Addressing Arguments Against Drama

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to consider the rebuttals against some common arguments against incorporating drama into the language classroom.

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We know that drama is an incredibly powerful way to for students to engage with language learning. However, often there are concerns from teachers about incorporating it into their teaching practice. Below are some commonly heard issues and my responses to them. I’d like to note that these responses were greatly informed by the work of others, particularly Ryoka (see below).

“I am not a drama expert!”

That okay! In fact, the majority of resources available for incorporating drama into the second language classroom are created for teachers with little to no drama experience in mind. As Lobman and Lundquist say in their instructional book for teachers on how to use improv, “improv is too valuable a learning tool to only be used by specialists” (p. xv). If you are looking for some guidance from experts, I cannot recommend the book Enlivening instruction with drama and improv: A guide for second language and world language teachers highly enough, and if you had to use only one resource (other than this website, of course!) this would be the one. Remember, you don’t need to stage a huge theatrical production in order to be teaching using drama. Instead, you can start slowly, incorporating a few games or activities into your existing lesson plans. 

“This is all about fun, and not about learning!”

When I hear this, my first thought is always, why can’t learning BE fun? My second thought is that I can’t think of a language learning model that doesn’t involve communicating effectively through speaking as a high priority. What I think this is actually asking is ‘where’s all the grammar?’ Don’t worry though, grammar (even explicitly taught grammar) has its place in drama/improv (see: post about Drama Grammar). Drama games can reinforce grammatical concepts (see: “What are you doing?”) and improv scenes are as legitimate of a way for students to share what they know as writing on a piece of paper.

“I don’t want to look foolish in front of my class!”

Neither do your students… at first. But what’s the worst thing that could happen? You have a class where foolishness (i.e. mistakes) are normalized and even welcomed! There’s laughter, and sharing, and an understanding that we’re all in this together. Also, if you expect your students to take risks, you need to be willing to model some of your own risk taking! Remember that incorporating drama is not about the teacher performing in front of the class, but a co-created experience between the teacher and students. If this is a big concern, go slowly and incorporate a few games or activities at a time until you feel more confident.

“My students don’t have the language skills!”

I’m not saying that you should expect students to create long, in-depth scenes the first day that they start class, but I am saying that you can start with drama/improv on day one! There are a ton of non-verbal games that still build community and introduce thinking about communication skills. Moreover, body language conveys so much more than we give it credit for!

“I have some very shy students!”

Personally, I was very shy as a child, and theatre was one of the ways that I was able to get out of my shell. Specifically, I remember a drama workshop sponsored by BC Hydro that came to my elementary school in grade four that was the catalyst for me realizing I was good at improvising. Therefore, while I wholeheartedly agree that adaptations and accommodations should be made for students, I strongly suggest you find ways to include them in speaking-roles. Some classes (and students) are less enthusiastic than others, which means starting smaller, giving more time for preparation and encouragement, and scaffolding more.  

“I don’t have the time for this!”

If you’re worried about planning time, I have some great news for you! I find drama easy to prep for, because my lesson plans can literally have a 40-minute chunk of time that only says “scenes”, but I’m still confident an incredible amount of learning will be happening. (It also makes writing substitute plans a breeze once students know the games!) If you’re worried about fitting it into the many, many curricular outcomes of your courses, I would urge you to remember that time spent on direct instruction does not equal time spent learning. I found that students retained more, even though we spent less time in drill-and-kill mode, because they were able to take ownership of their learning and put it into practice almost immediately. As for me, this gave me much needed time to check in with students individually, observe them, or even have a glass of water uninterrupted!

“My students would never do this/they’ll just goof off!”

I cannot emphasize enough the power of peer pressure. Students don’t want to look foolish in front of their peers, and therefore will be more on-task than given a worksheet. They want to get laughs, and look competent in front of their classmates. That being said, making sure that the classroom is emotionally safe (i.e., laughter is always with, not at) is incredibly important before asking students to take risks.

“All my colleagues will think I’m unprofessional!”

It’s true that there are teachers out there that view drama as less academic or less focused on the subject matter of the language.  Rather than present your choice to include drama into the curriculum as incorporating drama for drama’s sake, you can explain it to your colleagues as fulfilling the objective of overcoming students’ resistance to using the target language, and creating a need for speaking. You can also explain that you’re not giving up your textbook, to instead think of drama as another way to bring the textbook more authenticity. If they still don’t see value, there is so much research out there that supports drama in the foreign language classroom that you can direct them towards (see: post about academic research supporting drama). Finally, I would ask you, is it more important that your students have a meaningful and fun experience with language learning, or that your colleagues are appeased?

If you have any other concerns you’d like me to address, or anything to add to these rebuttals, please leave a comment below!

