下文选自上海外语教育出版社出版的《学习教学：英语教师指南（Learning Teaching: A Guidebook for English language teachers）》（作者Jim Scrivener）第六章“Speaking”（口语）。
Drama is an excellent way to get students using the language. It essentially involves using the imagination to make oneself into another character, or the classroom into a different place. It can be a starting point for exciting listening and speaking work and it can be utilized as a tool to provide practice in specific grammatical, lexical, functional or phonological areas.By bringing the outside world into the classroom in this way we can provide a lot of useful practice (in cafes, shops, banks, businesses, streets, parties, etc) that would otherwise be impossible. There can also be a freeing from the constraints of culture and expected behaviour; this can be personally and linguistically very liberating. Curiously, it is sometimes the shyest students who are most able to seize the potential.Success or failure of drama activities depends crucially on the perceived attitude of the teacher and of the other students; without a certain degree of trust, acceptance and respect the chances for useful work are greatly diminished.Six types of drama activity are commonly found in English language teaching classrooms:·Roleplay. Students act out small scenes using their own ideas or from ideas and information on role-cards.·Simulation. This is really a large-scale roleplay. Role-cards are normally used and there is often other background information as well. The intention is to create a much more complete, complex ‘world’，say of a business company, television studio, government body, etc.·Drama games. Short games that usually involve movement and imagination.·Guided improvisation. A scene is improvised. One by one the students join in in character, until the whole scene and possibly story take on a life of their own.·Acting play scripts. Short written sketches or scenes are acted by the students.·Prepared improvised drama. Students in small groups invent and rehearse a short scene or story that they then perform for the others.Next we look at roleplay, drama games and guided improvisation.Task 1: Here are three role-cards. A fourth card is missing. Write it.
This roleplay provides the possibility of practising ‘shop’ vocabulary in a useful and interesting way. There is a lot of scope for use of functional language – apologizing, refusing, disagreeing, denying, etc. The potential for dramatic conflict is built into the cards, though the participants could, if they wished, avoid this completely.Running a roleplay: some guidelines·Make sure the students understand the idea of 'roleplay’. Do they know what’s going to happen? Do they know what is required of them? Are they comfortable to do that or not?·Make sure the context or situation is clear.·Do they understand the information on their own card? Allow reading time, dictionary time, thinking time (during which you can go round and help if necessary).·Give them time to prepare their ideas before the speaking starts; maybe encourage note-making.·... but when the activity starts, encourage them to improvise rather than rely on prepared speeches and notes. The preparation work they have done will inform their roleplay, but could simply get in the way if they over-rely on it. (It may help to take away the cards when the roleplay starts.)Here are four short examples:A good way to 'become’ another character is to try to walk in the way they would. This also makes an interesting short drama game in its own right. The students stand up and walk around the room, as a character of their choice. After a while, various people can meet each other and have short conversations (eg Marilyn Monroe meeting Shakespeare). Variation 1: the teacher calls out names of characters from a story, or the news or history, etc and the students all try to act in character. Variation 2: the students must walk in the manner of the word: for example, happy, young, tired, cold, tense.The teacher calls out a subject; the students must all together quickly form a frozen 'tableau' of that scene. For example: the teacher calls out airport, the students take different positions. Some are check-in clerks, some become desks, some become planes taking off, some become tourists, until the whole room 'becomes’ an airport.An amusing variation is to divide the class in two. One half has two minutes to make their scene, while the other waits outside the room or in another room. When they return to view the tableau they must guess what the scene is. They are only allowed to ask questions