[Applause]
good afternoon today I am here to remind
you that learning and speaking a foreign
language is easy this is because all
interactions no matter where you are in
the world are formulaic conversations
can and really should be scripted we can
anticipate the reaction of anybody we’re
talking to because we know exactly what
they’re gonna say before they say it
it’s amazing isn’t it and we can respond
with perfect grammatical accuracy 100%
of the time right hmm now looking at you
I can see that some of you are thinking
is she crazy good I’m glad because of
course everything I just said is
absolutely ridiculous learning a foreign
language is hard work we cannot
anticipate what other people are gonna
say I’ll be honest half the time I can’t
anticipate what I’m going to say next
let alone what you’re going to say next
and we really don’t expect grammatical
perfection from ourselves or from
anybody else I hope anyway that we don’t
so my question then is why do we teach
language that way okay before I move on
let’s back up a little bit to your
previous question am I crazy
hopefully not is a response to that
but I am an English language fellow and
I work in adesso I work with in service
and pre-service teachers and I do
professional development workshops and
today I want to share with you one of my
favorite workshops that I give about
using improv in the classroom
to improve speaking now I’ve found
typically before I learned something new
it’s easier for me to go back and look
at something I already know
so before I move on quickly I’d like to
see a show of hands how many of you
currently use role plays in your
classrooms great so that’s gonna be our
starting point we are going to look at a
role play and role plays when I use them
a lot of the times I use them to
introduce a grammatical structure in
this roleplay you’ll see that we are
looking at the present continuous and
this hopefully looks quite familiar to
most of you you would have your students
practice this roleplay perform this role
play and they would have fun a simple
dialogue right the other idea for a
roleplay though is to actually give them
the roles and then go and review some of
the language that they will need to
perform you might have them write a
loose script or just have an
understanding of what needs to be said
practice and then again perform in front
of the class this all looks very
familiar correct okay good now let’s
look at how improvisation works so the
easiest way to do this is we started
with roleplay and now let’s see in a
Venn diagram how they’re the same and
how they are different so the first
thing we’re gonna do is look at the
similarities well of course they’re both
active activities activities right so
we’re getting our students up out of
their seats and speaking very important
there never seemed to be enough
opportunities to get our students out of
their seats and speaking they’re also
using realistic language we are not
going to have our students stand up and
perform Shakespeare well maybe sometimes
but not when they’re doing role plays
and improvisation and finally they’re
fun
we want our students to have fun while
they’re learning this encourages them
and motivates them to do better in class
if they’re having fun now let’s see how
they differ role plays are typically
practiced now I’m not saying 100% of the
time you’re gonna have your students
practice but most of the time you will
you’re going to have them follow the
script or have some prep time before you
would ask them to perform in front of
the classroom improvisation by nature is
spontaneous there’s no way that they can
practice and we will see some examples
of this in just a moment in a roleplay
you are going to have limited language
again since it is scripted or using
formulaic speech they are limited by
those restraints whereas the only
limitations in improv are your students
vocabulary and their knowledge otherwise
there should be able to use any language
available role plays are going to focus
on form whereas in the improvisation
we’re focusing on creativity one of
those great buzz words for 21st century
education so we are in the idea of a
roleplay remember we use them a lot to
introduce grammatical structures well in
improvisation we’re looking for them to
create language in the moment which is
really how we talk right it’s how we
communicate and finally focus on
accuracy versus the focus on fluency
when you have students rehearse and
prepare you do expect perfection right
whereas in improvisation we are
expecting them to talk make mistakes and
not correct them now teachers this is
difficult for us I know we hear mistakes
and we immediately want to jump up and
oh no no no no that’s wrong suppress
that desire please because what I want
to tell you right now is as a native
speaker I make mistakes constantly in
English and I promise as native speakers
of Ukrainian or Russian you make
mistakes too right
this is just a few mistakes that I’ve
heard in my life this week maybe and
this is not an exhaustive list by any
means I do want to tell you though when
your students make mistakes in improv
and I’m going to extend this to when
speaking in class really allow those
mistakes to happen because this provides
them the opportunity to become fluent
mistakes our fluency okay so what I’d
like to do I told you earlier that we
were gonna you were gonna see some
improvisational activities and I’d like
to invite a couple of volunteers up onto
the stage so you can see what we’re
going a few activities that you can use
in your classroom on Monday so can I
have a Leona and Dane who you will
probably recognize come on out here and
we are going to play four games with
improvisational activities and the first
game we’re gonna play is called
greetings and this is a great game that
can be used in any level works well in
