.

THE BOB WILSON HOLISTIC METHOD

Drama Games

for Language Learning

by Bob Wilson at autoenglish.org
Connect Energize voice and body Focus Calm

Drama games turn out to be a fantastic way to get language students talking and as a way to bring out emergent language in full flow and to gain confidence speaking a foreign language. It provides teachers with natural situations for providing language nuggets such as What's the matter? and Stop bothering me!

DRAMA GAMES
CONNECTING GAMES
1. Name Game No. 1 "Duck!"  
Purpose: to help everybody get to know each other's names in the first few classes.  
 
1 Students stand in a circle and teacher asks everyone their names.
2 Then the teacher says a student's name out loud and that student has to duck before the teacher points at them. If they are too slow, they have to sit down.
  SECOND LEVEL
3 When somebody says a student's name, that student must duck before the students on either side point to her or him.
 
2. Name Game No. 2 "Is it Charlie? - No, it's David."  
Purpose: quick name reminder, attention getter and energizer  
 
1 Students stand in a circle and teacher (or anyone), goes up to a student and says, "Is it Mary?", knowing full well that it isn't.
2 The student should then reply with genuine annoyance, "No, it's Anna!"
3 Go round the circle until everyone has shouted their name out loud.
 
3. The Pulse  
Purpose: This is a classic activity for bonding the class at the beginning of the session. It will also reveal who is outside the group or who has problems forgetting their ego for a moment.  
 
1 The class stands in a ring and holds hands.
2 TThe teacher squeezes the right hand of the person standing to their left.
3 This person then squeezes the right hand of the person to their left and so on. In this way a pulse goes round the circle and comes back to the beginning.
4 Congratulate the group when this is achieved and then say, "OK, much faster this time." You will quickly see who isn't connected!
  SECOND LEVEL
5 Send two pulses round the circle.
6 Send one pulse one way and one pulse the other.
7 Remember to relinquish power and let other people initiate the pulse.
  CAVEATS
  Sometimes people squeeze too hard! Ouch!
  Sometimes wiseguys like to interfer with the signal. It's best to find this funny and then try again.
  This activity is supposed to be quick and be finished with in 2 to 3 minutes.
  Nothing to do with language learning? The language input comes from explaining the game and people's reactions.
 
4. The Mexican Clap  
1 The class stands in a circle.
2 Teacher claps once, the person on their left claps once and then the next person claps etc
3 Once the clap has made it once round the circle, say, "Lets's do it faster this time."
4 Create rhythms. For example, the first person claps once, the second person claps twice and the third person claps once and the fourth person twice etc
  SECOND LEVEL
5 Let the class generate ideas for new rhythms.
 
5. The Simultaneous Clap  
1 The class stands in a circle.
2 First student faces second student and they have to do one clap at exactly the same time. They keep trying until they achieve this.
3 When they achieve this they smile and bow at each other.
4 Then the second student repeats this to the third student and so on until the entire group is connected.
 
6. Eye Contact  
 
1 Everyone stands in a circle.
2 Whenever two people make eye contact, they change places.
3 You should get a nice flow of people changing places and dissolve away shyness and distractedness.
 
LANGUAGE GAMES
1. THE Elimination Game (based on Freeze)
1 Choose a theme for the roleplays eg to reenact what we do at certain times of day or emotions
2 Say, "It's half past 7 in the morning.".
3 Four students prepare to act out a scene. Give them a few minutes to prepare.
4 The four students act out their scene.
5 When the students who are watching think they know the answer, they blow the answer into their hands and hold it there.
6 When the teacher sees fit, the teacher shouts, "Freeze!" and the four actors freeze.
7 The teacher chooses someone to release their answer from their hands eg "Brushing my teeth!"
8 The student who guesses correctly can eliminate 2 actors by tapping them on the shoulder.
9 This student then takes the place of one of the actors and the teacher chooses the fourth one from the class.
10 Give the new ensemble (group) a minute to prepare a scene and then the game repeats.
  Extra Rules
  The student who speaks the most or the best English during the roleplay cannot be eliminated.
2. Bananas  
 
1 One student sits in front of the group and is given a silly word such as "Bananas".
2 Students take turns asking the first student questions such as "What do you eat for lunch?"
3 The first student must answer all questions with the silly word, in this case "Bananas."
4 The student who manages to make the first student laugh, wins and is the next student to answer questions with a new silly word.
 
3. Sentence building Game  
Purpose: quick name reminder, attention getter and energizer  
 
1 Students sit in a circle.
2 Teacher gives first student the word MONKEYS, the second student the word LIKE, the third student the word BANANAS.
3 Now each student says their word so that together they make a sentence: MONKEYS LIKE BANANAS.
4 Now ask if anyone can remember the phrase. Help and congratulate.
  MORE THINGS TO ADD
5 Include noises and effects instead of always being words that they say.
6 Make the sentences longer using AND and BUT.
7 Encourage creativity by asking each student to think of their own word. Help them.
  SECOND LEVEL
8 The students think of each word to add. This will help them understand English grammar and word order.
9 Tell them the sentence has to be in the past tense, or the future.
 
4. Storytelling  
 
1 Students sit in a circle and take turns saying sentences in order to make up a story.
2 At the end, ask for a volunteer to retell the story.
 
5. Word association  
1 Students sit in a circle.
2 Teacher says CLOUD.
3 Next student has to say a word directly related to CLOUD such as RAIN and so on.
 
FINISHING UP GAMES
1. Countdown  
 
1 Students sit in a circle.
2 If there are 15 students, then we start at 14 in order to include zero as the last number.
3 Any one student must now say 14. If two or more say 14 at the same time, then we try again.
4 Then another student must say 13 without being interrupted.
3 Everytime there is an interruption, we start at 14 again.
  This game is really fun!
 
   
 
MORE DRAMA GAMES
improv games
role-plays
 

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