THEATRE, a higly motivating enriching task

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Our dearest playwright SHAKESPEARE wrote in his play As You Like It, this:

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages”.

Maybe due to his quote, maybe because I love theatre and performing plays, … I don’t know why, but I believe that if you are a teacher, you are a good actor / actress, don’t you think so?

Well, I strongly believe THEATRE is one of the best ways to encourage students to speak English, to memorise, to motivate them, to improve their pronunciation, to make them feel better speaking up, … and so on. You can find many plays thanks to Oxford, Burlington Ed. Perhaps you’ll have to arrange the numbers of characters, pages, … but it’s worthwhile.In my school, we have already performed wellknown plays such as ROMEO and JULIET, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Needless to say, that experience WAS UNFORGETTABLE, AMAZING for the students!!!

Moreover, if you don’t find a suitable play, you can ask the students to write their own plays, as if it was a role-play. It’s also a positive project, since they get more involved, they feel motivated and learn a lot.

I hope you’ll like it! 

THEATRE, a higly motivating enriching task5.052

This post was submitted by valme.

3 Responses to THEATRE, a higly motivating enriching task

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Daniel K

June 3rd, 2010 at 3:18 pm

I also believe that theatre– and its core, role-play– can be a powerful motivator! “Role Drama”– a complex teaching method that whole books have been written about– creates the potential for many interesting classroom moments in “core classroom” environments (i.e. not EFL, or any other specific subject classroom).

But, role-play and acting in plays / play-making can be excellent tools in the EFL classroom, too. However, the process can often be messy, and chaos is often just around the corner. To make the role-play / theatre experience productive, valuable, and worth-while, the teacher must be willing to roll with whatever the students dish out, and accept that they must be on top of things, to keep the class in that liminal space between creativity and chaos.

I’m not saying I have that ability completely, but it’s a skill I hope to hone over the years!

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E

November 30th, 2010 at 2:07 pm

I always hear about doing this with students, but never any suggestions for how. What is the exact process for having students create and perform a play/role-play?

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Joseph C

December 8th, 2010 at 1:30 pm

Chaos is always involved with learning. The teacher’s position is best suited (at least in part) by being a facilitator to let chaos happen in controlled conditions. The trick is allowing chaos to happen with an objective in mind while maintaining command so that it can be brought to some incredible order in the latter stages.

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