low level classes but you can also use
it in mid or high level classes as an
energizer or warmup and the way
greetings works is you’ll ask all of
your students just stand up and mingle
in a mingle they’re gonna walk around
and mix and just greet each other and
intermittently you will stop them and
give them a relationship and see how
that greeting changes so let’s go ahead
and see can you guys just greet hi I’m
great
how are you
I’m fine thank you okay I’d like you to
greet each other like your long-lost
friends oh my god it’s so great to see
[Music]
exactly how have you been it really is
really great to see you it’s been a long
time okay let’s go ahead and change this
now to someone you don’t really trust oh
hi it’s nice to see you how are you
thank you wonderful now somebody you
know you’ve met before but you can’t
remember their name hey you how you
doing to spell my name kind of a strange
question it’s nice to see you
[Music]
yeah I guess I could remind you thank
you so much the own ending that was a
wonderful so you can see how this can be
a fun activity for your students as
they’re walking around the class and
allows them to use language in a fluent
manner
okay the next activity we’re gonna look
at is called what are you doing I’m
gonna be joining them for this activity
the way this one works is you will split
your class into two groups and have one
person in the middle so we’re gonna have
Aliona you’ll be one group Jane you’ll
be my middle person and I will be the
second group so Dana’s gonna start doing
an action and the moment Aliona can
recognize what he’s doing she’s gonna
ask the simple question what are you
doing he can answer anything he wants
but what he is actually doing okay let’s
try it and see what it looks like okay
so she will ask me and then I will
rotate out yes okay
what are you doing oh I’m putting on
makeup excuse me what are you doing I’m
driving a car excuse me uh what are you
doing I’m playing basketball playing
basketball oh great
with one hand okay thank you very much
so you can see again how this would work
really well for even some low-level
beginner classes or even high level
classes as again an energizer a warm-up
or just an ending activity to have some
fun in your class the next activity
we’re gonna look at is called presence
in this game they are going to exchange
gifts and you will only know what the
gift is when the receiver opens it and
tells you I like to put a spin on this
one where it’s a gift that you don’t
really want but you have to pretend that
it’s the best thing you’ve ever received
okay so let’s go ahead and start Aliona
you will be receiving the gift first and
I get to choose the size of the gift
absolutely
there you go yeah I mean you’re always
talking about about chairs so I I
assumed it would be a great gift for you
and I know how you love to sit yep that
is that is flamingo those flamingo
feathers yes for the colour garage
that’s not exactly what I had in mind
but sure yeah it’d be great in your
garage yeah absolutely I’m so glad you
enjoy it and it’s really comfortable
super super soft yeah you don’t want to
try it
it is wooden yes but it’s well I suppose
you could say it’s hard for you but for
some people that’s very soft flamingo
feathers you can try it please well okay
and before we get to that point let’s go
ahead and stop it thank you very much
and then they would exchange gifts the
other direction but I think we have the
general idea right and the last one I
want to look at today is called a simple
continuation and in a simple
continuation the students will get up in
front of the class and have a
conversation and it’s very open but I
like to do this one using prompts so
yesterday I asked some of the volunteers
here at Ted to write down some prompts
and I have them here and we’re just
gonna grab one and the only rule for
this activity is the rule of yes and
what this rule means is that no matter
what one person says to the other they
have to agree to the idea of it and add
to it
so for example if someone were to come
up to me and say so how was your trip to
Tahiti I can’t respond I’ve never been
to Tahiti cuz now the conversations over
I’d have to agree well it was great
I love Tahiti and then add something
more but you were there with me don’t
you remember
and then the conversation can continue
so the prompt is here and I’m gonna give
it to Alyona and go ahead why well I
know it’s your birthday and I know how
much you love not only sitting but I
know how much you love clowns oh you’re
afraid of clowns oh I’m so sorry well
maybe we can overcome this fear today
would you like to honk my nose really
it’s no it’s quite soft I see it is red
yes it’s a typical clown color yes wait
to see what’s in my shoe my shoe it’s
amazing thank you okay and and I would
like to thank Dane and Alyona for doing
such a wonderful job doing the
demonstrations for us today
wonderful thank you very much so today
what I hope you saw were some activities
that you could take away and use in your
classroom on Monday I hope that you saw
a way to incorporate fun into your
classroom and to understand that out of
all of these activities the only
preparation I had to do is have other
people write down a few ideas zero
preparation is really what happened here
because as teachers I understand we all
have limited time so this is a great way
to bring something into your classroom
that doesn’t require a lot of
I’m on your part and finally and really
the most important thing its fluency and
creativity let your students have the
opportunity to create language in a
natural way in incorporating whatever
whatever no limitations let them speak
let them make mistakes and let them
create because we need to not only
prepare them to pass exams but also
prepare them to communicate in the real
world thank you
[Music]
[Applause]
good afternoon today I am here to remind
