenced story. Students would follow a project rubric listing language requirements as well as choices of style, activities, and characteristics of the elements. The project rubric would evaluate how well students were able to replicate the style of their chosen artwork, rather than assessing their artistic ability. If possible, collaboration with the art teacher would be ideal for this unit and assessment. More important than the students' creative ability is their ability to communicate in French. The scoring rubric will focus on language usage and mastery, as well as on the narrative and appropriate style of the story panels.


The history of African music recording and archiving can be seen most clearly and compellingly by detailing the history of a few key individuals, who were pioneers in their field. At the turn of the 20th Century, a colonised Africa was viewed as backward and void of any real culture worth preserving, which is why these ethnomusicologists were not only groundbreaking in their ideas, but revolutionary. They understood, far before the rest of the Western world could even comprehend, that traditional African music – with its complexity of rhythms, flair for storytelling and historical richness – was worth preserving.
Hugh Tracey 1903 – 1977
Arriving in Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe – in 1921 with his brother, who had been awarded land after his efforts in World War 1, the young man of only 18 years old had the foresight of a wise elder. He was surrounded by disdain for African culture from the Christian missionaries, who forbade the playing of the mbira, due to the pagan themes of ancestor worship and the insurrectional ideas gleaned from spirits that featured heavily in the songs. However, Tracey was able to see past the prejudice and ignorance. He was fascinated by the songs, which were sung by the Shona farmers, with whom he and his brother worked alongside on the tobacco fields. He was said to have been ‘bitten’ by Africa; ‘he got cultural malaria.’ Tracey, although very aware of the colonial oppression of African culture, or perhaps because of it, made it his life mission to record traditional African music; a mission which many others adopted after him. After making the first recording of indigenous Rhodesian music, being awarded the Carnegie Fellowship grant to study South Rhodesian music, with which he made over 600 recordings, and inspiring traditional English musicians, Ralph Vaughn Williams and Gustav Holst, at the Royal Academy of Music, who urged him to “discover every chord” of traditional African music, Tracey ran out of funding. He became a broadcaster, utilising every opportunity to promote African music.
However, he could not stay away from Africa long, and in 1946 realised someone needed to fully dedicate their time to “appraising the social value” of traditional African music, otherwise it would disappear. Tracey would have to step up and be that someone, especially at a time when African radios wanted to broadcast in their own regional vernaculars but had no recordings of regional music to play. He was lucky enough to obtain funding from Eric Gallo, who owned a recording label in South Africa. They had a “gentlemen’s agreement” that any artists Tracey discovered who had commercial potential, he would forward to Gallo. He therefore started the career of some of Africa’s first popular musicians, such as Jean Bosco Mwenda. Masanga, by Mwenda, was one of the first truly popular songs in Africa.
However, as Tracey’s particular concern was that the recordings he made were kept authentic and not manipulated for commercial use, he strayed from the popular African music he was helping to create, and continued to focus more on the traditional. He secured funding from various projects, after a lecturing tour in the UK, and set up The International Library of African music in 1954, where his 20000 recordings are today stored. The ILAM will be explored further in a later blog of this series.
- There are a few of Hugh Tracey’s recordings available online on the British Library Sound Archive, under the David Rycroft South African Collection. However, to play these you need to be studying further or higher education to obtain access to these.
- More Hugh Tracey, his Sounds of Africa and Music of Africa, can be found on the British Library Sound and Moving Image Catalogue – however, this simply confirms the existence of the recording. To listen to the recordings, one must make an appointment with the Listening Service to listen to the recordings on site at the British Library.
- Michael Baird produced 21 CDs of Tracey’s work; Historical Recordings of Hugh Tracey series. These can be bought online at SWP Records and a review of most of the CDs can be found here. Michael Baird said “The sad conclusion after compiling this series is that so much music recorded by HT [Hugh Tracey] has since disappeared — within the space of fifty years. This is something HT foresaw and why he spent most of his life recording this music for posterity. It was not so much Tracey’s ‘knack’ of being at the right place at the right time, but his awareness and vision coupled with organisation and his tremendous energy which give us the opportunity to listen to the many exceptional musicians he recorded today. In this series we are able to present many of the foremost musicians of the 20th century from this part of Africa — and that is a gift. It is especially a gift to the peoples involved, for the legacy as played by their forebears belongs to them.”
- ILAM has reissued, without modifications, on CD, Tracey’s Music of Africa Series
- Several albums can be bought on iTunes
Klaus Wachsmann 1907 – 1984
Wachsmann was a German born English ethnomusicologist, who travelled in Africa in 1937 as a missionary, serving in several offices in the Office of the Protestant Missions in Uganda. He was to do unpaid work with sacred music at Namirembe and with choral school choirs, before being promoted to more senior roles and then he was paid a salary. However, instead of quelling the African music culture – as those missionaries who Hugh Tracey encountered clearly did – Wachsmann lived for 20 years in Uganda working to preserve and archive it. During World War II, according to Peter Cooke in Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond, Wachsmann had his camera confiscated because he was regarded as a “friendly enemy alien”. This, coupled with the fact there was no running water at the Museum he was then to work in, explains why there are so few photographic records to go with his 1500 sound records. After his missionary work, he became Curator of the Uganda Museum and while there collected many musical instruments.
He received a grant from the British Government in 1949 – demonstrating that even Government authorities began to realise how essential documenting traditional African music was – which enabled him to record these 1500 recordings with the help of a sound engineer, who was responsible for the fantastic quality of the recordings, which he kept at the Uganda Museum. Wachsmann left Africa, and his tapes, in 1957 and worked in London as the Scientific Officer in charge of Ethnological Collections at the Wellcome Foundation until 1963. It was then that he was invited to become a lecturer at UCLA and was reunited with his tapes at the university, as the Uganda Museum did not have the equipment to archive them adequately. However, disaster struck and the tapes were unfortunately destroyed by a flood of the UCLA basement, demonstrating the difficulties of archiving with an easily destructible medium like reel-to-reel tapes and the importance of now digitising these perishable recordings. The sound engineer who had recorded the music with Wachsmann kindly offered up the copies he had made a kept aside.
Wachsmann went on to lecture at various universities and was awarded the bronze medal for “Devoted Service to Africa” from the Royal African Society in 1958. His legacy lives on as he gives his name to a prize for advanced and critical essays in organology, at The Society of Ethnomusicology. Moreover, the Klaus Wachsmann Music Archive at the Makerere University, Uganda, has recently been set up. There is a course in archiving at the university and archive at UCLA has been collaborating with Makerere University to provide up to date tools and skills, such as the digitisation of DAT and reel-to-reel tape. Dr Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza from the university, in this article, sums up the importance of archiving “My hope is to create materials for secondary schools from the archive. In that way, (students) can be able to remember and to understand what was there before […] With the recordings, we can give (students) some background and some context; they would be able to understand and go find out more by themselves […] My thinking is that a culture that doesn’t have a history is a dead one.”