Resources consulted when writing this post:

• Angelianawati, L. (2019). Using drama in EFL classroom. Journal of English Teaching, 5(2), 125-134.

• Atas, M. (2015). The reduction of speaking anxiety in EFL learners through drama techniques. Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 176, 961-969.

• Cahnmann-Taylor, M. & McGovern, K.R. (2021). Enlivening instruction with drama and improv: A guide for second language and world language teachers. Routledge.

• Even, S. (2004). Dramagrammar in Theory and Practice. GFL-Journal 1: 35-51.

• Lobman, C., and Lundquist, M. (2007). Unscripted learning: Using improv activities across the K-8 curriculum. New York: Teachers College Press.

• Perone, A. (2011). Improvising with adult English language learners. In R. Sawyer (Ed.), Structure and improvisation   in creative teaching (pp. 162-183). Cambridge University Press.

• Royka, J. (2002). Overcoming the fear of using drama in English language teaching. The Internet TESL Journal, 18(6), 156-166.

Theatre of the Absurd: Teaching With Drama

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use a Theatre of the Absurd scene so that students can explore the Absurdist movement, comprehend when and how to use inverted questions, engage in textual analysis, and show their understanding through creating their own dialogues.

Image source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/beckett-s-waiting-for-godot-was-ugly-jet-of-marsh-gas-that-enraged-censors-5cr6tth6z

I do a whole comedy unit with high intermediate learners (the third or fourth year of them taking language classes) where we talk about comedy is and what forms it can take (stand-up, comics, cartoons, improv, sit-coms, mime, etc.) One of my favorite sections is to examine the Theatre of the Absurd, though this activity can be done with any other unit or as a quick one-off lesson! The Theatre of the Absurd movement is more of a “tragi-comedy”, as the humor comes from the lack of meaning the universe has to offer us (HILARIOUS!). But seriously, so much of humor is absurd, and there is a lot of word play to explore as well. I’m going to be using a French text as an example of how I teach this lesson, but the most famous Theatre of the Absurd play is “Waiting for Godot” and I’m sure you can adapt this lesson to any language!

I don’t normally teach using scripted plays, but I make an exception here, because it ultimately ends up with students creating their own! As for the activities I describe, the script I’m referring to is from En Direct 1, which was published in 1993. These textbooks are no longer in print, so I feel comfortable sharing it below. (Nelson Publishing, if I’m wrong, I’m happy to take it down!)

This text was originally a play written by Roland Dubillard in 1953 which aimed to demonstrate the tenets of the Theatre of the Absurd movement: life is meaningless and the universe is inexplicable. Then, the En Direct 1 textbook adapted an excerpt for French language learners. In comparing the text to the original, I’d say that I would much rather use the adapted text with my students, however some of you may have much more advanced learners in your class who would appreciate the original (and you could watch the video of French actors performing it). The adapted text is shorter, has simpler vocabulary, the subjunctive is removed, and any reference to smoking and alcohol are removed. Most importantly, all the questions were put in the inverted form in order to highlight that particular grammatical feature, such as transforming the original’s simple “Pourquoi?” into “Pourquoi ne supportez-vous pas la pluie?”. However, in my opinion, Dubillard’s original message remains within the modified text. For me, this is also an opportunity to practice some teacher transperancy and discuss with students why I make the choices that I do. I would be interested in their thoughts on authentic texts versus adapted texts and/or their thoughts on censoring mentions of smoking and drinking.

Potential learning objectives:

• Recognizing the inverted questioning technique (how it is constructed and when it is used)

• Listening comprehension (this can be paired with a fill-in-the-blanks activity where students listen for the questions and how they are constructed)

• Textual analysis through the genre of the Theatre of the Absurd

• Cultural competence through understanding the French historical context of the Absurdist movement

• Practicing speaking through creating an absurdist mini-scene

RESOURCE: Theatre of the Absurd Worksheet for students in .docx

RESOURCE: Theatre of the Absurd Worksheet for students in .pdf

RESOURCE: Adapted script of La Pluie (PDF)

Image source: http://50watts.com/The-Children-s-Theater-of-the-Absurd

PART I: Depending on the level of my students, I like to introduce the Theatre of the Absurd with a video in either French or English (or both!). I’ve found two videos that I recommend that are under 3 minutes: The best French video I’ve found is by Pierre Teuler and the best English video is by the BBC. Through watching the videos, we make a list of characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd or the Absurdist movement (which we’ll come back to in Part III). I also recommend this post if you want to have stronger grounding in the Theatre of the Absurd movement yourself for context. You can also watch these videos for more information:

• TedEd video “Why should you read ‘Waiting for Godot’?” by Iseult Gillespie (5:03)

