Russian Theatre Techniques in Teacher Training

Elena Kashina, Russia

Elena Kashina, holds a PhD in pedagogy, and is professor at Philological Faculty, Samara State University, Russia. She is interested in using drama in teaching English. She has written 6 books and more than a 100 articles. Current professional interests are Russian theatre techniques in teacher training. Enjoys working with adults and young learners. E-mail: e_kashina@mail.ru

“I have felt there was nothing for me to do
except to devote my labour and energy
almost exclusively to the study
of Creative Nature…”
Konstantin Stanislavski

Teaching a foreign language is a very creative, engaging and at the same time sophisticated process. Bell Kaufman wrote in the book “Up the Down Staircase” that a teacher has to be so many things at the same time: actor, scholar, parent, friend, judge and jury, guide and mentor… All these essential and challenging roles should be played with love, inspiration and perfection. As language teachers we are privileged to work with a vital and fascinating subject matter. Language is the way to express our very being, to come to terms with the world, to communicate with other people. The most important thing in language teaching and learning is affect – the emotional and attitudinal aspects of our being. From the choice of materials and activities that are more motivating for students to ways of dealing with errors that do not create anxiety, from a concern with promoting learners’ self-esteem in the classroom to moving towards a facilitative role as a language educator, affect is involved and is maximizing language learning. It is not supposed that affect will provide the solution to all learning problems or that the teachers should be less concerned with the cognitive aspects of the learning process, but it can be very beneficial to focus at times on affective matters too. In all cotemporary methods of teaching English (Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, Total Physical Response, etc) in such approaches as Communicative Language Teaching and Natural Approach, in learner-centered curriculum development affect becomes a significant issue.

K. Stanislavski, an outstanding Russian stage director, worked out methods best suited for actors. Teaching and acting have much in common, thus they can be applied to teaching as well. Some elements of the system he had created can successfully be used in teaching English and teacher – training.

First comes action. K. Stanislavski wrote: If an action has no inner foundation, it cannot hold your attention. A variety of techniques can be used to help students – future teachers of English – to feel free in the classroom: to speak, move, act out different situations. Motion is the basis of the art. This may be physical actions:

Observe and copy, if you can, the external characteristics of:

• Old people – how they walk, sit, rise etc.
• Fat people.
• People with a limp.
• People who are drunk.
• People with some kind of disability.
• People who are very tall.
• People who are very short.

Observe and copy the characteristics of:

• Boxers.
• Professional soldiers.
• Weightlifters.
• Ballet dancers.
• Office of sedentary workers.
• Fashion models. [4, 96]

And one of the most successful methods is total physical response (J. Usher). We practise such activities as: ‘Doctors and Nurses’ by Ken Wilson: students are split into 3 groups and they have to stand up every time they hear the words ‘doctors’, ‘patients’, ‘nurses’ -

At the hospital near where I live, all the doctors are women and all the nurses are men. When new patients arrive at the hospital, they always call the doctors nurses, which makes the doctors feel quite annoyed. And they also call the nurses doctors, which makes the nurses feel quite pleased.

One day at the hospital, a patient (a man) approached a doctor.

‘Excuse me, nurse,’ said the patient. ‘When can I see the doctor?’
‘Listen,’ said the doctor. ‘I’m a doctor, and the man over there that you think is a doctor is actually a student nurse.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said the patient. ‘The last time I came to this hospital, that doctor --- sorry, that nurse --- that nurse said that you were a nurse.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ said the doctor. ‘I’m a doctor, not a nurse.’
‘Well, once again, sorry about that,’ said the patient.
‘By the way, what’s your name?’
‘Nurse,’ said the doctor. ‘Doctor Nurse.’ [5]

and also Red Riding Hood. The students mime it as “their instrument is tuned and is now ready to respond to spontaneous reactions that spring from our subconscious” [4, 102] The students are ready for creative, rehearsal work, and use the Method of Physical action. They are able to scrutinize, evaluate and shape their discoveries into a coherent performance, a play. The students are always asked to act out pieces of prose and poems, e.g. extract from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by M. Twain:

‘TOM!’
No answer.
‘TOM!’
No answer.
‘What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!’

The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; for they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for ‘style,’ not service — she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted: ‘TOM!’

“Macbeth” by W. Shakespeare (It is witches’ sabbath: hand-made clothing, lots of makeup, emotional movement. Students really enjoy doing it.):

FIRST WITCH
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH
When the hurly-burly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
THIRD WITCH
That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH
Where the place?
SECOND WITCH
Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH
There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH
I come, Graymalkin.
SECOND WITCH
Paddock calls.
[THIRD WITCH]
Anon.
ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair,
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

“Father William” by L. Carroll (The students play the part of the father and the part of his son.):

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"…

To sum up, the point of physical actions lies not in themselves as such, but in what they awoke: conditions, proposed circumstances, feelings.

