How do you keep students from advancing before they are read

[etchuck]

In my head, the elements of proficiency are:
1) Knowledge of the figures and their transitions
2) Ability to lead/follow in rhythm
3) Technique that characterizes the dance

With ballroom syllabus it's easy because there are categories of figure lists which bronze-level people must know. And the books.

It's not so easy with the club dances. What is "intermediate" salsa to you? or "intermediate" lindyhop? How much ECS should you know before you start WCS, or do you need any of it? The skill set for these dances is hard to specifically define as no one has ever wanted to standardize them. That is partly good because you cannot be constrained by what you know... but it drives some of us who take those lessons nuts. That's where we get random people who think they know basics in ECS taking lindy; they think they know, but they don't really know.

 

[twnkltoz]

What makes it difficult in our situation (if you haven't read the thread this originated in), is that we have 9-10 classes running per night, with 6-50 students per class. Most of the students take more than once class so it's hard to tell exactly how many we have, but I'd guess a couple of hundred group lesson students. That is just too many to track, especially considering that many will take an intro class for a month or two and not come back. We also allow drop-ins depending on the class and the time of the month. We do not have pre-registration: they show up and pay. Again, with the numbers that we're talking about, pre-registration is not feasible. The problem is with group lessons, not private lessons, so it's a matter of the students showing up for class. With the 10 or 15 teachers that we have, not every teacher knows each student well enough to know their skill level.

I've thought about making some sort of sheet for each student that checks off that they have passed all the prerequisites that they'd have to keep and present for any class above beginning 1, but that's a lot of time that I don't have!

 

[Kitty]

check out that thing with not switching partners I have described: if the student doesn't get it, the teacher keeps him/her from dancing with others and the student has to dance on his/her own in front of teacher, every time other people dance with a partner, until he/she gets it (and it doesn't feel bad or rude the way our teacher handles it). When the teacher sees that the student is getting it (sometimes not at the first lesson), she tells the student to go grab a partner. This approach also discourages people from staying in a class if they are not getting it and prevents more advanced people from dancing with those who don't get it.

You could also try longer courses: two month long courses or courses meeting twice a week. SInce the people would stay in a class for longer, by the end of class the level (in this dance) will even out a bit.

 

[tasche]

I would like pre-registration for a series of classes would make it easier to enforce pre-requisites

 

[Sagitta]

How about throwing them into an advanced class. :twisted: One such lesson of stumbling and being lost should set them straight, n'est pas?