you that learning and speaking a foreign
language is easy this is because all
interactions no matter where you are in
the world are formulaic conversations
can and really should be scripted we can
anticipate the reaction of anybody we’re
talking to because we know exactly what
they’re gonna say before they say it
it’s amazing isn’t it and we can respond
with perfect grammatical accuracy 100%
of the time right hmm now looking at you
I can see that some of you are thinking
is she crazy good I’m glad because of
course everything I just said is
absolutely ridiculous learning a foreign
language is hard work we cannot
anticipate what other people are gonna
say I’ll be honest half the time I can’t
anticipate what I’m going to say next
let alone what you’re going to say next
and we really don’t expect grammatical
perfection from ourselves or from
anybody else I hope anyway that we don’t
so my question then is why do we teach
language that way okay before I move on
let’s back up a little bit to your
previous question am I crazy
hopefully not is a response to that
but I am an English language fellow and
I work in adesso I work with in service
and pre-service teachers and I do
professional development workshops and
today I want to share with you one of my
favorite workshops that I give about
using improv in the classroom
to improve speaking now I’ve found
typically before I learned something new
it’s easier for me to go back and look
at something I already know
so before I move on quickly I’d like to
see a show of hands how many of you
currently use role plays in your
classrooms great so that’s gonna be our
starting point we are going to look at a
role play and role plays when I use them
a lot of the times I use them to
introduce a grammatical structure in
this roleplay you’ll see that we are
looking at the present continuous and
this hopefully looks quite familiar to
most of you you would have your students
practice this roleplay perform this role
play and they would have fun a simple
dialogue right the other idea for a
roleplay though is to actually give them
the roles and then go and review some of
the language that they will need to
perform you might have them write a
loose script or just have an
understanding of what needs to be said
practice and then again perform in front
of the class this all looks very
familiar correct okay good now let’s
look at how improvisation works so the
easiest way to do this is we started
with roleplay and now let’s see in a
Venn diagram how they’re the same and
how they are different so the first
thing we’re gonna do is look at the
similarities well of course they’re both
active activities activities right so
we’re getting our students up out of
their seats and speaking very important
there never seemed to be enough
opportunities to get our students out of
their seats and speaking they’re also
using realistic language we are not
going to have our students stand up and
perform Shakespeare well maybe sometimes
but not when they’re doing role plays
and improvisation and finally they’re
fun
we want our students to have fun while
they’re learning this encourages them
and motivates them to do better in class
if they’re having fun now let’s see how
they differ role plays are typically
practiced now I’m not saying 100% of the
time you’re gonna have your students
practice but most of the time you will
you’re going to have them follow the
script or have some prep time before you
would ask them to perform in front of
the classroom improvisation by nature is
spontaneous there’s no way that they can
practice and we will see some examples
of this in just a moment in a roleplay
you are going to have limited language
again since it is scripted or using
formulaic speech they are limited by
those restraints whereas the only
limitations in improv are your students
vocabulary and their knowledge otherwise
there should be able to use any language
available role plays are going to focus
on form whereas in the improvisation
we’re focusing on creativity one of
those great buzz words for 21st century
education so we are in the idea of a
roleplay remember we use them a lot to
introduce grammatical structures well in
improvisation we’re looking for them to
create language in the moment which is
really how we talk right it’s how we
communicate and finally focus on
accuracy versus the focus on fluency
when you have students rehearse and
prepare you do expect perfection right
whereas in improvisation we are
expecting them to talk make mistakes and
not correct them now teachers this is
difficult for us I know we hear mistakes
and we immediately want to jump up and
oh no no no no that’s wrong suppress
that desire please because what I want
to tell you right now is as a native
speaker I make mistakes constantly in
English and I promise as native speakers
of Ukrainian or Russian you make
mistakes too right
this is just a few mistakes that I’ve
heard in my life this week maybe and
this is not an exhaustive list by any
means I do want to tell you though when
your students make mistakes in improv
and I’m going to extend this to when
speaking in class really allow those
mistakes to happen because this provides
them the opportunity to become fluent
mistakes our fluency okay so what I’d
like to do I told you earlier that we
were gonna you were gonna see some
improvisational activities and I’d like
to invite a couple of volunteers up onto
the stage so you can see what we’re
going a few activities that you can use
in your classroom on Monday so can I
have a Leona and Dane who you will
probably recognize come on out here and
we are going to play four games with
improvisational activities and the first
game we’re gonna play is called
greetings and this is a great game that
can be used in any level works well in
low level classes but you can also use
