Charades in the Language Classroom

Your language teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use charades as a method for introducing or reviewing grammar or vocabulary.

I have memories of being a kid and peeking through the staircase and watching my parents and their friends play charades in the living room. I also remember thinking “I could’ve acted that movie title out better than Uncle Fred did!” Then, when I became a language teacher, charades became a class favorite improv game for reviewing or introducing grammar or vocabulary.

 What started at a parlor game in 16th century France has evolved into a fun, simple, but incredibly effective game to play in the language classroom. The basics of charades are:

  1. At least two teams competing against each other

  2. A person mimes (silently acts out) a prompt

  3. Their teammates must shout out the correct answer

  4. Within a set timed limit

  5. And fun is had!

 In my opinion, charades is best played with lists of vocabulary* or verbs. For example, in French students need to memorize the irregular past participles of verbs**, which can be quite boring. However, by doing past participle charades, students are incentivized to not only learn the correct past participle, but to make sure they know the meaning of its verb, since they’ll need to act it out or recognize it. (See below for adaptations of difficulty when using verbs).

 Preparation before class:

  • Find a place for this in your lesson plan. Maybe this is to review before an assessment? Or you are using the Drama Grammar method, and this is perfect for the ‘context exploration’ part of the lesson (in which case you’ll want to create some support materials to help students). Budget between 10-15 minutes, depending on how familiar students are with the game already.

  • Create a list of prompts (ex. specific verbs, irregular past participles, the unit vocab words in the target language, etc.) and print it out. Cut the prompts into individual small pieces of paper, then put in a container (i.e. envelope or Ziploc bag). Since I’ll often have five groups of six in a 30-person class, I tend to use five different colors of paper. That way if I find a random piece of paper when class is over, I know which bag to put it back into!

Before the activity:

  • Divide students into groups. As mentioned above, I like smaller groups of three competing with other groups of three. This way there’s two people guessing, which is small enough that students can’t just sit there. They also are guaranteed at least a couple of rounds of acting out the prompts.

  • Set the ground rules. Are participants allowed to put prompts back in the bag if it’s taking too long for their teammates to answer or they don’t know how to act it out? Are they allowed to have access to their notes when guessing and/or acting? If they violate the rules of charades (speak aloud or spell out a word) do they get any second chances or are they disqualified? If someone shouts out the correct answer right after the timer sounds, does it still count? I usually let each group decide for themselves.

During the activity:

  • The team with the most points wins the game. Points are gained when students on the person acting out the prompt’s team shout out the correct answer. There is a time limit (I usually do a minute, but that can be negotiated ahead of time) and the goal is to get through as many prompts as possible (gain as many points) during that time. The winner is declared when all prompts have been exhausted. As most students have access to phones with timers, I’ll have each group individually time themselves. This wikihow video explains how to play quite well.

  • While students are playing, I usually circulate to make sure everyone is on-task. If I see a student struggling, I might look at the paper and suggest a gesture or action for them to try. Because of the competitive nature of the game, there’s often a lot of engagement… and sometimes, too much noise!

After the activity:

  • I’ll sometimes follow up with a reinforcement activity, like a crossword** or a quickwrite, to solidify the learning in students’ minds. You can also have students do a quick reflection about how they did, and which words were the hardest to remember. Perhaps they could think of tricks of how to remember that word for next time? Students could also be asked to nominate an MVP of the group, whoever acted the best or guessed the most. Don’t forget to have students collect the prompts and put them all back into their container before you move on to another activity! There’s nothing worse that scrambling to deal with tiny scraps of paper between classes.  

Adaptations:

  • Do a round-robin style tournament where teams compete for the title of ultimate charades champion.

  • Do a whole-class version where either half the class guesses, or it’s a free for all (depending on the class, this could get raucous!)

  • Transition to a game of Pictionary after warming up with charades, or vice-versa.

  • Add in obstacles. For example, “for the next three words, you can only use your hands to act” or “you must stand on one foot for the next two words”. You could brainstorm a list of possible obstacles with the class, and pull one out of a hat every round. Or, you could throw them into the bag with the prompts, so when students pull out a suggestion, every once in a while, there’s a random obstacle added!

