TEFL Adventures: 5 Tips for Staging a Play Using English as a Foreign Language

 

For students to successfully learn a foreign language, they need to be interested and invested. Children love to watch movies and listen to music but these are passive forms of learning, which is why we try to teach students using games and small skits that make them speak and practice their language skills. Drama, if used correctly, is an additional useful method because it provides not just speaking practice, but experience organizing all parts of a play. Moreover, drama performances develop students’ teamwork, memorization skills and confidence with speaking a foreign language in front of others.

Although students need only memorize the words of their roles, the entire process from understanding their lines and pronouncing words correctly to blocking and costumes requires the students to interact with the teacher using English as the means of communication. Students, in order to be successful, must overcome their personal apprehensions regarding speaking a foreign language. Otherwise, how can they do it in front of an audience.

Last academic year, I helped with staging four school plays working with sixth graders. My tasks included, but were not limited to, writing the script, finding costumes and directing the final product. I want to share some of the things I’ve learned the easy way... and the hard way. So here are my five biggest tips I believe are the most crucial for executing a successful English language play designed for non-native speakers so that both the audience and the actors enjoy the final product.

SIMPLIFY THE LANGUAGE

This is probably a no-brainer for any EFL teacher. When we’re speaking with our students, we have to simplify our language to the level of our students so that they understand us. We can’t use advanced words like tenacious or phrases such as Portrayals of the main character’s gradual corruption were made through the changing manifestations of the portrait in Oliver Wilde’s masterpiece ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ unless we’re able to clearly explain the definitions of words or the rules behind sentence structures. Since a large part of theatrical performance depends on an actor’s self-confidence, the script should be kept to the student’s level.

Now, that doesn’t mean that new grammatical material can’t be introduced. I usually introduce some new words or simple phrases that relate to the topic. However, the entire script can’t be written as if a native English-speaking cast were performing it in front of a native-speaking audience.

The strategy I’ve adopted when I simplify is to first write the place like I imagine it. Once the plot, characters and pacing seem satisfactory, I go through the play sentence-by-sentence and simplify the reading level to suit my students’ abilities. I usually need to go through the play at least twice before I'm happy. Then I have my students read through the script and if they have problems with a certain section, I further edit the section in question.

You may be able to achieve this more efficiently than I did, but this is the method I used so that I would be with what I wrote.

CHOOSE AN EDUCATIONAL THEME

I learned the hard way that students’ want to have their opinions heard regarding what they'd like to perform. Our first two performances were fairly easy and straightforward. We decided to focus on holiday traditions in English speaking countries. The theme of our first play was England’s Bonfire Night and the second was the Nativity story. Our students and parents were pretty happy with the plays.

However, I ran into a wall when it came to deciding the third play. Due to some staff changes at the school, I found myself working alone on the playscript over winter break. Since I knew the students enjoyed Harry Potter a lot, I wrote a Harry Potter-themed play using some of the major characters from the series.

If you haven’t picked up on where I’m going with this, let’s just say the play idea flopped. After spending the initial month working with the script, the students eventually, to put it lightly, revolted. They wanted a topic that was more educational than Harry Potter while also fitting into our established theme of focusing on an important holiday. After scrambling back to the drawing board, in collaboration with the students, we settled on recognizing Easter.

The takeaway from this point is two-fold.

First, focus more on educational or cultural topics so that the students not only practice speaking but also acquire useful cultural and historical knowledge.

Second, don’t write a script based on popular novels or movies. Children have their own opinions about what characters would and wouldn’t do. Writing your own script with original characters will save a lot of heartache and disagreements. Maybe the only character you might be able to get away with writing your own story is Sherlock Holmes because of the lack of special effects and the, to put it frankly, quite 'elementary' plot structure.

INCORPORATE MUSIC WHEN APPROPRIATE

Music is your friend. Maybe not your 'best friend forever,' but that friend you would like to have a pumpkin-spiced latte at Starbucks with.

In other words, a lot can be done with music. For some plays, such as our Christmas one, we incorporated traditional songs into the script such as Silent Night or We Three Kings. Such songs were both culturally educational and enjoyable to sing.

Other times, playing quiet background music can help maintain the energy in a play while students deliver their lines. There’s nothing more disconcerting for a young actor than to forget a line and be confronted with sheer silence. Having some quiet background music helps alleviate some of that pressure.

And finally, music can signal transitions, reminding students when a scene is over and when a scene begins to start. In my case, I quietly play background music while action is happening, but when there’s a transition, I turn the volume loud so that students know something something big is about to happen. Then when the action restarts, I turn the volume down.

PROVIDE SUBTITLES FOR THE AUDIENCE

Parents and teachers come to watch their students perform in these plays. But most, if not all, don’t speak or understand English very well. Having a simple projector and PowerPoint presentation that provide either a line-by-line translation or a general description of the occurring action is incredibly useful for the audience.

If you’re not fluent in the country’s language, have either a colleague, friend or even your students help you translate, because google translate does make mistakes. I know I’m far from the best at Russian. I can maintain some conversations but I can't accurately convey the history of Easter without numerous grammatical mistakes. Instead, I ask my stronger students to help me with translating before having my colleague double-check their translations.

FINISH WITH A WRAP-UP ACTIVITY

And finally, after weeks of staging, rehearsing and agony, the performance begins and ends within 15-20 minutes. By now, the audience has applauded the performance of your students and is in the process of leaving.

You have three possible options.

First, you can do absolutely nothing. While not necessarily bad, it’s also not necessarily good. Worse, there’s no reinforcement of the material that was presented in the play, so how do you know whether the audience understood what happened. Still, you can simply choose to do nothing and relax knowing you’ve accomplished your primary objective. I doubt anyone will complain.

Second, you can direct the audience and performers to a social meeting area where food is being prepared. Depending on the season, this could range from an outside barbecue to an indoor social with baked goods and drinks.

Third, and probably the best choice, immediately after the play, organize a short game-show quiz with 7-10 questions and small prizes like bars of chocolates. Questions should be given in both English and the primary language so that everyone can participate (here’s where you can have students ask the questions in both languages).

I personally try to end with a mix of the second and third options. People love food and people love prizes, so ending with plenty of food with some educational reinforcing is a no-lose strategy… so long as you don’t burn the food.

Author's Note:

I originally wrote this post as an alumni article for the International TEFL Academy and submitted it in May 2015. I have since updated some of the wording in order to reflect some of my experiences that occurred after I had submitted the article.

One more note, since this post is going active on September 11th, in remembrance of the events that happened on September 11th, 2001, here's a picture of the 9/11 memorial I took when I visited New York City.

It still remains probably the most beautiful monument I've ever seen and experienced. Hopefully such a tragedy doesn't happen again.