• CrashCourse video “Beckett, Ionesco, and the Theater of the Absurd: Crash Course Theater #45”

• Un plume fragile video “Mouvement littéraire : Le théâtre de l'absurde - résumé et explication”

PART II: Listen to the text. The original cassette tape is looooong gone, but this part is important since plays are meant to be performed!  You could get a fellow French teacher to record a version with you to play or perhaps you could ask some strong students to read it aloud (after giving them the script ahead of time to look it over). The worksheet I have has students filling in the blanks with the inverted questions that they hear. I have a bank of the answers that students can use, but for stronger students you can remove the bank. As we go through, I tend to pause to clarify for understand (as much as you can truly understand Theatre of the Absurd!). You can also show a video of the original text (or a short clip from it) being performed once you’re done. Although students might not understand it all, there is something special about seeing how actors are able to imbue a play about meaninglessness with so much meaning and physicality!

PART III: Go back to the list of characteristics. How does this text represent the Absurdist movement? In the worksheet I made, I left space around the script for students to annotate on the actual script. Below are some examples of what I’ve pulled from the text, but your answers may be completely different!

• Believed life is meaningless and the universe is inexplicable = Person Two is unable to find an answer as to why Person One does not support the rain, and we are unable to understand what that even matters in the first place

• Wanted to represent a more dream-like environment of confusion and ambiguity, unlike most plays which try to represent reality on stage = Person One begins by stating “Je ne supporte pas la pluie”. This is a bewildering statement to both Person Two and the audience, and as the scene continues to confound us, we must eventually accept that understanding will always be an impossibility

• Wanted the audience to distrust language as a communication tool, as they believed that language was incapable of truly expressing the human condition = the ambiguity of language is highlighted through the use of the verb “supporter”, which like in English, can have a variety of meanings, such as to accept, to take responsibility for, to tolerate, or to root for

• Draws attention to the banality of every-day conversation = the words spoken in the dialogue are conversational and colloquial, such as the use of “Eh bien… je suppose que…” and “Hou!”

• Use of questions to represent the struggle humans have to understand an inexplicable reality = Person Two uses questions to attempt to clarify why Person One does not support various things associated with the rain. This is also how ideas are connected and flow: despite each question eliciting another illogical tangent, the questions are able to move the dialogue forward.

Image source: http://50watts.com/The-Children-s-Theater-of-the-Absurd

PART IV: Students pair-off and write their own absurdist dialogue. In the first column they have the script, in the second part they annotate how this conforms to the tenets of the Theatre of the Absurd, using La Pluie as a model. This is also an opportunity to focus on creating inverted questions! For students that might need inspiration to get started on their scenes, you could have a hat with pieces of paper with a bunch of weather phenomena (ex. the rain, the snow, a rainbow) or another theme (ex. normal activities or common objects) to give students inspiration.

PART V: Have an ‘absurdity-off’!!! A pair of students perform their absurd dialogue for another pair. Between the two groups, they decide which of the two texts were more absurd (honor system). Continue with the winners going up against a new pair (while the pair that was eliminated gets a chance to watch other pairs perform). After there are only two groups left, they perform for the class as a whole and the class votes on the ‘Most Absurd’ dialogue. (NOTE: If you have group that is strong with improv and seems to grasp the concept easily, you can skip Part IV, or at least make it less scripted, having them sketch out their basic idea rather than write out an entire script).

POTENTIAL CONTINUATION/FORMATIVE FEEDBACK: Students individually rewrite the script they made with their partner, paying attention to grammar and vocabulary (which likely has some errors since they quickly wrote it in class). However, the catch is that while they can keep the answers, they have to make completely new questions! (Or the opposite: they need to make completely new answers to the original questions! Or they exchange their scripts with another group and need to do this!) Students then hand it in for the teacher to give feedback on inverted question formation. I also usually start the next day with a warm-up game that involves absurd inverted questions.

 UPDATE: I’ve adapted this lesson for a Drama Grammar lesson template, which you can check out here.

How do you use different types of drama in your classroom? Have you ever explored the Theatre of the Absurd with students? Share in the comments!

Using improv in the language classroom: Defining Drama

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to incorporate improv games and activities into your language classroom.

Drama is “a wide range of oral activities that have an element of creativity present” (Thorton & Wheeler, 1986, p. 317)

This is part III of a series of posts on using improv in the language classroom.

