Role Plays for Listless Language Learners

Page No.: 
6
Writer(s): 
Gabriel Yardley, Nanzan University

The activities described in this integrative and associative approach to teaching vocabulary require the participation of the debonair James Bond in the film Dr. No and the resourceful Little Red Riding Hood (Akazukin-chan). They involve the narration of personal experiences of fear, the use of a video clip, and mimed role plays by intermediate language learners. The intention is to activate and reinforce acquisition of lexis related to "getting physical," and as learners are challenged to provide output to a partner and not the instructor, the activities are less inhibiting, more motivating, and thus more enjoyable. Both the topic of fear and the techniques of video, miming, and guessing are chosen deliberately to reorient students from any habitual, passive, role of "learn listlessness" in the classroom.

Activity 1

Most of us have experienced an unnerving or frightening situation, and in order to generate a little interest in our experience we need to recount the events which led up to the situation. It is also easier for the learn to empathise if we also describe how we felt, how we reacted to it all. Before teaching any vocabulary, the instructor can narrate such an experience and then intermediate level learn can be provided with the questions in Worksheet 1 (which may also be set as homework) to generate discussion with a partner regarding similar incidents.

Activity 2

The instructor should mime the basic meanings of the physical vocabulary, and once these are understood, learn pairs can test each other by miming, too. (The items presented are adapted from vocabulary exercises in Thomas, 1995, a class text.)

Ways of Looking

to frown, to peer, to stare, to glare, to gaze, to glimpse, to glance, to blink, to wink

Ways of Walking

to stagger, to stroll, to dash, to strudge, to limp

Body Movement

to clean your teeth, to crane your neck, to scratch your head, to sweat, to start, to doze

Nervousness

to feel faint, to hold your breath, to sweat, to stammer, to faint, to tremble

Activity 3

Learners then receive Worksheet 2, (the Dr. No Notebox) to focus their attention on the video-clip action about to take place and prepare for the first short discussion activity that follows. (Dr. No is obtainable from most video-rental stores. Instructors should consult copyright regulations regarding video playback.)

Our hero is awakened in the middle of the night by something strange in his bed. (From the opening sequence of the film -- 007's trademark walk across the screen -- the scene is to be found 41 minutes later, and the segment lasts 90 seconds.) It can be replayed (stopping just short of showing 007 solving this tantalising little problem) to enable everyone to recall enough of the action to fill in the Dr. No Notebox. Initially, play-back of the soundtrack only serves to set the imaginative juices flowing.

Once the answers have been discussed, learn can then be asked to fill in the "Dr. No Notes-Scribble a Sentence" section in Worksheet 3 and to confer over their answers.

Finally, learners team up in groups of four comprising two sets of partners, each set having one of the two complementary cloze versions of Little Red Riding Hood on Worksheets 4A and 4B. (The words missing on one sheet are in full caps on the other.) Each team takes turns miming the words in full caps for the other team to guess. Many of the missing words are those previously taught. (This exercise is inspired by the version of Little Red Riding Hood presented by Morgan and Rinvolucri, 1996, p. 67.)

Options and Caveats

The only Options and Caveats

The only words that those miming are allowed to speak are either "I'm afraid not!" (in response to wrong guesses regarding the missing words) or "Yes, that's right!" The Japanese "Ping pong!" is not acceptable. If the missing word should be beyond the guessing pair, those miming can trace the words on the backs of the guessing partners. Those guessing can also be encouraged to preface guesses with "Is it by any chance . . ?" Specific questions and handouts are necessary to initiate all these activities; vague verbal instructions introduced with the timid and unimaginative "Discuss . . . (e.g. being frightened)" leave the less confident or proficient trying to grasp the implications of the question before struggling to think of personal experiences which they might be able to weave into a number of sentences. The open-ended preliminary Activity 1 also encourages spontaneous reformulating and conversation. In Activity 4, most acting pairs surprisingly resisted the temptation to explain in Japanese, but some did try to explain in English.

If Activity 1 is repeated at the end of Activity 4, this time there should be little or no learner shock, or sense of what Littlewood terms "reduced personality" (p. 45) and hopefully students will be encouraged to use what Faerch and Kasper term "achievement strategies" rather than the "reduction strategies" which they may have had to rely on when first answering these questions. Overall, these activities take up to 90 minutes and review the following aspects of language learning: content specific language acquisition, guided conversation, free discussion, use of basic conversational hedges, writing, peer evaluation, prediction, and paralinguistic comprehension

Conclusion

On occasions, a college level EFL classroom setting may reinforce the role of "listless language learner" in some students, a fossilised role which has been both inspired and nurtured by their high school experiences of learning English: the monotony of the daily language learning challenge from the textbook. These activities may also, if only briefly, underscore the importance of learning materials that coax students away from the impaired learner-role that unwittingly perhaps, we occasionally reinforce in them, and encourage instructors to prepare materials which alter students' perceptions of their learner-roles. By emphasizing the learning experience which is truly interactive and personal rather than passive and impersonal, learners do become what Littlewood terms the main actors in the classroom" (1992, p.97).

References

  • Littlewood, W. (1992). Teaching oral communication. Oxford: Blackwell
  • Maley, A., & Duff, A. (1987). Drama techniques in language learning (2nd Edition). Cambridge: CUP.
  • Morgan, J., & Rinvolucri, M. (1986). Resource books for teachers: Vocabulary. Oxford: OUP Thomas, BJ. (1995). Intermediate vocabulary. Harlow: Longman.
  • United Artist Films. (1962). Dr. No. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lnc.: New York