  • If playing with verbs in a target language with conjugations, you can start easy (have students guess the infinite) and then make it progressively more difficult. I do this by having a die that students roll. In French there are six conjugations for each verb, which makes it very easy! So, for example, if a student rolled a three at the beginning of their turn, all the guesses for that minute must be properly conjugated in the third-person singular form. If the conjugations are wrong (and you bet the opposite team will be monitoring!) then they can’t get the point until it’s conjugated correctly. You can even have multiple dice for more advanced classes: add in a die for different tenses!

  • If you need a fun game to play to fill time or as a reward, play charades like my parents did in their living room: have students write down famous movies/films/shows and guess the title in the target language

 

*In my interview with Florencia Henshaw and Maris Hawkins they make the point that giving themed vocabulary lists is not evidence-based best practice. However, that doesn’t mean that you might not generate more meaningful vocabulary lists in other ways, such as through reading a class novel, music video presentations, or words that come up through a story if you do TPRS. You might also be in a situation where you are obligated to test students on certain vocabulary, and this is a way to make that rote memorization more engaging.

**French-specific resources (in PDF form):

Have you played charades with your classes? What kind of prompts do you use? Any tips or adaptations to share? Post below in the comments!

What is it? Improv Grammar Game

Your language teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use the “What is it?” improv game to improve vocabulary and/or target grammatical structures.

 This is a similar game to another improv grammar game: “What are you doing?” but it involves props and less physicality from students.

Source: FreePik

Materials needed: a variety of regular items (or irregular if you have them) that are different in shape and size. I can usually find everything I need in my classroom for a quick round (such as a stapler, a scarf, a pencil, and a hat), but if you play this multiple times you might need to start bringing in some truly unusual stuff to keep the students on their toes!

This game was mentioned as an example of the “awareness raising phase” in Even’s (2004) Drama Grammar method, but it’s also a well-known warm-up game. The way it is played is that the class sits in a circle and an object is passed around while students ask each other “what is it?” and are given an answer by another student. The only wrong answers are to correctly identify the object or repeat what someone else has said. So, for example, if a scarf is being passed around, student B will ask student A “what is that?” and student A will say “this is my pet snake” and pass the scarf to student B. Then student C will ask student B “what is that?” and student B will respond “a magical flying carpet” and pass it to student C, etc. After students get comfortable with the game, you can introduce a more physical element by having them interact with the object (i.e. make the scarf wiggle and hiss for “a snake” or ride on it for “a magic flying carpet”). Change out the object once it’s gone around the circle or all options have been exhausted.

This activity can be used as a fun way to start off the class and/or have students dig deep for vocabulary. It can also be used for targeted grammar instruction. For example, how to differentiate between this/that, how to ask questions, or how to use the conditional when being polite (i.e., polite ways to retrieve the object from the previous person with phrases like “could you please pass that to me…?” or  “would you be so kind as to give me that…?”)

Adaptations:

  • When the student identifies the object, have the rest of the class repeat it back in chorus (i.e. Student A: “This is a snake”, the whole class: “That is a snake”).

  • Have multiple items going around at once so everyone stays engaged! Or break into smaller groups, each with their own object which they then pass on to the next group when they’ve done one or two rounds.

  • Allow students to use a dictionary or translator. Since they may be using unfamiliar vocabulary, the teacher or another student can write the new words on the board… and then use that new vocabulary as prompts for an improv free scene!

  • For more advanced learners, add layers of complexity to the answers, such as adjectives. Thus, it’s not just a snake, it’s “my pet snake” or “a small snake” or “a sneaky snake”.

  • For students that may be unsure, start with a whole-class brainstorm using a sample object. Students will see that they can transform the object into anything they want and there are no wrong answers. Alternatively, show students the object you will use and then give students a few minutes thinking and discussion time to decide what they will present it as (have them come up with at least one alternative in case someone takes their answer!)



