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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 6; November 02
Just Words ……..
An ALL'S WELL drama Exercise
by Claudette de Ville, English teacher, I.E.P.S.C.F. – Uccle, Belgium
E-mail: clodeville@hotmail.com
Level: upper-intermediate to advanced
Time: 60 minutes
Material: one copy of the text per student
Focus: drama
1.Pair the students. Each student receives a copy of thefollowing eight lines:
- Let me explain
- There's no need to explain I think I understand
- I was sure you would
- Why didn't you tell me before
- I didn't think it important enough to bother you with
- I'm going now
- When shall I see you
- I don't know
2. The pairs work on the sentences:
- they may not change, add, cancel or inverse anything in the text.
- they create the whole scene: relationship, atmosphere, time, place, movement, pause,
rhythm, intonation, gesture.
3. Each pair acts its scene. After each presentation, the others take notes on situation and characters.
4. When the acting is over, the group compares notes to see if the message of the acting pair was effectively put across.
Notes:
- each time I've done this activity, it has been hilarious and very useful for improve pronunciation / intonation / drama techniques.
- many dialogues from other sources can be introduced in this way
Acknowledgment:
Dickinson, Leveque, Sagot (All's Well II, edited by Didier, 1976)
David Morton, Leeds, England.
