<p> Improvisational English</p><p>Presenter: Jon Wilkerson International Funny Business 303-818-7255 [email protected] www.jonwilkerson.com</p><p>What is Improv?</p><p>Improv is a theatrical form that does not use any pre-written material. The actors get up in front of an audience and create scenes on the spot. </p><p>Why use Improv in a Language Classroom?</p><p>BUILDS FLUENCY (TEACH) . Builds fluency through effective rehearsal and reinforcement of grammar and vocab in a variety of contexts. CLASSROOM ENERGY (INSPIRE) . Brings energy to the class room. . Stokes their enthusiasm. . They will laugh their heads off. . Develops a positive attitude (a positive expectancy of success) SKILLS FOR INTERACTING WITH NATIVE SPEAKERS (EMPOWER) . To enable students to make the jump from dusty grammar tomes to their visions of success. . They will acquire those critical meta-skills that will guide their success in encounters with native speakers. . A safe opportunity to bang on the drums. . They break down the barriers so language learners can communicate, USE WHAT THEY KNOW, and progress with their language. . Builds confidence and creativity. . Prepares students for interacting improvisationally with native speakers. . Builds strategic communication skills FLEXIBLE AND EASY TO LEARN AND EASY TO USE SYSTEM . Games allow tremendous flexibility in dealing with different communication challenges. . Game constraints allow laser like focus on different skills, or broader communication challenges. . Games are modular. They can be taken apart and the part reassembled into different games. They can be modified. . This is easy to learn and easy to use.</p><p>Improv skills are teachable skills. Anyone can learn them! The Five Principles of Improv</p><p>1. Commit</p><p>To create interesting characters and scenes, you must summon every ounce of your energy and let it loose on stage. </p><p>2. Listen</p><p>You must pay close attention not only to what the other actors are saying, but what they are doing. You are likely to walk through a wall that another player has established if you aren’t paying complete attention.</p><p>3. Acceptance</p><p>Anything that another actor brings into a scene becomes part of the reality that is created. If an actor says there is an elephant on the stage, then the other actors must accept this reality and deal with it.</p><p>4. Support</p><p>Improv actors are team players. You must always be ready to shore up parts of a scene that need help, or to rescue a story that is going off track.</p><p>5. Fun!</p><p>If you aren’t enjoying the process of creating improv, then your audience certainly won’t enjoy watching you!</p><p>The Sixth Principle: Spontaneity</p><p>Improv actors must be able to come up with ideas even when their minds are blank. How to do this in YOUR class</p><p>1. Unconditional positive regard</p><p>It is hard to release the tremendous creative energy of improv if students don’t feel like they are in an environment where they will be safe from feeling ridiculous. To this end, the instructor must never be critical of creative decisions made by the students unless they are truly inappropriate (profanity, sexism, etc.). </p><p>2. Failure is okay</p><p>Not only should failures not be criticized. They should be praised for their courage and effort. The students should ideally feel free to fall flat on their faces.</p><p>3. First into the breach</p><p>Students aren’t going to feel comfortable acting silly or making strong character choices if the instructor is doesn’t. You must strive to be the silliest, loudest, most ridiculous person in the room.</p><p>4. Small Steps</p><p>Improv games range from very simple warm-up exercises to full-blown games that are physically and mentally strenuous. To arrive at the latter, you must take your students slowly through the former. By taking small steps, your students will feel increasingly confident and empowered – and you will be amazed at their improv abilities!</p><p>5. Explain and demonstrate clearly</p><p>When describing and activity, it’s best to SHOW students how to do it (when possible). This will help to make the instructions absolutely clear.</p><p>THANK YOU!</p><p>Thank you for attending the seminar! I have tried to give you as much information as I could in the time allowed, but if you have any additional questions, please contact me. I will happily answer them. Also, if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or feedback, I would love to hear from you.</p><p>Jon Wilkerson [email protected] 303-818-7255 www.jonwilkerson.com Improv Games for a Beginning Class</p><p>Game: Everybody Go! Players: Everybody Degree of Difficulty: Easy Skills addressed: Letting down your guard, commitment, acceptance, listening, support</p><p>How to play it: Everyone stands in a circle. The first player shouts "Everybody go . . . " and then creates a silly noise, walk, gesture, movement, etc. The other players in the circle shout "YES!" and then do the same silly noise, gesture, etc. with as much energy as they can. Then the next person takes her turn shouting “Everybody go . . . ” until everyone in the circle has had a chance.</p><p>Variations: Instead of a making a silly noise, have everyone in the circle step forward and shout out their name and an interesting fact about themselves ("My name is Sachiko and I love pizza!")</p><p>Game: Hitchhiker Players: Everybody Degree of Difficulty: Moderate Skills Addressed: Listening, commitment, support, acceptance</p><p>How to play it: Four chairs are set up on the stage as if they were the front and back seat of a car. Four players sit down in them. The driver starts driving and the people in the car chat about whatever they want. The first player in line walks to the front of the car and puts out her thumb. The driver stops the car to pick up the hitchhiker. The hitchhiker gets into the back seat, forcing one person in the back to move over, the other to move to the "shotgun" position up front, and the person who was the shotgun to slide over and become the driver. The driver exits the car. The driver justifies his exit in any way he wants ("I forgot to feed the fish!").</p><p>The hitchhiker will bring into the car some characteristic (she is sleepy or snobby or forgetful). The other players must listen to her carefully. When they think they have determined her characteristic, they must take on the characteristic themselves (everyone in the car becomes sleepy or snobby or forgetful).</p><p>The second player in line now hitchhikes. Again, the car stops to pick him up, everyone shifts around, the driver leaves justifying her exit, and the hitchhiker brings in a new characteristic that everyone must emulate. The entire class should go through the car (being hitchhiker, eventually driver, and then leaving) until you have the original four people in the car.