How do you use this game in your classroom? Feel free to share in the comments!

Using improv in the language classroom: Drama Grammar Part II

Your language teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use the Drama Grammar method to structure improv lessons in your classroom that are grammatically focused.

This is Part II in a two-part series about the Drama Grammar method created by Susanne Evens. In the first post I explored the method, as outlined by Evens in her 2004 and 2011 articles. In this post I will be explaining how I would adapt Drama Grammar for my particular context (middle and high school students) and teaching style.

SCROLL DOWN TO DOWNLOAD THE DRAMA GRAMMAR TEMPLATE

The framework proposed by Even is fantastic, and as I outlined in my previous post, has a lot that I like about it! However, for use in my own classroom, there are a few adaptations that I wanted to make, such as making it a non-linear and reducing it to four phases. What I wanted to address by revising the framework was:

  • It seems from her articles that Even has an almost exclusive focus on Drama Grammar in her second language classroom. While I really like the model, I wanted something more flexible and easier to integrate into other lesson plans.

  • Even taught second-year German to students at the University of Leicester for a full academic year; I teach younger students (ages 13-18) and do not have a full year with them. I wanted to have a framework that would work for shorter attention spans and shorter class times. Therefore, the awareness-raising and context-finding phases can be combined into one phase of ‘context-exploration’.

  • Moreover, four phases fits nicely with the Systemic Functional Linguistics model of the teaching-learning cycle (Gebhard, 2019; Gibbons, 2015) which begins with “building the field or context” as its first step

  • While I understand that the context-finding phase is trying to create an authentic need for the language structure, I think that it is difficult to mimic real-world contexts in a classroom using a game or activity. Rather than try to force this, I would put the emphasis on finding authenticity in the scenes being created by students. I think just creating a need for a grammatical structure in order to play a game can be enough.

  • Even used a lot of process drama techniques and activities (such as teacher-in-role, co-constructing, hot-seating, assuming the mantle of the expert, etc.). While I think there is value to process drama, I tend to favor the more classic improvisational games, which can tend to be more goofy and less focused on creating authentic contexts (see above).

  • The presentation phase is, by its name, focused on presentation of scenes. I would like this to be optional, and focus more on the dramatic play phase, as I want to be more process orientated than production orientated (see here for further discussions on how drama can be conceptualized in the classroom). Therefore, the two phases are combined into a ‘story phase’ to put the emphasis on the narrative being co-constructed by students.

  • I don’t want to be confined to a liner model. Instead, the phases could easily flow into each other or be moved around.  For example, students could weave between the context-exploration phase and the grammar phase, or alternatively the grammar phase and the story phase, as the teacher adds in more information.  Alternatively, students could be in the story phase, be asked to reflect, and then return to the story phase to make adjustments based on their reflections before presenting.

Therefore, for use in my own classroom, I would break the Drama Grammar method into these four phases:

  1. Context-exploration phase: the need for a structure is introduced through small games or scenarios. Students may be given sentence stems or models, though grammatical instruction is not given at this point.

  2. Grammar phase: explicit or co-constructed grammar lesson(s) occurs.

  3. Story phase: students create scenes based on a prompt (visual, textual, or vocabulary, etc.) and focus on incorporating the newly learned grammatical structure. Presentation can be to the whole group, another smaller group, just the teacher, or to no audience at all. (If you’re looking for some different prompts to start your scenes, check out this post!)

  4. Reflection Phase: students reflect on their grammar use, but also their ability to tell a story, cooperate with peers, and engage with their own learning.