Just because a teacher uses “drama” in their language classroom does not necessarily mean that everyone is on the same page as to what that means, or the philosophies behind their choices. Dr. Kathleen McGovern, (author of the book on improv in the L2 classroom I can’t stop recommending) notes, for example, that a teacher that subscribes to the Audio Lingual Method, who believes that the repetition of scripts is integral to language learning, will have a different approach that a teacher who subscribes to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), who would forgo scripts for role plays and improvised games to enhance communicative competence. Moreover, a teacher who teaches using the Total Physical Response approach would have students embodying words and phrases, while Total Physical Response Storytelling (while similar in name, not similar in philosophy) would have teachers use comprehensible input and aspects of students’ lives while acting out a story. All of these are technically drama-based teaching, but all are very different! The only thing they have in common is the fact that drama is not the primary focus of L2 instruction, but as a tool to be used to enhance learning.

Therefore, Dr. McGovern, after synthesizing the literature that emerged in the field of drama and L2 instruction over several years in her 2017 article, suggested a system of classifications of common approaches that teachers can use when discussing drama:

Classification 1: Theatrical Performance

• Definition: Students study and then perform a play in the target language.

• Pros: Introduces students to the target language’s culture.

• Cons: The plays chosen will often reinforce the norms of the dominant culture.

Classification 2: Process Drama

• Definition: Involves improvised scenes, does not require an audience, and emphasizes learner reflection.

• Pros: It has been shown to increase student engagement and participation, reduce anxiety, and result in multi-modal learning.

• Cons: The benefits to students’ language learning is correlated to their teachers’ drama experience.

Classification 3: Games and Improvisation

• Definition: Teachers use a wide repertoire of theatrical games and improvisation techniques.

• Pros: While not specifically tied to a conceptual framework, this approach fits well within CLT’s goals.

• Cons: Is a short-term method that relies solely on isolated exercises and is teacher orientated.

Drama is “the literature that walks and talks before our eyes” (Boulton, 1968, p. 3)

McGovern emphasizes that a difficulty in studying drama in L2 education is that drama is not static but constantly evolving. She suggests the following distinctions be made in order to limit confusion:

• “Drama” v. “Theater”: Drama should be used to describe students engaging with theatrical activities, while theater should refer to students enacting a performance for an audience.

• “Product-based” v. “Process-based”:  Product-based drama should be used to refer to an approach in which students study and rehearse a text that they then perform to an audience. In contrast, a process-based approach is one in which students participate in improvisation and theater games and is limited to the classroom.

• “Small-scale” v. “Large-scale” forms: Small-scale forms should refer to activities that last only one class or unit and do not result in a final product. Thus, large-scale forms should refer to activities that are script-based and require more time.

Accordingly, in the spirit of Dr. McGovern’s desire to have clear definitions when talking about using drama in the L2 classroom, I want to clarify that when I talk about improv on this blog, I am talking about something that can be described as:

1. Games and Improvisations. While Process Drama uses improv games, it is part of a much deeper philosophy of continuous, embodied learning that emphasizes learner identity. Games and Improvisation is the use of one-off activities that are incorporated into a teacher’s existing curriculum, and is not considered the curriculum itself. For more information on Process Drama I recommend Erika Piazzoli’s 2018 book “Embodying Language in Action: The Artistry of Process Drama in Second Language Education”.

2. Drama. While sometimes my students perform for an audience of their classmates, that is not the goal of the activities we do.

3. Process-based. There is no product. As Margaret Piccoli notes, one of the best parts of improv is that it forces us to be in the moment because it disappears as soon as it is complete!

4. Small-scale. Any language teacher that takes on the task of staging a complete theatrical performance that takes months to rehearse, build, and promote gets all my admiration. However, that is the opposite of what I’m talking about!

While I was able to teach with no problems before coming across these classifications, I think there is a lot of value in being able to specify what we do.  For one, it allows us to reflect on the choices we make. For example, if I subscribe to CLT, and I have my students memorizing scripts, then there is clearly a conflict between my philosophical framework and the activities I use, and I need to make some changes. Furthermore, specificity gives us better understanding. If another teacher and I are both using “drama” in our French classes, we might have very different assumptions about what is happening in each others’ classrooms. Additionally, for research purposes, once everyone gets on the same page with definitions, it’ll make finding articles that are actually relevant that much easier!

Also, I think there is tremendous value in all areas being discussed! Galante (2011) notes that “while drama offers opportunities for learners to use prior knowledge of the L2 in a creative manner, theatre focuses on accuracy and aspects integral to the performance such as vocal projection and comprehensible speech” (p. 276). While my interests have leaned towards the process-orientated drama side of things, if I had a class that wanted to do a theatrical production, or needed to focus on accuracy, vocal projection, and comprehensible speech, I would love to do a big end-of-year presentation.

Source: McGovern, K. R. (2017). Conceptualizing drama in the second language classroom. Scenario (Cork), XI(1), 4-16.

Do you think definitions are helpful when discussing drama? How would you categorize your own use of drama in your language classroom? Share in the comments!