- His recordings are available to play online, for anyone, in the Klaus Wachsmann Collection at the British Library.
- Copies of his recordings can also be found at the UCLA archive, but cannot be streamed online.
David Fanshawe 1942 – 2010
David Fanshawe recording the Luo Tribe, Kenya, 1973. Photo Judith Croasdell
David Fanshawe did not limit himself to the confines of ethnomusicology and is described as an ‘internationally distinguished composer, ethno-musicologist, sound recordist, archivist, performer, dynamic and entertaining lecturer, record producer, photographer and author.’ As he was so broadly accomplished, he was involved in every aspect of the recording and archiving process of his music, which he gathered from across the world; beginning in the Middle East in 1966 and spreading through North and East African from 1969 till 1975. He later went on to record across the Pacific Ocean for ten years, from 1978. He is stated to have recorded hundreds of tribes and is commended for forming close relationships with them, which allowed him to gain permission to record their music.
Mary K. Oyer, b. 1923
Mary Oyer graduated from Goshen College – a private Christian college, historically affiliated with the Mennonite Church – in 1945, but was soon to return as she was invited to teach the General Education course integrating the study of music and visual art. She continued to teach at Goshen College, when in 1968 Oyer applied to be sent to a US Government funded program for Black Studies, operated by the faculty of UCLA. She was accepted and spent the summer of 1968 at UCLA and then travelling to five Sub-Saharan countries, from Senegal to Kenya in the summer of 1969, with a stop off in Uganda on her way home. Here she encountered Evalisto Muyinda, an out of work court musician playing at the Kampala Museum. She was taken by the endingidi, the one-stringed fiddle he was playing; she made her first recording, using her friend’s recorder, and bought an endingidi from Muyinda. [Can be found in the search under ‘Working Title: Evalisto Muyinda at the Uganda National Museum’] My favourite part about the Mary K. Oyer African Music Archive is that when searching every track, it lists the accompanying commentary from Mary Oyer, so you can hear in her own words the description of the music and the story behind it. By the end of the summer, after initially deciding between a focus on music and art, Oyer knew she wanted to channel her efforts into indigenous music. As a teacher, ‘She saw the enriching possibilities for including cross-cultural music in her related arts courses at Goshen College’ and began to teach an annual African Arts course. Over 20 years, Oyer visited 22 countries as she was lucky enough to receive funding from various projects: Kenya National Archives, Kenya Conservatoire of Music, a teaching assignment Kenyatta University and she worked with Mennonite Central Committee and Peace Corp. She was able to use her role as teacher and lecturer to spread the importance and beauty of traditional African music to young school children in Indiana, up to university students across the US and Canada. Oyer’s legacy has been continued due to a few key individuals understanding the significance of her work. Professor Debra Brubaker began the archive, Solomon Fenton-Miller began digitising the tapes and creating an outline for an archive of the information found on those recordings and Lisa Horst Schrock completed the digitisation process and interviewed Oyer about her travels and field recordings.
- All of Mary K. Oyer’s recordings can be found and listened to online in the Mary K. Oyer African Music Archive Database. You must email the Goshen College Music Department Office Coordinator (email address can be found on the website) to obtain a login and password to the database, who responded very quickly. There is a very useful Help page that makes it very easy to manoeuvre the archive. It is intended mostly for scholars, however, anyone expressing an interest will be granted access
Peter Cooke, b. 1930
Another teacher, Peter Cooke, began recording traditional African music when he began teaching at the Makerere College School in 1964. He was bereft of recordings of local music, and, at this time, only had the recordings that Hugh Tracey had made a few decades before, which were from all over Africa. When asked about the importance of recording traditional African music, he states ‘It was crucial to me to be able to direct the attention of young Ugandans to their own musical traditions: so often at weekends my wife and I drove off with students from different parts of the country to sample the music of their own local village musicians.’ An impressive example of initiative that lead one man, and his wife, to create essential recordings, in order to inspire his students. He was then transferred to run the music department in the National Teachers’ College at Kyambogo, where his recording work ‘took on even more importance.’ However, when it came to the archiving of Uganda tribal music, Cooke faced a disappointing set back; ‘It was important to leave copies of materials behind for further use by the Ugandans and others that followed me after I left [Uganda] in 1968. Unfortunately the tape copies I left behind just vanished during the chaotic years of Amin’s rule.’ He then contrasts the situation in Uganda with the ease and quality of archiving in Scotland, where he next went on to work at the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, highlighting the imperative need for a more sustainable system for archiving in Uganda. Cooke also noted the importance of dissemination, which is why his work is produced on CDs, with teaching booklets making use of well documented recordings, complete with transcriptions and texts.
Cooke recording the Abasaasi, a team of drummers and singers outside the Kabaka’s country palace at Abamunanika in 1987 who had gathered to sing the praises of Prince Ronald Mutebi who had just returned from exile in London
However, as Cooke’s aim is, and always has been, to make traditional Ugandan music available to Ugandans, he was determined to see his work accessible there and it is now available at the Makerere University, although it wasn’t a simple decision; ‘until I was assured that a well managed archive was being set up at Makerere I was loath to deposit my materials there, after what had happened at Kyambogo Teachers’ College. The Makerere archive eventually came about through the good works of Sylvia Nannyonga Tamusuza and her Norwegian partners, though I had approached the librarian at Makerere about such a possibility many years previously.’ He has also sent his recordings back to other places in Uganda, such as to the Batwa ‘through the good offices of Chris Kidd, a post-grad at the time who was working with the Batwa’ and the family of Benedicto Mubangizi, who Cooke describes as a ‘marvellous person – teacher, educator, choir trainer, composer and folklorist’. He had made copies of this musician’s work in the 1960s and 1980s and tries ‘as much as possible to get samples back to the individual musicians’ he works with, but states ‘This is not always possible.’
When asked about how he would like to change the way his materials are archived, Cooke’s concern, firstly at the Makerere University, is that the archive is not accessible to everyone; ‘I am also very concerned to see that the Makerere recordings are made available to more than simply the university staff and students in that institution. In other words I would like to see that listening facilities are afforded to any Ugandan who want to listen to recordings at the archive. At present I don’t know what the position is.’ In addition, he hopes that ‘one of the original aims of the Makerere archive is followed through – namely to create ‘out-stations’ where further copies of the material at Makerere are made available in different areas of Uganda.’