I was explaining these ideas to a friend recently and joked that it’s now the (L)even model of Drama Grammar: it’s all Susanne Even’s ideas but I, Aviva Levin, have come along and changed it up a bit!  Joking aside, I wanted to share with you the planning sheet I created to help facilitate my own lesson construction:

DOWNLOAD RESOURCE (.DOC): Drama Grammar Planning Template.docx

DOWNLOAD RESOURCE (.PDF): Drama Grammar Planning Template.pdf

I’ve made an example of how I would use this model for my own lessons. For example, if I were to do adapt my Theatre of the Absurd lesson, which deals with inverted questions and absurdist story telling techniques, to a Drama Grammar framework, I would plan it out like this:

 You can see that we start in the context-exploration phase, go into a grammar discussion, and then return to the same game (the delightful BOOGERS!) to re-explore with our new knowledge. I also am still unsure about the prompt I want to use for students: should it be a bag of objects or a hat full of words? Some classes might not need to prompt at all, and some might need more structure. I also have students presenting to each other and then only two groups presenting to the class. As for the reflections, I broke it into two: one think/pair/share about our understanding of the absurdist genre (reflecting on understanding and performing) and an exit slip (reflecting on grammar; I’d likely have students put two questions on a sticky note, then place it on a traffic light I have in the classroom to signal how well they think they understand inverted questions (red=still struggling; yellow=think I’m getting there; green=I feel very confident). One thing to think about is how the new knowledge is going to be reinforced after the lesson. Like Even had in her sample workshop, perhaps there will be a homework assignment? If I were to stick to my original lesson for the Theatre of the Absurd, students would write new scripts independently and I would check them over the next class.

 

What are your thoughts about how I’ve adapted the original Drama Grammar method? What adaptations would you want to make to have it fit in your own classroom? Share in the comments!

Using improv in the language classroom: Drama Grammar Part I

Your language teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use the Drama Grammar method to structure improv lessons in your classroom that are grammatically focused.

This is Part I in a two-part series about the Drama Grammar method created by Susanne Evens. In this post I will be exploring the method, as outlined by Evens in her 2004 and 2011 articles. In Part II I will be explaining how I would adapt Drama Grammar for my particular context (middle and high school students) and teaching style.

Recognizing a need for grammar instruction, but wanting to stay away from traditional models, Even created the Drama Grammar method in 2004.

I was introduced to this approach in Susanne Even’s 2004 article “Dramagrammar in Theory and Practice”, in which she explained a new learning model that she has created called “Dramagrammar” (note: by 2011 it was changed to “Drama Grammar”). Drama Grammar was created when Even noticed that post-secondary students were entering universities without proficient grammatical knowledge, which she attributed to an emphasis on communication skills above grammar structures in their previous language education. Nonetheless, even when grammar instruction was introduced at the post-secondary level, students seemed unable to transfer this knowledge into their oral production. Even describes Drama Grammar as “a combination of language in use and language reflection” that integrates “dramatic acting with conscious language analysis” (2004, p. 42).  By replacing traditional grammar, which is devoid of meaning and context, with Drama Grammar, students are given more autonomy as their instructor is more of a guide than a font of knowledge and language learning becomes more social as teamwork is encouraged.

The Six Phases of Drama Grammar

Drama Grammar lessons are broken into six different phases:

  1. Awareness-raising phase: grammar structures are elicited from students by creating imaginary situations in which the structure is necessary, usually in small warm-up games

  2. Context-finding phase: learners use the structure during an improvised scene that mimics real-world contexts that necessitate the same grammar in a concrete form

  3. Linguistic phase:  the dramatic flow is interrupted, and the teacher either explicitly teaches the grammar structure or encourages students to work out the rules themselves. This stage is placed in the middle instead of the beginning so that students have already experienced why they need this structure in order to communicate, which creates greater engagement.

  4. Dramatic play phase: students draft and rehearse longer, more in-depth improvised scenes using their new grammatical knowledge

  5. Presentation phase: students present their improvisations to their peers.

  6. Reflection phase: students settle any remaining questions they have, talk about what worked or did not work, give praise, and reflect on their language awareness and learning process.