it in mid or high level classes as an
energizer or warmup and the way
greetings works is you’ll ask all of
your students just stand up and mingle
in a mingle they’re gonna walk around
and mix and just greet each other and
intermittently you will stop them and
give them a relationship and see how
that greeting changes so let’s go ahead
and see can you guys just greet hi I’m
great
how are you
I’m fine thank you okay I’d like you to
greet each other like your long-lost
friends oh my god it’s so great to see
[Music]
exactly how have you been it really is
really great to see you it’s been a long
time okay let’s go ahead and change this
now to someone you don’t really trust oh
hi it’s nice to see you how are you
thank you wonderful now somebody you
know you’ve met before but you can’t
remember their name hey you how you
doing to spell my name kind of a strange
question it’s nice to see you
[Music]
yeah I guess I could remind you thank
you so much the own ending that was a
wonderful so you can see how this can be
a fun activity for your students as
they’re walking around the class and
allows them to use language in a fluent
manner
okay the next activity we’re gonna look
at is called what are you doing I’m
gonna be joining them for this activity
the way this one works is you will split
your class into two groups and have one
person in the middle so we’re gonna have
Aliona you’ll be one group Jane you’ll
be my middle person and I will be the
second group so Dana’s gonna start doing
an action and the moment Aliona can
recognize what he’s doing she’s gonna
ask the simple question what are you
doing he can answer anything he wants
but what he is actually doing okay let’s
try it and see what it looks like okay
so she will ask me and then I will
rotate out yes okay
what are you doing oh I’m putting on
makeup excuse me what are you doing I’m
driving a car excuse me uh what are you
doing I’m playing basketball playing
basketball oh great
with one hand okay thank you very much
so you can see again how this would work
really well for even some low-level
beginner classes or even high level
classes as again an energizer a warm-up
or just an ending activity to have some
fun in your class the next activity
we’re gonna look at is called presence
in this game they are going to exchange
gifts and you will only know what the
gift is when the receiver opens it and
tells you I like to put a spin on this
one where it’s a gift that you don’t
really want but you have to pretend that
it’s the best thing you’ve ever received
okay so let’s go ahead and start Aliona
you will be receiving the gift first and
I get to choose the size of the gift
absolutely
there you go yeah I mean you’re always
talking about about chairs so I I
assumed it would be a great gift for you
and I know how you love to sit yep that
is that is flamingo those flamingo
feathers yes for the colour garage
that’s not exactly what I had in mind
but sure yeah it’d be great in your
garage yeah absolutely I’m so glad you
enjoy it and it’s really comfortable
super super soft yeah you don’t want to
try it
it is wooden yes but it’s well I suppose
you could say it’s hard for you but for
some people that’s very soft flamingo
feathers you can try it please well okay
and before we get to that point let’s go
ahead and stop it thank you very much
and then they would exchange gifts the
other direction but I think we have the
general idea right and the last one I
want to look at today is called a simple
continuation and in a simple
continuation the students will get up in
front of the class and have a
conversation and it’s very open but I
like to do this one using prompts so
yesterday I asked some of the volunteers
here at Ted to write down some prompts
and I have them here and we’re just
gonna grab one and the only rule for
this activity is the rule of yes and
what this rule means is that no matter
what one person says to the other they
have to agree to the idea of it and add
to it
so for example if someone were to come
up to me and say so how was your trip to
Tahiti I can’t respond I’ve never been
to Tahiti cuz now the conversations over
I’d have to agree well it was great
I love Tahiti and then add something
more but you were there with me don’t
you remember
and then the conversation can continue
so the prompt is here and I’m gonna give
it to Alyona and go ahead why well I
know it’s your birthday and I know how
much you love not only sitting but I
know how much you love clowns oh you’re
afraid of clowns oh I’m so sorry well
maybe we can overcome this fear today
would you like to honk my nose really
it’s no it’s quite soft I see it is red
yes it’s a typical clown color yes wait
to see what’s in my shoe my shoe it’s
amazing thank you okay and and I would
like to thank Dane and Alyona for doing
such a wonderful job doing the
demonstrations for us today
wonderful thank you very much so today
what I hope you saw were some activities
that you could take away and use in your
classroom on Monday I hope that you saw
a way to incorporate fun into your
classroom and to understand that out of
all of these activities the only
preparation I had to do is have other
people write down a few ideas zero
preparation is really what happened here
because as teachers I understand we all
have limited time so this is a great way
to bring something into your classroom
that doesn’t require a lot of
I’m on your part and finally and really
the most important thing its fluency and
creativity let your students have the
opportunity to create language in a
natural way in incorporating whatever
whatever no limitations let them speak
let them make mistakes and let them
create because we need to not only
prepare them to pass exams but also
prepare them to communicate in the real
world thank you
[Music]
[Applause]
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