Soga ebigwala trumpet team at Nambote village 1994
His material is also available at the British Library, which is able to be accessed by everyone online. However, it is quite a difficult archive for novices to use, and, as highlighted by Cooke, ‘Alternative names are an example:- Ebigwala, bigwara , amagwara, magwara, amagwala etc. for the Soga gourd trumpets,’ that make searching on the British Archive, regarding East African music, often a tricky task. In addition, sometimes it is difficult to know, for those who are not experts, exactly how the East African words are spelt: Cooke suggests that ‘a “fuzzy” keyword search facility seems very necessary.’ Moreover, the British Library online archive is difficult to use for Ugandans, as they often experience power cuts, do not have the necessary bandwidth to stream the content and are unable to actually download the material for study. Cooke is well aware of the short falls when it comes to the availability and accessibility of his material, and calls for the improvement of the online facilities available to those who want to share their music.
Finally, Cooke shared his thoughts on the future of archiving African Music, particularly in their country of origin. He gave frustrating examples of tapes being stored in terrible conditions, archives being so disorganised that, even with funding, it would take 20 years to archive properly and equipment being broken because it was not used according to instructions. However, there were examples that gave hope for the archiving of East African music, in Africa; ‘I visited the Ethiopian archives while stranded in Khartoum for four days (by Ethiopian Airways in 1988 I believe) and found […] local scholars, some of them trained in the UK, were doing good work with minimal resources and doing some fine fieldwork with video-cameras.’ He ends with ‘There are plenty of Ugandans who understand the value of a good archives. They need to be able to persuade their government to fund them properly. They also need to pull together.’
- Nearly all of Cooke’s material is available online at the Peter Cooke Uganda Collection, British Library
- There is an archive of his work at the Makerere University in Uganda, which must be listened to onsite. The availability of this archive to the general public is unknown to Cooke (though his concern is that it should be available to everyone)
- His personal website gives details of all published work he has done and where it can be found
- He also has copies of his recordings at the Indiana Archive, Bloomington
S. Nannyonga-Tamusuza, T. Solomon, 2012. ‘Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond’. Kampala: Fountain Publishers
With thanks to everyone I interviewed and who kindly helped with any aspect of this article.


In Chinese, kung fu (功夫, gōng meaning “work” or “achievement” and either fū, “man”, or fu, a particle or suffix which can mean “intensity”) can also be used in contexts completely unrelated to martial arts, and refers to any individual accomplishment or skill cultivated through long effort and hard work. It is only in the late twentieth century, that this term was used in relation to martial arts by the Chinese community. Wushu is a more precise term for general martial activities.
The beginning of Wushu(Kongfu) may come back to primitive society. At that time, men began to fight against the beasts with the primitive tools like sticks as weapons in order to protect themselves and get living things. Later they made weapons with more execution for getting others’ fortune. So more weapons were made and the skills of fight were also improved during the war.
In Yin and Shang Dynasty, some coppery weapons like spears, daggers, halberds, axes, swords broadswords had come out. Meanwhile how to use these weapons appeared, too.
In Chunqiu and War Periods, with the development of ironware and the rising of footmen and cavalrymen, weapons’ handles were changed into short ones, short ones into long ones in the war. Then there were so many kinds of weapons, and the characteristic of attack was more extrusive. And people also attached importance to it. In Qin Dynasty head-fighting and hand-fighting were prevailed. In Han Dynasty the dances of swords and double halberds had come forth. These show that the Wushu(Kongfu) dance had had obvious feat, it had not only actions to attach and protect, but also series of it presented. Many different art styles of genres had come into being.
In Jin, North and South Dynasties, in the continuous wars bureaucrats and peers wanted to have eosin lives, it affected the lives of different social estates. The practice of Wushu(Kongfu) was taken instead by the absurd heresy. Therefore lore Wushu(Kongfu) stopped.
In Sui and Tang Dynasty, Wu Shu rose again. In Tang Dynasty the excellent knights were given some corresponding titles according to their skills. Every title had its own standard.
In Song Dynasty the civilian organization of Wu Shu presented. They practiced on the street and it was full of jollification. In Song Dynasty Wu Shu was mostly taught secretly in one family.
Ming Dynasty was a developing period for Wushu(Kongfu), different styles of genres came forth, especially in boxing and engineeries. Some works wrote its genres, evolution, action names, characteristic, moving ways and technical theories, some had pictures and verses to show the action clearly. It gave the important basic for the late generation to research Wushu(Kongfu).
In Qing Dynasty some kinds of boxing had formed such as Shadowboxing, the Eight Diagrams Boxing and the Form and Will Boxing After the PLA was founded ,Wushu(Kongfu) is inherited, cleared up and improved as the bequest of an excellent people. And a large number of associations have been come into existence while our nation also has the special departments to be in charge of the exercise of Wushu(Kongfu) and regards it as a formal competition.
Shaolin and temple-based martial arts
The Shaolin style of wushu is regarded as amongst the first institutionalized Chinese martial arts. The oldest evidence of Shaolin participation in combat is a stele from 728 CE that attests to two occasions: a defense of the Shaolin Monastery from bandits around 610 CE, and their subsequent role in the defeat of Wang Shichong at the Battle of Hulao in 621 CE. From the 8th to the 15th centuries, there are no extant documents that provide evidence of Shaolin participation in combat.
Between the 16th and 17th centuries, no fewer than forty sources exist to provide evidence both that monks of Shaolin practiced martial arts, and that martial practice became an integral element of Shaolin monastic life. For monks to justify it by creating new Buddhist lore, the earliest appearance of the frequently cited legend concerns Bodhidharma’s supposed foundation of Shaolin Kung Fu dates to this period.The origin of this legend has been traced to the Ming period’s Yijin Jing or “Muscle Change Classic”, a text written in 1624 attributed to Bodhidharma.
References of martial arts practice in Shaolin appear in various literary genres of the late Ming: the epitaphs of Shaolin warrior monks, martial-arts manuals, military encyclopedias, historical writings, travelogues, fiction and poetry. However these sources do not point out to any specific style originated in Shaolin.These sources, in contrast to those from the Tang period, refer to Shaolin methods of armed combat. This include a skill for which Shaolin monks had become famous—the staff (gùn, Cantonese gwan). The Ming General Qi Jiguang included description of Shaolin Quan Fa (Pinyin romanization: Shào Lín Quán Fǎ or Wade-Giles romanization Shao Lin Ch’üan Fa, 少 林 拳 法 “fist principles”; Japanese pronunciation: Shorin Kempo or Kenpo) and staff techniques in his book, Ji Xiao Xin Shu (紀效新書), which can be translated as “New Book Recording Effective Techniques”. When this book spread to East Asia, it had a great influence on the development of martial arts in regions such as Okinawa and Korea
Chinese martial arts training consists of the following components: basics, forms, applications and weapons; different styles place varying emphasis on each component. In addition, philosophy, ethics and even medical practice are highly regarded by most Chinese martial arts. A complete training system should also provide insight into Chinese attitudes and culture.