Sample Workshop

At the end of her 2004 article, Even runs through a workshop that she has previously delivered to language teachers at a conference, which was taught in English, in order to demonstrate how a Drama Grammar lesson might be taught:

1. First, in the awareness-raising phase, chairs are set up in pairs in a circle around a ‘stage’: one chair (the ‘observer’) can see what is happening on the stage, one (the ‘listener’) cannot. The teacher enters the room, wearing a mask, and performs a short pantomime, then leaves. The observer then describes what they see to the listener. Next, the listeners turn around, and when the teacher re-enters, they tell her what to do, based on the description they received. Once that is complete, the observers describe how the first and second pantomimes differed based on what had been described to the listeners by the observers. Finally, the teacher does the original pantomime, and both the listeners and the observers discuss the differences between the performances. Students are encouraged to use reported speech forms (e.g. “I told John that the person was walking around, but John then said that the person should sit down immediately”).

2. The class then enters the linguistic phase (note: the order of the phases are presented differently in the workshop example than in the article). The class discusses indirect/reported speech, and small groups write out what they believe to be the rules, and any questions they have, on large papers which they present to the larger group.

3. Next, in the context-finding stage, the class plays a modified version of ‘Telephone’ where sentences are said aloud, not whispered, and the wording is changed slightly each time, using reported speech. For example, if the first person says “Yesterday I went to the new bistro. It’s expensive, but the waiter is cute!”, the second person will say “Susanne says she went to the new bistro yesterday. She told me her meal cost a lot of money, and I think she has a crush on the waiter!”. At the end of the activity, the instructor addresses any questions about reported speech.

4. The next activity, as part of the drama play phase, is a continuation of the previous game. In small groups students present a visual/verbal presentation, which are tableaus of a transforming rumor that they have created.

5. Lastly, students are given homework that allows them to transfer their new knowledge to different contexts. In this example, students are given a text within which they must find all the forms of indirect speech, and identify the grammatical tense being used.  

What I like about Drama Grammar:

  • The inclusion of a step of explicit reflection, which I am realizing that I need to do more of in my language classroom. Also, students have an opportunity to discuss the form and rules in an exploratory and collaborative manner rather than receive direct instruction.

  • Personally, in the past, I would have been reluctant to pair a small group grammar discovery activity with improv because of the feeling that it was too much time wasted. Instead, I would have paired improv with an explicit grammar lesson, perhaps because I felt the need to prove that the improv activity was an extension of a more ‘valid’ traditional lesson. This method has made me consider some of my own pedagogical biases and how they influence my classroom practices.

  • How Evens situates Drama Grammar within postmethod pedagogy, which resonates with me as a pedagogical framework as the emphasis is on “particularity, practicality, and possibility”. This helps me anticipate a common question that I get asked when I talk about improv in the foreign language classroom, which is “where does grammar come into this?” Within the context of postmethod pedagogy, I feel confident in saying, “as much or as little as your context requires”!

  • The psychological and pedagogical benefits that Even observed in her students. Psychologically, students felt less afraid to make mistakes, and were willing to take more risks. They also felt more confident and motivated, and were able to form deeper connections with peers. Pedagogically, students were able to understand grammar both cognitively and contextually, and saw its utility beyond classroom exercises. This also enabled students to be better able to self-monitor their language learning, and made them more comfortable with grammar topics in general.

Links to check out:

Check out Part II, where I will discuss how I hope to adapt Even’s Drama Grammar for my own context. What are your thoughts on Drama Grammar? Feel free to share in the comments!

Boogers!: Improv Grammar Game

Your language teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get students asking grammatically correct questions while trying not to laugh by using the improv grammar game ‘boogers’.

 When I was a kid, we’d play a game at camp that we called “boogers”. The idea was that you’d ask a question (any question) and the person must reply with ‘boogers’ with an absolutely serious face. If you laughed or even smiled a tiny bit you ‘lost’ and it was the other person’s turn. As kids, it was difficult to keep a straight face, because boogers are hilarious! Some examples would be:

  • What is your favorite food? BOOGERS.

  • Who’s your best friend? BOOGERS.

  • What do you want to be when you grow up? BOOGERS.