that would have yes / no answers (eg Are you a table? No. Are you holding something? Yes.).Puppets: Two people (A and B) sit. Two other people (C and D) sit directly behind them. A and B now hide their arms behind their backs while C and D put their arms out in front, so that they look as if they are A and B's real arms. A and B attempt to carry on a conversation while C and D move their arms and hands appropriately. Can be hilarious!Dubbing: This time C and D sit slightly to one side of A and B. They provide the words that A and B speak by whispering into their ears. A and B are not allowed to say anything except what they are told to say. Students call out any interesting or ‘difficult’ situation involving two people and two other students act it out. For example, a well-meaning hostess serving meat to a polite vegetarian. This technique could, in appropriate circumstances, be used to ‘real-play’ (ie act out and explore some of the students’ own real-life problem situations).The teacher selects a scene - say, a frozen winter landscape with a frozen lake. The idea is to turn the classroom into the scene, and to then let the story unfold in any way it can, by the group improvising together.The teacher might start by describing the scene and getting students to become people in the landscape, slowly building up a living, moving scene, or he might jump in the deep end by adopting a character himself and encouraging others to join him in the improvisation as and when they are ready.The skill of running this kind of complex improvisation is to find a balance between allowing a free-flowing, growing, alive improvisation and the necessity of keeping some control over it to ensure that it keeps momentum and avoids silliness or trite solutions. Most of the teacher’s interventions to achieve this can be done subtly by saying something, in character, to some of the participants, rather than by stepping in and making grand announcements to everyone.Some ideas for guided improvisations:·a museum (or waxworks) at night·kitchen implements come alive·the secret life of the characters in your coursebookDevise either role-cards or a basic scenario for a guided improvisation to enable students to practise the language of asking for and giving instructions (eg finding out how to use a new machine, play a new game, etc).戏剧是让学生使用语言的好方法。它本质上是利用想象力把自己变成另一个角色，或者把教室变成一个不同的地方。它可以是一个起点，开始令人兴奋的听力和口语学习，它可以被当作一种工具来利用，提供特定语法、词汇、功能或语音方面的练习机会。 通过这种方式把外部世界带入课堂，我们可以提供许多不这么做就无法实现的有用练习（在咖啡馆、商店、银行、企业、街道、派对等）。也可以（把学生）从文化和预期行为的约束中解放出来；这对个人和语言来说都是一种很大的解放。奇怪的是，有时正是最害羞的学生最能抓住潜力。 戏剧活动的成败在很大程度上取决于教师和其他学生对戏剧活动的态度；如果没有一定程度的信任、接受和尊重，有用练习的机会就会大大减少。 英语课堂中常见的六种戏剧活动： ·角色扮演。学生用自己的点子或角色卡片上的点子和信息表演小场景。 ·模拟。这实际上是一场大规模的角色扮演。通常使用角色卡，经常还有其他背景信息。其目的是创造一个更完整、更复杂的“世界”，比如一个商业公司、电视演播室、政府机构等。 ·戏剧游戏。短游戏，通常涉及运动和想象。 ·引导即兴创作。场景被即兴创作出来。学生们一个接一个地以角色身份加入，直到整个场景和故事有了自己的生命。 ·表演剧本。学生表演简短的书面草案或场景。 ·准备即兴戏剧。学生们分组创作并排练一个小场景或故事，然后为其他学生表演。 接下来我们看角色扮演，戏剧游戏和即兴指导。 评论 这个角色扮演提供了以一种有用和有趣的方式练习“商店”词汇的可能性。功能性语言有很大的使用空间——道歉、拒绝、不同意、否定等等。尽管参与者如果愿意，完全可以避免这种情况，但戏剧性冲突的可能性还是存在于卡片中。 进行角色扮演：一些指导方针 ·确保学生理解“角色扮演”的概念。他们知道会发生什么吗？他们知道对他们的要求是什么吗？他们这样做舒服吗？ ·确保上下文或情况是清楚的。 ·他们理解自己卡片上的信息吗？要给阅读时间、查字典时间、思考时间（在这些时间里，如果需要的话，你可以四处帮助学生）。 ·在演讲开始前，要给他们时间准备他们的想法；也许可以鼓励记点笔记。 ·……但是，当活动开始时，要鼓励他们即兴发挥，而不是依赖事先准备好的演讲稿和笔记。他们所做的准备工作将会为他们的角色扮演提供信息基础，但是如果他们过于依赖它的话，就会成为障碍。（当角色扮演开始时，把牌拿走可能会有帮助。） 戏剧游戏 以下是四个简短的例子： 走路 “成为”另一个角色的一个好方法就是试着像他们那样走路。这也是一个有趣的短剧游戏。学生们站起来，在房间里走来走去，按照他们自己选择的角色那样去走。过一会儿，不同的人可以见见面并进行简短的交谈（如玛丽莲梦露与莎士比亚见面）。变化1：老师从故事、新闻或历史等中叫出角色的名字，学生们都试着扮演角色。变化2：学生必须按照所给单词的样子行走：例如：快乐、年轻、疲倦、寒冷、紧张。 画一幅画 老师喊出一个题目；学生们必须一起迅速形成一个冻结的“场面”的场景。例如：老师喊出机场，学生们采取不同的姿势。有些是登记员，有些是办公桌，有些是起飞的飞机，有些是游客，直到整个房间“变成”一个机场。 一个有趣的变化是把这个班分成两班。其中一组人有两分钟的时间进行表演，而另一组人则在房间外或另一个房间里等候。当他们返回观看画面时，他们必须猜出是什么场景。他们只被允许问有yes-no答案的问题。（比如，Are you a table? No. Are you holding something? Yes.） 木偶和配音 木偶：两个人（A和B）坐着。另外两个人（C和D）坐在他们后面。A和B现在把胳膊藏在背后，而C和D把胳膊放在前面，这样他们看起来就像是A和B的真胳膊。A和B试图进行对话，而C和D则适当地移动手臂和手。可以搞笑！ 配音：这次C和D稍微坐在A和B的一边。他们通过对着A和B的耳朵耳语来提供A和B说的单词。A和B不被允许说任何话，除了他们被告知的内容。 有趣的情况 学生说出任一有趣或“困难”的情景，涉及两个人，另外两名学生表演出来。例如，一位好心的女主人为一位礼貌的素食者端上肉食。在适当的情况下，这种方法可以用于“真实游戏”（即表演并探索学生自己在现实生活中遇到的问题）。 引导即兴创作 老师选择一个场景，比如说，冰冻的冬景、冰冻的湖。这个想法是把教室变成一个场景，然后让故事以任何方式展开，通过小组一起即兴创作。 老师会通过描述场景，让学生成为风景里的人，慢慢地建立一个活生生的、移动的场景，或者他可能临时决策，即兴扮演一个角色自己，并在其他人做好准备的过程中或做好准备后鼓励他们加入即兴创作当中来。 运行这种复杂的即兴创作的技巧是在允许自由流动的、不断发展的、有活力的即兴创作和保持一定控制的必要性之间找到平衡，以确保它保持动力，避免显得剧情呆呆傻傻，也避免陈腐的剧情解决方案。为了达到这一目的，教师的大多数干预都可以巧妙地通过对一些参与者说些话来实现，而不是介入并向每个人发表重大声明。 指导即兴创作的一些点子： ·完美的学校 ·夜晚的博物馆（或蜡像馆） ·海滩 ·飞机内部 ·厨房用具活了起来 ·一次很棒的派对 ·你的教科书中人物的秘密生活 任务2 设计角色卡或一个基本的场景来引导即兴表演，让学生练习要求和给出指令的语言（如学会如何使用新机器，玩新游戏，等等）。
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