Great Arizona Puppet Theater designs musical show for ESL students

By Tom Maxedon
Published: Saturday, August 26, 2023 - 8:05am
Updated: Saturday, August 26, 2023 - 4:49pm

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Great Arizona Puppet Theater
"Baby Bear" is a musically-oriented show focusing on teaching ESL students language.

With students returning to the classroom, Great Arizona Puppet Theater has launched a two-week run of “Baby Bear Goes to School.”

The musically-oriented show is targeted at young children learning English as a Second Language (ESL) and follows the main character as he meets his new teacher and classmates, who are also animals.

All of the dialogue is in English, with lots of repetition to help ESL students, in particular, gain confidence in speaking it.

The show has an extensive study guide and songbook, so kids can practice wordplay. And there are puppet-making activities after the show to help reinforce vocabulary.

Performances run Wednesday through Sunday for the next two weeks.

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