“Show, don’t tell!”

Abstract

While the field of drama and theater continues to inspire many foreign language teachers, improvisational theater has not received more than passing attention as a resource providing interesting warm-ups and games to be used periodically in our classroom. This article makes a case for using the format of an improvisational theater workshop in beginning foreign language teaching. The example of a three-week experimental workshop in January 2006 suggests that improvisational theater and systematic work with its basic directive ‘Show, don’t tell!’ encourage students to communicate in a foreign language environment before they may feel prepared to do so in the target language itself. Physical engagement with a situation opens up communicative possibilities, and it eventually enables students to overcome cognitive and psychological barriers to successfully move towards greater linguistic proficiency and communicative freedom. While the field of drama and theater continues to inspire many foreign language teachers, improvisational theater has not received more than passing attention as a resource providing interesting warm-ups and games to be used periodically in our classroom. This article makes a case for using the format of an improvisational theater workshop in beginning foreign language teaching. The example of a three-week experimental workshop in January 2006 suggests that improvisational theater and systematic work with its basic directive ‘Show, don’t tell!’ encourage students to communicate in a foreign language environment before they may feel prepared to do so in the target language itself. Physical engagement with a situation opens up communicative possibilities, and it eventually enables students to overcome cognitive and psychological barriers to successfully move towards greater linguistic proficiency and communicative freedom.

Theatre as TBLT: The implementation of theatre in a high school EFL Oral Communication course in Japan

“…As a review of these selected examples illustrates, a majority of the available literature either works within a similarly limited methodology or functions as a statement of a position on theatre and drama, or discussion of its potential efficacy or implementation (e.g., Matthias, 2007). That being stated, in the research regarding classroom drama, there are also studies that feature public performance and artistic aims that are more in line with theatre (e.g., see Sam, 1990), but they also share a tendency towards position papers and descriptive reports common in classroom drama research as well.…”