This blog post is the sixth in a special series I am dedicating to my coursebook series Boost! during the month of June. Boost! is a six-strand, four-level skills and integrated skills series made for learners aged 10-15.
Confession: I absolutely love using drama in my English language classes for children and teenagers. I might even go so far as to say that if you aren't using drama in your approach at some stage, then you are potentially a mean, unimaginative teacher who is depriving your learners of a genuinely enjoyable and rich language learning/using experience!
I particularly like using drama as an extension to reading-based units of study. Reading selections provide a nice platform and context from which drama can spring, and they also help to take ideas and language off the page and into a more vivid and interactive format. Of course, drama is also a logical way to extend out of reading into much more integrated skills involving writing, speaking and listening. I've also found that specific skills (which is what my Boost! series specialises in) can make excellent transitions from one macro skill (like reading) into others (especially writing and listening).
So the basic idea here is: We've read the passage and answered the questions - so now let's use the basic ideas in the reading and make a play/performance out of it!
With the right classroom atmosphere and rapport with learners, I've found that students are pretty darned good at coming up with their own very imaginative and highly entertaining drama-based extensions to a reading unit. They are certainly better at coming up with ideas than I am!
However, some teachers may feel their students would benefit from initial guidance or at least a set of suggestions to explore. To that end, I've come up with a list of drama ideas below to extend the units in Boost! Reading Level 1. Even if you're not a Boost! user, the unit titles and drama suggestions may give you some good ideas for things to try out with whatever course/coursebook you happen to be using.
Unit 1 - Fantasy Stories (Main reading skill = Finding the main idea)
- Groups write and act out a favourite scene from any of the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings (or any other series, for that matter) books.
- Groups write and act out a completely new scene from a fantasy story, or even start a completely new fantasy story of their own!
- Pairs write and act out an Interview skit with a famous fantasy story author or movie director (real or made-up!).
- Pairs write and act out a scene in a book store, with a customer asking for advice about a good fantasy story book to buy.
Unit 2 - Movies are great (Main reading skill = Vocabulary in context)
- Groups write and act out a movie review television or radio show, with a host and one expert who loves a particular movie, and another who absolutely hates it!
- Groups write and act out a scene with a television reporter interviewing people as they emerge from the premiere of a brand new movie (with different people having different reactions to the film, of course).
- Groups or pairs write and act out an actual movie theater scene, with them in their chairs and various reactions to the film or humorous audience interactions going on.
- Pairs write and act out a scenes before and after watching a particular movie (in front of the cinema, so to speak), expressing their expectations and then reactions to it.
- Pairs write and act out an interview scene with a famous movie star or director.
Unit 3 - Extreme Sports (Main reading skill = Finding details)
- Groups write and act out an extreme sporting event, with 1-3 commentators and the rest of the group actually acting out the sporting action.
- Groups write and act out an interview scene with the athletes who came first, second, and third in a particular extreme sport event.
- Groups write and act out a shared hospital room scene, with various athletes comparing their injuries and explaining what sports they do and how they got hurt.
- Pairs write and act out a television advertisement promoting an X-Games to happen soon in the students' own country.
Unit 4 - My Hobbies (Main reading skill = Finding details)
- Groups write and act out a television show with a host interviewing people about their strange or unusual hobbies.
- Pairs write and act out a scene where Anne and Liam (two characters from the unit who send emails to each other) actually meet up face to face.
- Groups or pairs write and act out a play about people getting a special club or group happening oriented around a particular hobby or recreational activity.
Unit 5 - Intelligent Animals (Main reading skill = True or False?)
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene involving one or more scientists designing and applying a special test to see if particular animals are more intelligent than others.
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene involving an animal that has somehow learned to talk, and tells its owner how it feels about certain things.
- Groups or pairs write and act out an event where a particular animal shows itself to be the precise opposite of its so-called intelligent example from research findings.
Unit 6 - Caring for Pets (Main reading skill = writer's opinion)
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene involving the Pet Police raiding a household suspected of abusing its pets.
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene involving the Pet Police raiding a household with a pet suspected of abusing its human owners!
- Groups or pairs write and act out a television segment where a host interviews various animal experts about the most important ways certain pets need to be taken care of.
Unit 7 - Inventions (Main reading skill = Taking notes)
- Groups write and act out a scene from an Invention Competition, with various inventors arguing (and demonstrating) why their invention should be the winner.
- Pairs write and act out an interview with a famous inventor from the past.
- Groups write and act out a panel discussion about common inventions that changed the world.
Unit 8 - Young Inventor (Main reading skill = Diagrams and Labels)
- Groups write and act out an actual scene that demonstrates "The Alarming Lunchbox" in action.
- Pairs write and act out an interview with "The Alarming Lunchbox" inventor Nic James or "Water Talkie" inventor Richie Stachowski (from Review Unit 4) about their inventions.
- Groups or pairs write and act out a television show scene where Nic James and Richie Stachowski argue with each other over whose invention is more useful for mankind!
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene with a young inventor "pitching" his new invention to a panel of executives from a toy company.
Unit 9 - Mystery Sightings (Main reading skill = comparing information)
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene featuring an encounter with either the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot (or some other unexplained phenomena).
- Pairs write and act out a meeting between a person and a mystery monster (who can actually talk).
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene with a monster like Nessie or Bigfoot returning home to their families, and talking about the trials and tribulations of their day.
- Groups write and act out a scene which involves a mystery monster (famous/well-known or otherwise) appearing in their own town or city.
- Groups or pairs write and act out a scene showing how Nessie or Bigfoot are proved conclusively to be true or just made up/faked.
Unit 10 - Mystery Tours (Main reading skill = making inferences)
- Groups write and act out one of the Bigfoot or Nessie tours (or some other mystery monster) as it actually happens.
- Pairs write and act out a meeting with a mystery monster and a tour group organiser (who can either know the monster and be in a business partnership with him, or be completely shocked to discover the object of his tour really does in fact exist!).
- Groups, pairs or individuals design and perform their own mystery tour advertisement for television or radio.
Unit 11 - The History of the Web (Main reading skill = sequencing events)
- Groups write and act out a televised debate about which website is the coolest/most important for children or teens.
- Pairs write and act out an interview with a hotshot young web scientist who has come up with Web 4.0.
- Groups or pairs write and act out a discussion between two laptop computers (or mobile devices), chatting to each other about their human users and what they dislike about them and the sites they like to visit.
- Pairs write and act out a scene where a computer starts speaking directly to its human owner.
Unit 12 - People Online (Main reading skill = Formal vs. informal language)
- Groups or pairs write and act out a web-based video chat involving people from different parts of the world.
- Pairs write and act out an unplanned real-world meeting between two children who have previously been chat friends only.
- Groups, pairs or individuals write and perform web-based video advertisements for their own chat sites, pointing out why theirs is the best place for children to come to for online chat.
So there are 44 drama-based extension ideas for one single 12-unit reading coursebook. These came to me without even breaking a sweat, so I dare to claim they are potentially only the tip of a very impressive iceberg in terms of other ideas and applications.
Notice also that the main skills mentioned in the unit titles above can easily be followed up and explored during and following drama-based extensions to the units. Part of the application can involve the students writing up a list of questions or checklist points for the audience to work on after they've watched the performance, with one or more of the covered skills now becoming quite listening-based rather than reading-based.
Break a leg!
:-)