  • How do you spell your name? BOOGERS

Now, I use this fun improv game in my classroom as a warm-up to practice grammatically correct questions, and also to have some fun! We play in small groups of about 4-6 people. The first person to start must not show any reaction on their face other than to say the word. (The word “boogers” may or may not be classroom appropriate, so depending on your situation, any word can be used. I choose ‘Un pingouin’ for my French classes, which I explain more about below). Students ask questions until Person A cracks (even the little uptick of a lip counts!) and then chooses the next person to be bombarded with questions. When the time is up (10 minutes usually suffices) the person who held out for the longest number of questions in a row wins.

Some variations/modifications:

  • If you notice that students are preternaturally good at this game (i.e. they are able to hold out easily, even under rapid fire questions, or really funny questions) then you can add an element of humorous challenge: actions! Wiggle like a penguin, say it with a high-pitched voice, also wear a silly hat… anything to help amp up the silliness!

  • For students who may need more guidance hand out sentence stems for forming questions and a bank of vocabulary

  • For students who need encouragement for expanding their question repertoire you can distribute dice and tell students they need to roll the die before asking their question. So, for example, if they roll (1) they must ask a question starting with ‘who’ (ex. who is the principal? BOOGERS!), (2) what, (3) where, (4) when, (5) why, and (6) how.

  • If you think one student might dominate the question asking, you can make a rule that everyone else must get a turn asking a question before a student can ask another

  • To not center specific students for any period of time you can go around in a circle where the person being asked a question changes, and it’s a simple collection of points (break or not break) that determines the winner

I teach high school, where boogers have lost (some, not all) comedic value, so I use the French word for ‘penguin’ which is “un pingouin”. I have several reasons for this:

Source: https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/musique/video-carla-bruni-imite-le-pingouin-dans-son-nouveau-clip_1263513.html

  • “Pingouin” is a very fun word for English speakers to say because it involves making sounds that we don’t normally hear in English

  • Because this is a difficult word so say, it is a great opportunity to introduce students to forvo.com, an excellent site for listening to authentic pronunciations in hundreds of languages

  • I can introduce this activity with a music video (see my blog post here for more ways I like to use music videos while teaching) using the adorable video of Carla Bruni’s song, “Le Pingouin”.

  • Because high school students are more able to keep a flat face, in order to make them more likely to break into a smile or laughter I will sometimes make them also wiggle like the penguin-people in the music video while they answer “un pingouin”.

  • To me, it is equally, if not more, funny, to answer questions like “how many siblings do you have?” with “a penguin” as it is “boogers!”

  • I tend to play this game during my comedy unit, which has a goal of mastering inverted questions. I usually play it the day after our Theatre of the Absurd lesson, as this is a good practice for questioning techniques and is very much an example of an inadvertent absurdist dialogue! Un pingouin is more in line with the absurdist nature than ‘boogers’.

  • During my comedy unit I open with each class with the word of the day, all of which are idioms. There are no idioms I know of that involve boogers, but there is one that is penguin based: Se sentir comme un pingouin dans le désert!  (Feel like an outsider / feel like a fish out of water). This also works because I tend to follow this activity with my inverted questions idiom worksheet (resource can be found here).

 

Have you played this game or any of its variations? Share how it went in the comments!

What are you doing? Improv Grammar Game

Your language teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use the “What are you doing” improv game to reinforce present tense verb use. 

“What are you doing?” is a classic improv warm-up game. By that, it’s a game that’s designed to exercise your creativity, not be presented to an audience for laughs (though those usually occur!). More importantly, for our purposes, it’s a great exercise to practice the present tense of verbs!

 The way that the game works is that Person A starts miming an action, let’s say fishing. Person B walks up and asks, in the target language, “What are you doing?”. Person A responds by saying what they are doing using the present tense, but it can’t be the thing they are miming. So maybe Person A says “I’m playing hockey”. Then Person B begins miming playing hockey. Person C walks up, asking “What are you doing?”. Person B responds with anything but playing hockey, so maybe they say “I’m watching TV”. And so the game continues.

Stock image sites are great for brain-storming ideas for possible actions or for printing out pictures to help scaffold students into playing the game.

