Improvisation as a Catalyst for Language Use: Two Activities for Enhancing Oral Communication Skills

Paolo Torresan, Italy

Paolo Torresan works as an Italian as FL teacher and teacher trainer. He is Editor-in-chief for the following journals: Officina.it and Bollettino Itals. He wrote: The Multiple Intelligence Theory and Language Teaching (Perugia 2010); Didáctica de las lenguasculturas (& Manuela Derosas, eds.; Buenos Aires, 2011); Il noticing comparativo: la grammatica a partire dall’output (& Francesco Della Valle; Lincom, München, 2014). E-mail: esh@unive.it.

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Introduction
Reticular presentation
Neighbours

Introduction

For me, creativity means devising activities in such a way that students are stimulated to use their own ideas or choices in order to participate. Such activities are partially defined. This leads to results which are not completely predictable, and reflects the flexible nature of communication (as speakers’ utterances are intrinsically embedded in spontaneous conversation).

Instructions, or whatever part I’m devising, work as a stimulus, triggering students’ ideas. What I ask myself when planning such activities is: how can I push students to work together, while leaving them the room for individual choices at the same time? How can I bring “aha” moments into such activities, i.e. setting up positive surprises about ‘where’ the activity leads to? I would also like to provoke divergent thinking, both on the basis of the stimuli I have offered and – especially – on the basis of their partner’s suggestions.

I think all this develops an important skill, beyond language: improvisation, as adaptation to rapid change is a constant challenge throughout our lives in modern society.

In my classes, creativity leaves little room for consequential reasoning, and more space for real-time decision-making processes. This does not imply that, at other times specifically planned for, I do not dedicate time to analytical and reflective activities; indeed, such times are a sort of linguistic and cognitive ‘incubation’: they are crucial for digesting language and processing ideas.

However, on the other hand, by improvising, students may come face to face with the unplanned nature of spontaneous communication, relying more on what the partner is ‘offering’, than on the linguistic structures they are supposed to display according to the syllabus.

Reticular presentation

This activity is a warm-up.

Level: A2 to C1
Skills: speaking , writing
Time: 10–20 minutes
Preparation: pieces of paper

1. Students are asked to work in pairs. Student A writes 3 questions to be addressed to student B on a sheet of paper. Student B does the same on another sheet of paper.

   

2. Student A chooses one of the 3 questions she wrote, and asks it to student B. Student B answers that question.
3. They then switch roles. Student B chooses one of the 3 questions she wrote for student A and asks her it. Student A answers that question.
4. They swap papers and change partners. Student A works with student C, while student B works with student D.
5. In pairs, they do the same as in the phase 2.
6. Once the students have asked and answered questions in their new pairs (A-C; B-D), they swap papers and switch partners again, as in phase 4.
7. The exchanges continue until everyone has interacted with everybody.

Our experience has showed us that there is usually enough variety among the first 3 questions written by the students.

After the first swap, the students are encouraged to choose the most suitable question for the new partner: it’s an interpersonal challenge.

Neighbours

This activity comes from a book we published (Ferencich, R.; Torresan, P., Giochi senza frontiere, Alma, Firenze 2005). It’s aimed at enhancing speaking.

Level: B2 to C2
Skill: speaking (complaining)
Time: 20-30 minutes, depending on the number of students

1. The teacher draws a building with several flats on the blackboard, as many as the number of students. If, for example, if we have a class comprising seven students, the drawing could be as below:
2. The teacher asks one student to leave the class for few minutes.
3. All the students in the room create an imaginary identity about the student out of the room: they decide in which flat she lives, what her job is, how old she is, her civil status, her hobbies, her little obsessions (what she is terribly fussy about) and whims, and the problems she causes.
4. Another student is invited to leave the room while the one who had gone out comes back in to the room (she is not told about her new identity yet).
5. The class do the same identity-creating exercise for the second student out of the room (as in phase 3). The same operation is then repeated for every student in the room.
6. Once a new identity has been made up for every student, the teacher acts as the building administrator and announces that the condominium meeting is taking place! Every tenant is free to express her complaints about the other tenants’ behavior.
7. The simulation ends when everyone has discovered her new identity.

The activity involves a great deal of improvisation. By playing a character quite different from their daily routine, students can discover aspects of their blind-self.

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.