Theatre in the Classroom

Theater/drama has been recognized as a fun and at the same time powerful medium to learn and practice a language:

• Usually used at a production stage (less controlled/freer practice) to practice fluency
• Can be used with all types of personas (very young learners, young learners, teenagers, high school students, university students, young working adults, older working adults, or late learners)
• Is good to reinforce vocabulary, grammar, or functional language (first, students can be asked to write a story themselves and then act it out (skills: writing, reading, and speaking) or just enact a ready-made plot given by a teacher (skills: reading and speaking); for an audience: listening skills
• Better works in groups where a teacher can also be engaged
• Can be applied to learners of all CEFR levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2), however, the language needs to be graded
• Is perfect in different settings (mono- or multi-lingual)

Here’s a sample scenario for seven (eight) people:

Characters:
A narrator (can be one of the characters)
A tramp
A smartly-dressed businessman
Two skateboarders
A middle-aged woman
A loving couple

The Tramp

A park bench in a park. A tramp is lying full-length across the bench, snoring loudly and deeply. A smartly-dressed businessman comes along with a suitcase and a newspaper. He looks around for somewhere to sit and sees the park bench. But there’s no room. He taps the tramp on the shoulder and gestures to him to sit up. The tramp isn’t happy about this, but he sits up, and the businessman sits down on the bench and starts to read his newspaper. Next, two skateboarders come along, stop, pick up their boards and decide to sit down. They see the bench and sit down between the businessman and the tramp. After that, an elegant middle-aged woman comes along. She has been shopping and is clearly proud of herself! She sees the bench and wants to sit down but there isn’t much space. The skateboarders tell the tramp to scooch down a bit and, after checking the bench carefully, she sits down. Finally, a loving couple comes along to the bench. They are gazing at each other and clearly head over heels in love. They also sit down on the bench, although it is now a bit squashed for everyone. Now the tramp isn’t happy about having so much company on his bench! Suddenly, he has a good idea and light dawns on his face! He starts to scratch! Slowly at first, his head, shoulders, arms, and hands, then more and more furiously, leading to his legs and ankles. Then, in turn, the skateboarders start to scratch, followed by the businessman and an elegant woman. They scratch together as if one! Suddenly they all have the same idea at the same time. They stop, look at each other, look at the tramp, and then all jump in horror, and run away! The tramp smiles to himself, yawns, stretches, and then lies back on his bench as before…