There are a few ways that this can be played. One is having a small group circle, and the person to the left always asks what the person to the right is doing. A more challenging variation is doing this in pairs, which keeps students on their toes, as they don’t have any time to preplan their answers. More advanced students might be able to do this game without any scaffolding, but novices might need a brainstorm of verbs, or even just conjugations, before playing.

This a great game for introducing students to improv, as typically there’s no audience and they only need to produce one sentence at a time. If you’re worried about students freezing up, the first time you play you can pass out slips of paper with either the sentence students should say or a picture of the action they should describe, so that they can get used to the format of the game (miming the action but saying something different). Then, in the second round, they need to generate their own verbs.

 You can also encourage students to go beyond the subject+verb structure, asking for further information. For example, maybe it’s subject+verb+adverb (or however your TL structures it) so that the student has to mime playing hockey excitedly, fishing unenthusiastically, or watching TV sadly. This can make for more challenging grammar, but also more fun for the students doing the miming! You can also encourage students to stick to themes, such as unit vocabulary or types of verbs (for example, only irregular verbs or reflexive verbs).

The beauty of the game is that there is an infinite number of responses (as many as there are verbs and qualifiers): the only wrong ones are if you describe what you’re currently doing or you assign an inappropriate action to your partner! Students can get really creative with both their answers (walking on the moon, feeding an elephant, eating a cake as big as me) and their mimes (I’m smiling just thinking about someone miming trying to eat a cake that’s the size of themselves!)

RESOURCE: Video describing how to play the game

RESOURCE: Video that goes into variations of the game and tips/tricks

RESOURCE: Florea (2011) breaks down this game into six easy-to-follow steps (presentation / practice / production / preparation / modeling / play) to add more scaffolding into playing this game, which you can read on pages 50-51 of her article.

 

Have you played this game before? Feel free to share any variations, lessons learned, or thoughts in the comments!

Using improv in the language classroom: Core Values

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

What some view as the only rule in improv: “Yes, and…”

Image source: https://www.amindapart.org.uk/blog/the-real-meaning-of-the-improv-rule-yes-and/

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

As I mentioned in part I, there really are no supplies needed for most improv. However, there is something that the teacher needs to do when incorporating these kinds of activities, or any activities that involve students taking risks with language: create an environment of physical and emotional safety. Once that is in place, really anything can happen!

Some teachers recommend discussing the ‘rules of improv’ with students. If you’re only planning on incorporating small games here and there, I don’t think that the rules need to be explicitly discussed. However, if you’re wanting to do more free scenes, this is a must.

Everyone has their own opinion on what the ‘rules of improv’ are. Depending on who you ask, there might just be one (usually ‘yes and’) or ten. When working with students, I like the ‘rules’ proposed by Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor and Kathleen McGovern in their fantastic (and highly recommended) book, Enlivening instruction with drama and improv: A guide for second language and world language teachers. Their four rules are:

  1. Be Present & Pay Attention

  2. Say “Yes, And”

  3. R&R (take risks and be ridiculous)

  4. Endow Scenes with Meaning

Personally, I think talking about the values of improv, especially in the context of education, is equally as important. Anja Keränen outlines what she believes to be the four main values of improvisational theatre:

  1. The first value is that improvisation is suitable for everyone, and that lack of talent is not a barrier to participation.

  2. The second value is that mistakes are not errors, but opportunities to learn and increase confidence. Trying and failing is encouraged in improv, as students are expected to learn by doing. Moreover, errors can be liberating as they are possibilities to learn new words or strategies while still staying within the frame of mind of communication.

  3. The third value is that participants must say ‘yes’ to all ideas presented.  Both teachers and students must let go to their own ideas and accept the other participants’ ideas as better than their own.

  4. Finally, the fourth value is that the improvised scene disappears and is forevermore unattainable. This puts the focus on the communicative skills being demonstrated and the learning happening within the scene, forcing teachers and learners to be in the moment. Moreover, this can be perceived as a rebellion against traditional education systems that focus on creating error-free, concrete products.

