15-Number of gestures

15 - How many gestures should we select in each sentence?

For the purpose of illustrating poems by international gestures, it is not convenient to make a gesture for each word, for two reasons:

First, because the aim is not to translate, but to illustrate the poem . Note that in the other languages ​​of the world, many of the auxiliary words that we use in our language have no equivalent, so we will be incorporating symbols that can create confusion.

Second, because in this way we subordinate the cadence and rhythm at the poem´s reciting to the rate at which the gestures are made ​​(we can not make as many gestures as words at the same speed with which we speak, and even if we did so it would look like a windmill instead of a person reciting), and thus loosing a lot of expressiveness in the children.

Our advice is that, to make a poem, the teacher (or the children themselves), identify the main ideas (each small phrase usually bears two main ideas, while in larger phrases there may be some more). They need not to be nouns, since sometimes some names are left over, or are redundant or superfluous ornaments, and other times the emphasis is on a verb, or an adjective, or even an expression like "also", "never "," no ", etc. (whenever you see their need at that particular text.)

It may help to call out only the words chosen, in the so-called “Indian style”, and see if they convey the main meaning of the poetic text.