</p><p>Game: Slide Show Players: 4-6 Degree of Difficulty: Skills addressed:</p><p>How to play it: Get a suggestion for a slide presentation. One that works pretty well is "Where would you like to go on a vacation that you have never been too before?" Let's suppose someone says "Mexico."</p><p>Divide the players into two teams, the "describers" and the "picture people." The describers sit in chairs one side of the "stage" and tell the audience about that they have just returned from a wonderful trip to Mexico and would like to show some of the pictures they took while they were there. As they announce each picture ("Let's look at our first picture . . . ") the "picture people" pose in anyway they feel might be challenging for the describers and freeze in those positions. For instance, one might be bending over while the other is looking up at the sky. The describers must do their best to justify the poses by explaining them to the audience ("Oh! This was the day someone dropped a tamale on us from an airplane. Jane here is trying to get the number of the plane while I'm seeing if the tamale is still edible.")</p><p>Variations: You can get a more challenging suggestion. Instead of a vacation, you might have the "describers" be "experts" giving a lecture on some topic, such as ballet.</p><p>Game: Story Players: 4-7 Degree of Difficulty: More difficult Skills addressed: Listening, creating language</p><p>How to play it: Get a suggestion for the title of a story that has never been written. All of the players except one line up facing the class. The final player, the "director", sits or kneels in front of the other players. The director points to one of the players who instantly starts telling a story based on the made-up title. The player continues until the director takes her hand away and points at another player who must continue the story exactly where the first player left off. The director continues pointing to this or that person to continue the story.</p><p>Variations: Get endowments for each player before the story begins. For instance, you might get an emotion for every player, so one player must always be "sad" where another must always be "excited."</p><p>Another variation is to have the director instruct the player who is currently speaking to "color" a particular element of the story (give more detail), or to "advance" (continue to with the plot). For example, suppose the player is narrating thus: "Jimmy was walking to school one day when he noticed a dog following him." The director says: "Color 'dog'." The player continues, "The dog was white with brown spots and looked very tired. The dog had a bell around its neck." Director: "Advance." Player: "Jimmy ran to try and get away from the dog, but the dog followed him all the way to school."</p><p>Game: Forward Reverse Players: 3-5 Degree of Difficulty: More Difficult Skills addressed: Listening, memorization</p><p>How to play it: Get any suggestion (an occupation you wouldn’t want, a place you like to go, something you have in a junk drawer at home). All of the players but one can create a scene based on the suggestion. The other player is the “caller” and acts as a remote control for that scene that can send it into “forward” or “reverse” mode by simply shouting “Forward!” or “Reverse!” When in “reverse” mode, the actions and lines of the scene occur in reverse order (the words of the sentences are not inverted however!)</p><p>For example, suppose the suggestion is “Bait Store.” A scene might go like this:</p><p>Player One (enters): I would like to by some hooks please. Player Two (pulls a box from under the counter): Here we are. Player One: Beautiful! Player Two: What kind of fish are you trying to catch? Caller: Reverse! Player Two: What kind of fish are you trying to catch? Player One: Beautiful! Player Two (puts the box back under the counter): Here we are. Player One (exits walking backwards): I would like to by some hooks please. Caller: Forward! Player One (enters): I would like to by some hooks please. Player Two (pulls a box from under the counter): Here we are. Caller: Reverse! Player Two (puts the box back under the counter): Here we are. Player One (exits walking backwards): I would like to by some hooks please.</p><p>Game: Cocktail Party Players: Everybody Degree of Difficulty: Easy Skills addressed: Commitment, Listening</p><p>How to play it: Get a list of emotions and characteristics from the class and discuss what they all mean. A good way to get this list is to start by asking for emotions (angry, sad, happy). Then ask for characteristics by asking them to describe what their best friend is like (nice, generous, understanding), and then what their brothers or sisters are like (mean, smart, funny, nosy, shy). Ask everyone in the class to take on an emotion or characteristic. Then the entire class mingles freely in the room, meeting as many people as they can and trying to figure out other students’ characteristics while also maintaining their own. </p><p>Variation: Have everyone take on the same emotion when they mingle, and then change it every 20-30 seconds. A short blast on a whistle is a good way to get everyone’s attention and shout out the next emotion. (“Jealous! You’re all jealous now! Begin!”)</p><p>Game: Two-Line Scene Players: Everybody Degree of Difficulty: Easy Skills addressed: Listening, filling in the blanks</p><p>How to play it: Have the class form two lines on either side of the room. One line is the “initiators” line, the other the “receivers” line. The first person in each line comes out on stage. The initiator says one line and the receiver says one line. The scene is then over. The objective is to create the “who, what, and where” of the scene as quickly as possible. For instance:</p><p>Initiator: “Would you like to see a menu, ma’am?” Receiver: “No, I’m waiting for my sister to arrive.”</p><p>After each scene, ask the other players standing in line: 1) Who are they? 2) Where are they? 3) What’s going on?</p><p>In this scene, for example, the answers could be, “a waiter and a customer who has a sister, a restaurant, and the lady is waiting for her sister to arrive before she orders.”</p><p>Challenge the players to create all three in a scene of two lines. They can provide more information with action (miming the driving of a car or washing dishes). After the scene, the initiator goes to the end of the receivers’ line, and the receiver goes to the end of the initiators’ line. Play continues until everyone has cycled through both lines.</p><p>© 2014 Jon Wilkerson </p>