I am teaching the Tempest to a group of year 7 at the moment. I, like Christine, like to give the students a good idea of the text before reading any part of it.
I use hot-seating for the first two lessons. I take on a character-Caliban and Miranda work well- and the class ask me questions. It got a bit tricky when they sensed the attempted rape of Miranda by Caliban but otherwise the class is now begging to READ the play!!
My knees were hurting when I emerged from my cave!
Good luck.
Ps I have used this technique with A level students too!
Alison