Magic “if” is closely connected with action. It arouses an inner and real activity, activity in creativeness. K. Stanislavski wrote: “From the moment of the appearance of the magic “if” an actor passes from the plan of actual reality into the plan of another life, created and imagined by him. In order to be emotionally involved in the imaginary world which the actor builds up on the basis of the play, in order to be caught up in the action of the stage he must believe in it. So the same happens to the teacher, the moment he/she enters the classroom new roles are to be played: communicator, creator of different magic moments at the lesson, educator, storyteller, psychologist, public speaker, improvisator, actor, musician, friend…

Imagination. It is very important for teachers of English to have vivid and creative imagination. It is a well-known fact that some of the greatest discoveries and contributions in the arts and sciences have been made through the use of images. Imagery work can be used to rehearse and improve many skills, and it is involved in many fields such as science, education, computer graphics, and bio-medicine. Mental images are inseparable from information processing and information storage, the bases of learning: their importance for education is undeniable. According to Alesandrini ‘the question is no longer or whether or not mental imagery facilitates learning but rather how it can best be used to produce the optimum facilitation’. In the ELT classroom it can help us to teach better and our learners to learn more effectively. Earl Stevick stresses that language and mental images are intimately tied up with one another. He points out the importance of images for verbal communication: ‘an exchange of words is communicative only when it causes some modification of the images in the hearer’s mind’ [2, 7] Language and mental images are intimately tied up with one another. Imagination helps to increase learners’ cognitive skills and their creativity, enable them to remember better what they have learnt, in hence their motivation, help to focus their attention, etc. The following tasks can be given to students in order to improve their imagination, e.g. A Nose for Bread (a version of a story by Gogol):

1. Be sure the students know what bribe means. Invite them to relax and shut their eyes. Tell them that we are going to write a story together.

‘The barber sat down heavily at the breakfast table’
I will give you 20 seconds to imagine, what barber, Ivan Ivanovich, was like.
‘Ivan Ivanovich said, ‘And how about breakfast? His wife slopped some tea into his
cup. She then banged a loaf of bread down on the table.’
I will give you 20 seconds to decide what sort of woman she is.
‘Ivan broke the loaf open and a human nose fell out on the table.’
I will give you 20 second to imagine how they both reacted.
‘On his way to work Ivan Ivanovich had to cross the River Neva. He was very afraid.’
20 seconds to see the situation in your mind’s eye.
‘He was arrested and the police officer refused the bribe he offered him.’
2. Ask the students to work individually and write the story they have imagined. [2, 108]

Concentration of attention. A teacher should concentrate with all his being on whatever attracts his attention. He should observe the facial expression of students, the look of the eye, the tone of voice. (To grasp the object firmly when we are teaching we need the type of attention which causes an emotional reaction. We must have something which will be interesting for us in the object of our attention and act to set in motion our whole creative apparatus.)

Emotion memory. It includes sense of touch, taste, smell, provokes inspiration which helps students improve language acquisition. Students are grouped in the middle of the room. They are then asked to touch a variety of objects, surfaces, colours, textures, etc. (e. g. ‘Touch something yellow… something rough, something round, etc.’) [1, 116] Students are divided into two equal groups, A and B. Each group then divides into pairs. The centre of the room is filled with 'obstacles' (e.g. chairs), with passages left in between. One member of each pair from group A goes to the other end of the room. The remaining partners are then blindfolded (or close their eyes). The 'guides' then give directions to their partners to enable them to walk through the obstacles without touching them. Anyone touching an obstacle is eliminated. Then group B does the same. [1, 117] Humour is an essential part of the lesson. A situation is given to the students to be reproduced (role-played) at the end of the lesson. A millionaire was driving along in his stretch limo when he saw a humble man eating grass by the roadside. Ordering his driver to stop, he wound down the window and called to the man: ‘Why are you eating grass?’ ‘Because, sir, we don't have money for real food.’ ‘Come with me then,’ said the millionaire. ‘But, sir, I have a wife, two sisters and six children.’ ‘That's fine- bring them all along.’ The man and his family climbed into the limo. ‘Sir, you are too kind. How can I ever thank you for taking all of us with you, offering us a new home?’ ‘No, you don't understand,’ said the millionaire, ‘the grass at my home is 4 feet high. No lawn mower will cut it.’ [7, 136]

Tempo rhythm. Music is held together by tempo and rhythm. Over a basic pulse, fast, medium, slow (tempo). Notes of varying length unlade and grouped to form a pattern (rhythm). This tempo rhythm produces an emotional effect – the difference between a funeral march and heavy rock.

In the classroom two or more students are engaged in the same activity a common tempo is either consciously of unconsciously established to promote efficiency. The most obvious example is the use of songs or chants which students sing and so coordinate their efforts. This not only makes work which may be uncongenial, go smoothly, but it also makes the participants feel better.

Good teachers are actors on the stage, miracle workers, they involve the students emotionally into that wonderful performance – learning a foreign language.

Bibliography

[1] Е.Г. Кашина «Коммуникативно-театральный метод обучения иностранному языку: развитие множественного типа интеллекта у студентов», Самарский университет 2012

[2] Jane Arnold, Herbert Puchta, Mario Rinvolucri ‘Imagine That!’, Herbling Languages 2007

[3] Constantin Stanislavski ‘An Actor Prepares’, Methuen

[4] Jean Benedetti ‘Stanislavski & the Actor’, Methuen 1998

[5] Ken Wilson ‘Drama and Improvisation’, Oxford University Press 2008

[6] Earl Stevick ‘Images and Options in the Language’, 1986

[7] Geoff Tibballs ‘Jokes’, Robinson

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Drama Techniques for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How to be a Teacher Trainer course at Pilgrims website.