Students are finding it difficult to memorise dialogues, follow instructions or coordinate in a group performance during in-person programmes, said teachers.
They have noticed these lacunae during programmes that were held in school before schools went back to online classes.
Many private schools had about a month of in-person classes in the new session. Some of them organised programmes like Rabindra Jayanti after a gap of two years.
While children were excited to be back on stage but things that they knew like the back of their hands, many were finding it difficult to get them right.
The most evident was the ability to memorise — be it dialogues for an act or poems for elocution, teachers said.
During the two years of online lessons many students had got used to checking the screen. “We had noticed that while reciting their eyes would be darting towards the screen or they were being prompted. Naturally, their memorising skills have suffered,” said Amita Prasad, director of Indus Valley World School.
Nupur Ghosh, the vice-principal of Mahadevi Birla World Academy, said the confidence that was seen on-screen in the last two years was lacking when it came to in-person programmes. “They need practice because many of them did not memorise in the last two years,” said Ghosh.
On stage students are given cues if they forget but the entire content is not prompted to them, said a teacher.
During rehearsals, schools had to make changes in their choreography to be able to cater to the whole group.
For example, the teacher of a school had decided that students will march onto the stage as part of a play. But they could not tell left from right so the choreography had to be changed.
In another school instructions had to be given to the school choir on how to stand on stage.
“When performance on stage was a regular activity, the choir knew how to stand, how to move on stage and how to position themselves. But in the last two years there have been no such performances and they had to be reminded every day during the rehearsal,” said Madhumita Seal, vice-principal of BDM International.
However, teachers felt that with more such programmes these gaps would get addressed.