The Basics (基本功) are a vital part of any martial training, as a student cannot progress to the more advanced stages without them; Basics are usually made up of rudimentary techniques, conditioning exercises, including stances. Basic training may involve simple movements that are performed repeatedly; other examples of basic training are stretching, meditation, striking, throwing, or jumping. Without strong and flexible muscles, management of Qi or breath, and proper body mechanics, it is impossible for a student to progress in the Chinese martial arts.A common saying concerning basic training in Chinese martial arts is as follows:
Which can be translated as:
Train both Internal and External. External training includes the hands, the eyes, the body and stances.
Internal training includes the heart, the spirit, the mind, breathing and strength.
Stances (steps or 步法) are structural postures employed in Chinese martial arts training.They represent the foundation and the form of a fighter’s base. Each style has different names and variations for each stance. Stances may be differentiated by foot position, weight distribution, body alignment, etc. Stance training can be practiced statically, the goal of which is to maintain the structure of the stance through a set time period, or dynamically, in which case a series of movements is performed repeatedly. The horse-riding stance (骑马步/马步 qí mǎ bù/mǎ bù) and the bow stance are examples of stances found in many styles of Chinese martial arts.
In many Chinese martial arts, meditation is considered to be an important component of basic training. Meditation can be used to develop focus, mental clarity and can act as a basis for qigong training.
Use of qi
The concept of qi or ch’i (氣/气) is encountered in a number of Chinese martial arts. Qi is variously defined as an inner energy or “life force” that is said to animate living beings; as a term for proper skeletal alignment and efficient use of musculature (sometimes also known as fa jin or jin); or as a shorthand for concepts that the martial arts student might not yet be ready to understand in full. These meanings are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The existence of qi as a measurable form of energy as discussed in traditional Chinese medicine has no basis in the scientific understanding of physics, medicine, biology or human physiology.
There are many ideas regarding the control of one’s qi energy to such an extent that it can be used for healing oneself or others. Some styles believe in focusing qi into a single point when attacking and aim at specific areas of the human body. Such techniques are known as dim mak and have principles that are similar to acupressure.
Most Chinese styles also make use of training in the broad arsenal of Chinese weapons for conditioning the body as well as coordination and strategy drills.Weapons training (qìxiè 器械) are generally carried out after the student is proficient in the basics, forms and applications training. The basic theory for weapons training is to consider the weapon as an extension of the body. It has the same requirements for footwork and body coordination as the basics. The process of weapon training proceeds with forms, forms with partners and then applications. Most systems have training methods for each of the Eighteen Arms of Wushu (shíbābānbīngqì 十八般兵器) in addition to specialized instruments specific to the system.
Application refers to the practical use of combative techniques. Chinese martial arts techniques are ideally based on efficiency and effectiveness.Application includes non-compliant drills, such as Pushing Hands in many internal martial arts, and sparring, which occurs within a variety of contact levels and rule sets.
When and how applications are taught varies from style to style. Today, many styles begin to teach new students by focusing on exercises in which each student knows a prescribed range of combat and technique to be drilled; these drills are often semi-compliant, meaning one student does not offer active resistance to a technique in order to allow its demonstrative, clean execution. In more resisting drills, fewer rules are applied and students practice how to react and respond. ‘Sparring’ refers to the most important aspect of application training, which simulates a combat situation while including rules and regulations in order to reduce the chance of serious injury to the students.
Competitive sparring disciplines include Chinese kickboxing Sǎnshǒu(散手) and Chinese folk wrestling Shuāijiāo(摔跤), which were traditionally contested on a raised platform arena Lèitái(擂台).Lèitái represents public challenge matches that first appeared in the Song Dynasty. The objective for those contests was to knock the opponent from a raised platform by any means necessary. San Shou represents the modern development of Lei Tai contests, but with rules in place to reduce the chance of serious injury. Many Chinese martial art schools teach or work within the rule sets of Sanshou, working to incorporate the movements, characteristics, and theory of their style. Chinese martial artists also compete in non-Chinese or mixed Combat sport, including boxing, kickboxing and Mixed martial arts.
Forms or taolu (Chinese: 套路; pinyin: tào lù) in Chinese are series of predetermined movements combined so they can be practiced as one linear set of movements. Forms were originally intended to preserve the lineage of a particular style branch, and were often taught to advanced students who were selected to preserve the art’s lineage. Forms were designed to contain both literal, representative and exercise-oriented forms of applicable techniques which would be extracted, tested and trained by students through sparring sessions.
Today, many consider forms to be one of the most important practices in Chinese martial arts. Traditionally, they played a smaller role in training combat application, and were eclipsed by sparring, drilling and conditioning. Forms gradually build up a practitioner’s flexibility, internal and external strength, speed and stamina, and teach balance and coordination. Many styles contain forms using a wide range of weapons of various length and type, utilizing one or two hands. There are also styles which focus on a certain type of weapon. Forms are meant to be both practical, usable, and applicable as well as promoting flow, meditation, flexibility, balance and coordination. Teachers are often heard to say “train your form as if you were sparring and spar as if it were a form.”
There are two general types of forms in Chinese martial arts. Most common are “solo forms” which are performed by a single student. There are also “sparring” forms, which are choreographed fighting sets performed by two or more people. Sparring forms were designed both to acquaint beginning fighters with basic measures and concepts of combat, and to serve as performance pieces for the school. Sparring forms which utilize weapons are especially useful for teaching students the extension, range and technique required to manage a weapon.
Forms in Traditional Chinese Martial Arts
The term “taolu (套路)” is a shorten version of “Tao Lu Yun Dong (套路运动)”; an expression that was introduced only recently with the popularity modern wushu. This expression refers to “exercise sets” and is used in the context of athletics or sport.
In contrast, in traditional Chinese martial arts alternative terminologies for the training (練) of ‘sets or forms are:
- lian quan tao (練拳套) – practicing sequence of fist;
- lian quan jiao (練拳腳) – practicing fists and feet;
- lian bing qi (練兵器) – practicing weapons;
- dui da (對打) and dui lian (對練) – fighting sets.
Traditional “sparring” sets, called dui da, 對打 or, dui lian, 對練, were an important part of Chinese martial arts for centuries. Dui lian (對練), literally means, to train by a pair of combatants opposing each other (the character l練, means to practice; to train; to perfect one’s skill; to drill). As well, often one of these terms are also included in the name of fighting sets: 雙演, shuang yan, ‘paired practice’; 掙勝, zheng sheng, ‘to struggle with strength for victory’; 敵, di, ‘ match – the character suggests to strike an enemy; and 破, po, ‘to break’.
Generally there are 21, 18, 12, 9 or 5 drills or ‘exchanges/groupings’ of attacks and counter attacks, in each dui lian, 對 練 set. These drills were considered only generic patterns and never meant to be considered inflexible ‘tricks’. Students practiced smaller parts/exchanges, individually with opponents switching sides in a continuous flow. Basically, dui lian were not only a sophisticated and effective methods of passing on the fighting knowledge of the older generation, they were important and effective training methods. The relationship between single sets and contact sets is quite complicated in that in many cases there are skills which simply can not be developed with single sets, and, conversely, with dui lian. Unfortunately, it appears that most traditional combat oriented dui lian and their training methodology have disappeared, especially those concerning weapons. There are a number of reasons for this. In modern Chinese martial arts most of the dui lian are recent inventions designed for light props resembling weapons, with safety and drama in mind. The role of this kind of training has degenerated to the point of being useless in a practical sense, and, at best, is just performance.
By the early Song period, sets were not so much “individual isolated technique strung together” but rather were composed of techniques and counter technique groupings. It is quite clear that “sets” and “fighting (2 person) sets” have been instrumental in TCM for many hundreds of years —even before the Song Dynasty. There are images of two person weapon training in Chinese stone painting going back at least to the Eastern Han Dynasty.
According to what has been passed on by the older generations, the approximate ratio of contact sets to single sets was approximately 1:3. In other words, about 30% of the sets practiced at Shaolin were contact sets, dui lian, 對 練, and two person drill training. This is, in part, evidenced by the Qing Dynasty mural at Shaolin.
Ancient literature from the Tang and Northern Song Dynasties suggests that some sets, including those which required two or more participants, became very elaborate, “flowery”, and mainly concerned with aesthetics. During this time, some martial arts systems devolved to the point that they became popular forms of martial art storytelling entertainment shows. This created an entire new category of martial arts known as Hua Fa Wuyi, 花法武藝, or “fancy patterns for developing military skill”. During the Northern Song period it was noted by historians that this phenomenon had a negative influence on training in the military.
For most of its history, Shaolin martial arts was largely weapon-focused: staves were used to defend the monastery, not bare hands. Even the more recent military exploits of Shaolin during the Ming and Qing Dynasties involved weapons. According to some traditions, monks first studied basics for one year and were then taught staff fighting so that they could protect the monastery. Although wrestling has been as sport in China for centuries, weapons have been the most important part of Chinese wushu since ancient times. If one wants to talk about recent or ‘modern’ developments in Chinese martial arts (including Shaolin for that matter), it is the over-emphasis on bare hand fighting. During the Northern Song Dynasty (976- 997 A.D) when platform fighting known as Da Laitai (Title Fights Challenge on Platform) first appeared, these fights were with only swords and staves. Although later, when bare hand fights appeared as well, it was the weapons events that became the most famous. These open-ring competitions had regulations and were organized by government organizations; some were also organized by the public. The government competitions resulted in appointments to military posts for winners and were held in the capital as well as in the prefectures.
Even though forms in Chinese martial arts are intended to depict realistic martial techniques, the movements are not always identical to how techniques would be applied in combat. Many forms have been elaborated upon, on the one hand to provide better combat preparedness, and on the other hand to look more aesthetically pleasing. One manifestation of this tendency toward elaboration which goes beyond combat application is the use of lower stances and higher, stretching kicks. These two maneuvers are unrealistic in combat and are utilized in forms for exercise purposes.Many modern schools have replaced practical defense or offense movements with acrobatic feats that are more spectacular to watch, thereby gaining favor during exhibitions and competitions. This has led to criticisms by traditionalists of the endorsement of the more acrobatic, show-oriented Wushu competition. Even though appearance has always been important in many traditional forms as well, all patterns exist for their combat functionality. Historically forms were often performed for entertainment purposes long before the advent of modern Wushu as practitioners have looked for supplementary income by performing on the streets or in theaters. As documented in ancient literature during the Tang Dynasty (618–907) and the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1279) suggest some sets, (including two + person sets: dui da, 對打 also called dui lian, 對 練) became very elaborate and ‘flowery’, many mainly concerned with aesthetics. During this time, some martial arts systems devolved to the point that they became popular forms of martial art storytelling entertainment shows. This created an entire category of martial arts known as Hua Fa Wuyi, 花法武藝 – fancy patterns for developing military skill. During the Northern Song period, it was noted by historians this type of training had a negative influence on training in the military.
Many traditional Chinese martial artists, as well as practitioners of modern sport combat, have become critical of the perception that forms work is more relevant to the art than sparring and drill application, while most continue to see traditional forms practice within the traditional context—as vital to both proper combat execution, the Shaolin aesthetic as art form, as well as upholding the meditative function of the physical art form.
Another reason why techniques often appear different in forms when contrasted with sparring application is thought by some to come from the concealment of the actual functions of the techniques from outsiders
Take a look at the brightest and best Beijing shows currently wowing audiences. So what are you waiting for, come to here and enjoy some unforgettable, world-class entertainment
Amazing Chinese Acrobatic show at Chaoyang theatre
Chinese Acrobatic show at Tian Qiao Theatre
Chinese Acrobatic show at Tiandi Theatre
Peking Opera at Liyuan theatre
Peking Opera at Huguang Gild Hall
Chinese Kongfu show at Red Theatre


Light-touch activities can help lower stress around public speaking over time and offer an entry point to young people who have typically felt silenced or have had challenges participating or thinking of what to say. While this list of warm-ups can be used in multiple ways to engage learners, we have categorized them by:
- Warm-ups for Personal Readiness (i.e. to ease individual anxiety and get ready for speeches)
- Warm-ups for Environmental Readiness (i.e. to build relationships, have fun, and get the class in the mood to speak)
- Warm-ups for Skill Readiness (i.e. priming the class to learn a specific speaking skill). In this list, we have included warm-ups for storytelling skills, debate skills, and presentation delivery skills.
All of these warm-ups can be adapted for different group sizes and length of time available. They can also be used for different grade levels and content areas, especially when prompts are adapted to best fit your class. You can also access this resource here for easy printing and modifying for your own classroom.
|Warm-Up Activity||Goal and Timing|
Run through tongue twisters of different lengths to practice consonants and breath control. Find tongue twisters in a quick internet search, such as this article.
Say the same tongue twisters using different emotions (i.e. sad, excited, angry, relaxed).
Repeat the tongue twister while using gestures and giving eye contact to different people or objects.
Repeat the tongue twister while varying volume and/or speed (i.e. slow and quiet, fast and loud, fast and quiet, slow and loud).
|Practice precise diction, sounding louder, emotional tone, eye contact, and variation in speed and volume.|
Can be done as a whole group: 5 minutes.
Warm up your voice, especially in the morning, end of day, or when you are sick.
Sigh using your voice, starting at the very top of your voice and sliding down to the bottom.
Yawn loudly (lift the roof of your mouth to make yourself yawn)Trill your r’s and buzz your lips.
Sing! (doesn’t matter if you think you can’t, it’s a good warm up regardless…)
|Practice healthy vocal habits and create a rounder tone.|
Do any combination of these activities as a whole class for 1-2 minutes total (if on Zoom, have everyone mute themselves while they try them).
Use physical stretches to relax any areas of tension and physical exercises to energize you.
Close your eyes and take deep breaths, tune into any places you notice tension and relax them.
While taking deep breaths, roll your shoulders, followed by rolling your neck and your wrists and ankles.
Reach up to the sky, reach to the middle, and reach to the ground. Slowly roll up.
Bounce in place, making sure your knees are loose.
Make a “big” face by stretching your face wide open and then a “small” face by scrunching everything.
Tense everything with shoulders up and fists clenched, then relax everything.
Do energizing things — run in place, do jumping jacks, wiggle yourself out.
|Helps cope with anxiety, establish a relaxed energy before speaking, and wake up the brain before speaking.|
Do any combination of these activities as a whole class for 5+ minutes total (if on Zoom, have everyone mute themselves while they try them).
Try having students lead these activities.
|Count the Sounds|
Close your eyes and listen deeply to all the sounds around you. Count how many sounds you can hear. After you’ve counted, turn those sounds into a song or a pattern (i.e. if you listen to a dryer for long enough, you can make it sound like a waltz).
|Helps cope with anxiety, practice listening skills, and quiet your brain.|
Do any combination of these activities for 5+ minutes.
|Walk to the Front|
In a group, line up in a single file line. One by one, practice walking up to the front of the room and land at a spot in the center with hands at the side. After pausing and looking at the audience, say “hello” or some other practice line using a gesture, then return to your seat. Repeat one by one, making sure to land at the spot in the middle first before talking and making sure hands are all at the side.
|Practice pausing to acknowledge the audience instead of rushing into the words, grounding yourself before speaking, and practice hands at side.|
For a group: 5 minutes. Practicing with the whole group helps to prepare for larger audiences. This can be split up with only a group of students doing it each day to not get too long and boring.
|Warm-Up Activity||Goal and Timing|
Each student is in the hot seat for 1-3 minutes, during which anyone can ask any questions they want to know about them. Before you begin, set up norms ahead of time: can always pass, it should be something you really want to know, no one can ask a question twice in a row…
|It can take awhile to go around to everyone in the class, so this activity works well in small groups, or just rotating volunteers in the whole group.|
To take this warm-up to the next level, you can try “storytelling hot seat”, where someone volunteers to tell a story inspired by one of three words the class chooses for the speaker. Students get to generate the topics and the storyteller gets to choose one and tell a story off the top of their head (or after 30 seconds to think).
Have people go around and tell a story about something themselves. The next person has to say “speaking of…” and relate back to the storyteller before them. Prompts can be adapted to be more specifically about certain events or details about a person.
|Practice relating and connecting to people as opposed to only thinking about what you are going to say next — also, get to know one another.|
For one group: timing depends on the group size, but don’t spend longer than 10 minutes total. Timing can be shortened by splitting up into smaller groups or even working in pairs.
|Tell Me About a Time When… |
Tell a 2-minute story describing a memory of an event. Prompts should be concrete and short (i.e. it was cold, it was raining, you were lonely, you lost track of time) and stories should be true.
|Practice remembering specific moments and sharing an element of who you are.|
For pairs: 8 minutes total — 2 minutes per story plus transition time, plus 2 minutes of preparation time
Take a prompt and add on to it to create your own twist. For example, the original prompt might be, “Tell me about a time you were a leader…” and your twist might be “I am going to tell you about a time I was a leader….but didn’t feel like one.” Tell a 2-minute story about that twist. To come up with twists, it can help to think about the opposite of the prompt or an unexpected way of thinking about it. Note: this warm-up works best when the original prompt is a sentence starter, rather than a word.
|Practice remembering specific moments and sharing an element of who you are AND thinking about prompts in unexpected ways to engage the audience.|
For pairs: 10 minutes total — 2 minutes per story plus transition time, plus 4 minutes of preparation time
In a large circle, create a group story by going around and having each person state a word or phrase that comes next in the story. Saying one word each will result in a more random story, while saying a phrase each can help practice story structure.
|Practice listening and relating to earlier ideas and laugh about something silly.|
For one group: 4-6 minutes. There is no set time because you can end the activity whenever you want, but it should be long enough to create a viable story and short enough so it doesn’t get old.
Skill Readiness: Storytelling
|Warm-Up Activity||Goal and Timing|
|What is Going On? (student-facing slide deck)|
As a group, examine the photo given to you and decide what is going on in your photo. Together prepare a 1 minute story about what is going on and then share it with the class. When coming up with your story think about:
What do you think is happening?
Who are the people?
What in the picture supports that idea/theory?
What led up to this moment?
What might happen next?
|Pictures capture a moment in time but they are not the whole story. Storytelling is also about the stories we see, not just the stories we tell. It is a window into how we experience the world. Practice describing what you see.|
For small groups: 15 minutes total — 5 minutes for group time, 7 minutes of sharing out and discussion, a few minutes for transition, no prep time.
|Joyful Stories (student-facing slide deck)|
Par 1 – Telling a joyful story: In pairs, choose 6 things that bring you joy that correspond to the color you were given. Paste an image of all 6 (3 per person) in a slide and present out to the whole group about the items you chose, explaining why those items bring you joy.
Part 2 – Telling stories on the spot inspired by pictures shared: Students pick a picture from a different color that one of their classmates chose for their slide, and tell a 2 minute story about it. Start your story with, “Speaking of…” Listeners share something they learned or remember from each presenter’s story. Note: If virtual have listeners type in the chat what they learned; in-person call on a couple people to share.
|Get to know one another, practice expressing emotions and connecting with other people’s stories. |
For pairs: 10 minutes to create slides with 6 images.
For sharing out, you can do it in small groups to save time, or choose only a handful of students to share out to the whole class (10-15min).
Part 2 can happen on a different day or even a few students each day for a week.
|Three Words |
Get the group (or a partner) to brainstorm three words. These can be three unrelated concrete words (i.e. cactus, roller coaster, spaghetti) or three unrelated abstract words (i.e. bravery, fear, hope, awe). Tell a 2-minute story inspired by one of those three words. Do not combine the words and it isn’t important to necessarily mention the chosen word.
|Practice coming up with a story based on a theme or using simple words as symbols for something deeper.|
For pairs: 12 minutes total — 2 minutes to brainstorm words, 2 minutes per story plus transition time, plus 3-4 minutes of preparation time. To save time, words can be decided ahead of time.
|What am I?|
Tell a 2-minute story describing an object in the room in great detail without saying what it is. The listener gets 3 guesses to figure out the object. A more difficult version is to describe something not in the room.
|Practice describing specific detail.|
For pairs: 8 minutes total — 2 minutes per story, 2 minutes of guessing time, plus some transition time, ideally no preparation time
|Ordinary into Extraordinary|
Tell a 3-minute story about something really mundane and unremarkable and make it dramatic, suspenseful, or intriguing (i.e. what you had for breakfast, your journey to class, putting something in your bag). Prompts can either be given or generated by the speaker and should be true (even if there is some exaggeration).
|Practice making something special and interesting, even when it doesn’t seem like it.|
For pairs: 14 minutes total — 3 minutes per story plus transition time, plus 5 minutes of preparation time. Keep these stories on the longer side to achieve goal.
Tell a 2.5-minute story about a person you’ve encountered in your life. The story should be true and at least 1.5 minutes of the story should be spent describing them (i.e. what they look like, what they said, what they smelled like, how they made you feel). The conclusion of the story should be 2 or 3 sentences max about why they stand out in your memory. The person doesn’t have to be especially important.
|Practice bringing people to life and using the 5 senses to engage listeners.|
For pairs: 9 minutes total — 2.5 minutes per story plus transition time, plus 2 minutes of preparation time. Make sure the bulk of the time is spent on the person and not why they are important.
Guide a group or a partner around the room, telling brief stories inspired by objects in the room (like a tour guide in a museum). The story doesn’t have to be a specific length, but can be loosely inspired by the object or a literal story about a personal relationship with that object.
|Practice relating a story to something specific and concrete.|
Can be any amount of time and can be done in pairs or as a group, either with one person leading or switching off and taking turns.
In a group circle, ask the audience to select: 1) a main character; 2) a setting; and 3) a problem. Have the storyteller tell a 2-minute fictional story involving the audience’s choices.
|Practice telling a story in front of a group in a low-stakes, fun environment.|
Can be any amount of time, depending on the number of storytellers selected.
Skill Readiness: Debate
|Warm-Up Activity||Goals and Timing|
|This or That|
This is an icebreaker that helps address the common struggle to commit to an argument, where binary prompts are posed and each person has to explain their choice. For example, “Hot or Cold”, “Savory or Sweet”, or “Animals or Plants”.
|Practice committing to an argument and explaining their reasoning. Students can generate topics or you can use topics from units of study (i.e. ocean or desert).|
Great with a whole group to get to know each other and practice skills, but can also be done in small groups or pairs: 5-10 minutes depending on size.
|Apples to Apples|
For this drill, you will need a deck of cards from the “Apples to Apples” game. If you don’t have this game, a long list of random words will do. Split students up into pairs and have each pair choose a card (or random word from the list) and come up with a debate topic for the word on their card. Each pair gets to choose another pair to debate against about their topic, or you can assign pairs, topics, and sides randomly.
Debate structure: 5 minutes of preparation followed by 2 minutes for the pro opening, 1 minute for questions, 2 minutes for the con opening, 1 minute for questions, 1 minute for the pro closing, 1 minute for the con closing.
|Practice debate structure and taking turns saying arguments.|
Keep this activity low-stakes, light, and without too much preparation — the point isn’t to be perfect but to help students feel like debate is something they can do.
For tips for coming up with topics, tell students to make their topic into a sentence that takes one side to an extreme. For example, common prompt structures include: “____is better than ___.” “We should ban ____.” “_____are the most important ______.” Any prompt is welcome as long as it is clear.
|20 Questions |
This fun game involves the class asking closed yes or no questions to try and guess the person, place, or object that another classmate has in their mind, which lowers anxiety around asking questions.
|Practice asking questions, lowers stakes since there is no “wrong answer”. Fun way to get the whole class working together. Can use unit themes that the word must relate to.|
Any group size but fun with a large group: 15 minutes.
|Morality on the Spot|
Students get into groups of 4. Give each group 4 index cards, labeled with different roles, “Presenter”, “Clarifier”, “Elaborator”, and “Devil’s Advocate”. Students draw a card to decide what role they will be taking in a short 5-10 minute conversation about a moral issue. Give each group an index card, which includes a controversial question on an issue of morality that will be the focus of their conversation (these cards can be created by the teacher initially, but can later be generated by students once they get the hang of the routine). Note: the choice of topics is one of the most important pieces for teachers to prepare — see the list of “Morality on the Spot Question Prompts” in Resource 14 of our Presentation Guide. More detail on each role includes:
Presenter: This person kicks off the conversation by introducing the issue along with an initial opinion with reasoning. They offer opinions throughout the conversation and also bring the conversation to an end by summarizing what was covered after time is up.
Devil’s Advocate: This person offers opposing points of view or “what if” situations that provide a different perspective on the issue. They don’t have to necessarily debate the presenter, but instead be the person to push everyone’s thinking.
Clarifier: This person asks for clarity throughout the conversation, asking for definitions and for detail about what people mean by their points or questions.
Elaborator: This person adds to the ideas of any of the other students, building on their questions, opinions, or challenges. This role does not have to take their own stance.
|Students practice presenting, sharing their opinions, questioning, responding, and summarizing ideas without preparation. |
These activities can be done in small groups for a faster, more low-stakes version (10-15 minutes), but can also become more high-stakes presentations when done for the entire group.
This activity is a grown-up version of show-and-tell, asking students to share their areas of expertise, talent, strengths, interests, and experiences. For an easy version, students can get into groups of 4; for a harder version, this can be done with the entire class. To get everyone started, the teacher provides a prompt related to expertise, like the following:
My special talent is….
When I was a child, I was interested in…
I felt proud when…
I feel like I lose track of time when I….
My favorite hobby is…In school, I became interested in ____ when…
One of the hardest moments I’ve faced lately is….
My superpower is…
People turn to me for…
I am good at…
Please note that students often struggle with saying that they are good at something, especially as they get older. When introducing the activity, discuss why it is hard to talk about yourself and why it is difficult to remember your personal strengths and interests. Discuss why it is still worth it to develop this skill, including needing to write about strengths in personal statements and talk about them in job interviews and networking situations.
|Students practice presenting and speaking about their interests and strengths.|
For the activity itself, spend 5-10 minutes having someone share a story related to the prompt. Afterwards, everyone else can choose to either ask questions or relate to the story with their own personal experience connected to the initial story, which can then roll into a conversation. This activity can be repeated as a routine over time and can also be linked as a warm up for larger projects, like personal statements or personal essays.
In a circle, have one person state an argumentative claim in a complete sentence with reasoning. For instance, “Schools should increase funding for mental health services because dealing with stress helps students do better academically.” The next person in the circle then restates the claim, but with fewer words. The next person builds on the new version but with more powerful words (i.e. “Schools are responsible for students’ mental health to prevent academic failure.”) Repeat until the claim is concise with powerful words and then have someone start a new claim.
|Construct more concise and powerful claims.|
In pairs, students can just go back and forth to practice: 5-10 minutes. This can be done individually as well. You will have to talk to yourself (which is still okay!), stating a claim and then whittling it down to fewer words with a more powerful impact. You can also do this in writing, but it is more difficult out loud, so it’s worth doing (even if it is a little weird).
One person says that a certain statement is true (they don’t have to believe it), such as “Gorillas would make great pets.” The other person has to respond by saying why this statement is true, such as “Totally! Gorillas can help you reach things up high and they always have bananas, which are a great source of potassium.” Switch roles with new statements each time.
|Practice giving warrants and reasons for your arguments. For more difficulty, you can increase the number of reasons you have to give.|
Great for the whole class or smaller groups: 5-10 minutes. Possible variations: To introduce argument structure, one person states a claim of their choice like, followed by the next person adding on a reason why and the next person saying why it all matters.
|On the Flip Side|
This is similar to “Justify It”, except that after one person makes a statement, the other person responds on the other side with an opposing statement, starting with “On the flip side…” For instance, if one person said “Gorillas would make great pets”, the other person would say, “On the flip side, gorillas would not make great pets because they are wild and unpredictable and could pose a great deal of danger.”
|Practice coming up with counterarguments off the top of your head.|
For the whole class or smaller groups: 5-10 minutes.
|Pulled from the Headlines|
Find a random news article from your favorite periodical — this can be serious but can also easily be from a tabloid magazine. Skim the article and then summarize it out loud to someone in 1 minute without any preparation. The summary should be intriguing as well as clear and to the point.
|Practice summarizing content out loud.|
For pairs: 10 minutes. This can be done individually by audio recording your summary and listening back. You get used to the sound of your voice and improve your work.
Write 10 “problems” on 10 index cards, one problem per card (students can also write these with some guidance and examples). These can be societal problems (i.e. “There are too many homeless people in the Bay Area.”) or light, ordinary problems (i.e. “The living room is too cold.”). Shuffle the deck and draw a problem card and then set the timer for 1 minute while you suggest a course of action and why you think it will work to solve the problem.
|Practice justifying proposals and plans for action.|
This activity works as well in any size group without any variation, including by yourself: 5-10 minutes.
|Blow up the Balloon|
In a circle or small group, one person makes a statement (i.e. “Traffic in the Bay Area is at an all-time high.). The next person adds on by saying, “which leads to…” and the next person adds on by saying, “which leads to…” Each result should be increasingly bigger and more impactful to “blow up the balloon” (i.e. getting totally ridiculous).
|Practice stating short and long term impacts. This is a great activity to pair with debate and argumentative writing. Students practice coming up with the impacts of an issue and therefore, why their argument is relevant and important.|
For any size group: 5-10 minutes. By yourself, you can practice by listing as many impacts as you can following a statement, before getting ridiculous (or “popping the balloon”).
Have someone discuss 2-3 arguments about any simple prompt (i.e. “Spring is better than summer.”). Listeners take notes using as few full, real words as possible — the goal is to try use abbreviations, symbols, and codes to represent ideas.
|Practice fast note-taking.|
This activity can be done easily in pairs, but can also be in a whole group: 10 minutes. By yourself, you can do the same thing by taking notes on a podcast, newscast, or YouTube video. These sources can also be used to practice note-taking as a whole class.
Give everyone a topic and set a timer for 4 minutes for them to silently outline 2-3 arguments on both sides. Repeat with a new topic, but this time set a timer for 3 minutes to outline both sides. Keep repeating with new topics, but reduce the outline preparation time each time.
|Practice quick outlining skills and avoiding perfectionism.|
This activity can be done in any size group or in pairs: 10-15 minutes. By yourself, you will need to prepare index cards with debate topics and set the timer for yourself. Quick debriefs can help in between topics to see what was easy and what was challenging, and to address any sticking points.
Skill Readiness: Delivery
|Warm-Up Activity||Goal and Timing|
|Tell Me About a Time When…(eye contact version)|
Tell a 2-minute story describing a memory of an event. Prompts should be concrete and short (i.e. it was cold, it was raining, you were lonely, you lost track of time) and stories should be true. Tell the story to another person, trying to use eye contact in a comfortable way (looking away or down at appropriate moments, and communicating the emotion of the story while looking at the other person. At the end, have the other person give feedback on whether the eye contact felt natural.
|Practice natural eye contact, and get feedback on eye contact.|
For pairs: 5 minutes.
If on Zoom, have them practice giving eye contact directly to the webcam.
|Guess the Color |
Note: To understand this warm-up, please read “Vocal Technique for Presenters” (Resource 11: Presentation Guide).
Play video clips of famous speakers and have students guess what color their voice is.
Read passages of text and have students identify what color the text should be, given the tone required to communicate the message.
|Practice identifying different vocal colors, emphasizing the message that words/messages require different tones to make them stand out, and how speakers switch vocal colors throughout a speech to convey different meanings.|
This can be done as part of a discussion about tone, so total time depends on the number of clips used and how long you have.
Note: To understand this warm-up, please read “Vocal Technique for Presenters” (Resource 11: Presentation Guide).
Using a book of fairy tales (or any other random text), select 2-4 lines for practice. First, read the text aloud in a flat voice with little emotion. Then, try reading the text aloud using different colors of your voice — first, try reading as “red” (passionate and excited), then try “gray” (urgent and forceful), then “blue” (serious and calm), then “green” (breezy and conversational), and finally “orange” (kind and encouraging). After you’ve tried each color, practice switching from one color to another in the middle of the text. For an extra challenge, have others guess which colors you are applying to the text.
|Practice using different vocal colors, including ones that don’t come as naturally, and transitioning in vocal tone.|
Students can practice simultaneously, individually in front of the group, and independently when first introduced to vocal colors. For continued practice, pairs or small groups can work together, guessing the colors applied to the text: 4-6 minutes.
Open a text to any random page and read the content. Without any preparation, try rewording or paraphrasing the text in your own words. Repeat this activity, trying to reword the content in as few words as possible, without any filler words. If working alone, audio record yourself and listen back to hear if there are any distracting habits.
|Practice being concise and breaking filler word habits. Paraphrasing helps you speak from notes without getting caught up in trying to say the exact words you’ve written.|
For pairs: 4-6 minutes
In a group circle, have one person start with a simple argument or statement of opinion, like “Blueberries are the best fruit because they are good for you and full of antioxidants.” The next person says the same exact sentence, but tries to say the statement even more confidently (volume, facial expressions, and landing the ends of sentences help here). Repeat for 4 people and then have someone create a new sentence.
|Practice speaking energetically and confidently, landing the ends of sentences and not losing volume at the ends of sentences. Practice doing more than you think you’re doing to sound confident.|
For groups: 5-10 minutes. This is a great way to practice speaking more confidently by using exaggeration.