 Some claim that the rules and values of improv will make you a better person, or a better leader, or a better school. While I can’t speak to all of that, I can say that improv makes for better lessons, which I can’t wait to share with you!

Using improv in the language classroom: What is improv?

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

Image source: https://outschool.com/classes/improv-for-beginners-zF5ESyMY

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

Did you know? Improv was invented in the 1930s when Viola Spolin, inspired by Neva Boyd’s play-based progressive educational philosophy, needed a way to engage children and immigrants in theatre. Improv, she found, was able to bridge gaps in language and culture. Despite these educationally based origins, almost a 100 years later, improv is not a major presence in most language classes.

I think that improv games and activities can be one of the most valuable tools in a teacher’s repertoire. The beauty of improv is that most activities take no time to prep, need no supplies, and involve a lot of laughter and joy. You can use improv to enhance the lesson plans you already use as a way to reinforce grammatical concepts or practice communicative strategies, or you can transition to an entirely improv-based curriculum. It’s your choice! I’m going to assume that most readers want to enhance their existing lessons, so will be basing most of my posts on simple games to add some fun to your day. However, I will eventually share some of the ways that I’ve successfully used improv as the basis for entire units.

What is improv? Improv, which is short for “improvised theater”, is when participants use language or movement in an unrehearsed manner. Improv falls into various categories: free scenes, role plays, scenarios, and games. Some improv is just playing around with language, such as playing the “What are you doing?” warm-up game.  Some improv, like asking students to present an original story that incorporates four idioms they’ve pulled from a hat, is meant to be presented and entertain others. Traditionally, improv means no preparation, but when working with language learners, I don’t always follow that rule. I discuss more about that in my post about free scenes. All in all, improv can mean a lot of things, but there are some things that I think are the most important:

Why is improv so powerful? Margaret Piccoli notes that:

  • Both language skills and creativity must be practiced often and with different degrees of difficulty, and that improv is a way to accomplish success in both areas.

  • The fundamentals of improv, such as ‘yes, and’, ‘no mistakes, only opportunities’, and ‘make everyone look good’, create collaborative and supportive environments for students to develop their L2.

  • Improv builds students’ confidence by letting them focus on the natural desire to play rather than on the possibility of embarrassment, as well as letting them focus on the process of using the L2 rather than the mechanics.

  • The “process-focused, not product-focused” nature of improv also allows students to explore an infinite number of possible scenarios, giving them the confidence to use the target language in situations not previously studied in the classroom, i.e., authentic language use.

  • The need for collaboration for improv to be successful not only creates an environment of positive feedback and an opportunity to celebrate peers’ achievements, but a chance for students from various backgrounds to work together on common ground.

  • Improv accesses multiple intelligences, allows students to explore themes that are relevant to their lives, and gives them a sense of control over their own learning.

Who ‘owns’ improv? Everybody! Although the seeds of improv can be seen in commedia dell’arte, vaudeville, and burlesque, it is Viola Spolin who is widely considered the founder of modern improv.  Viola would invent new games every time she came across a barrier in communication or understanding with the children and immigrants she was working with. She went on to found Second City Improv, and in 1986 wrote the ‘bible’ of improv in education: Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook. However, Viola Spolin, or more modern improv names such as Ryan Styles and Amy Poehler, are not seen as the authority on improv. Instead, improv games, like many folk ideas, vary from person to person in regard to how they are played, what name they go by, and the purpose for which they are used.

Citation needed? Due to the elastic nature of improv, while there have been many wonderful educational article and books published outlining how one can use improv in the classroom, it is very difficult to determine who has intellectual ownership of any of them, if such a thing is possible. Like many educational techniques, such as doing a jigsaw, reading aloud, or think-pair-share, it can be difficult to determine who originated these ideas. When sharing games on my blog, I try to attribute where I can, particularly if a certain permutation is new to me in an educational context and I can share in which book or article I found it. However, I have come across many of these games in my own experience as an improv performer, which began long before I became a teacher.

For more on improv, check out: