Plays is about how to use them in our English lessons

1. … drama is not made of words alone, but of sights
and sounds, stillness and motion, noise and
silence, relationships and responses.
J. I. Sean, 1975 Drama , Stage and
Audience
What is drama for you?

2. Drama
• However familiar or unfamiliar the world
of a tragedy, comedy, farce or
melodrama may be, everything that we
experience has its source, in the long
run, in words.

3. Tasks:
• Think about a play you know well, then:
• How important were the words in the play? Could
you imagine the play rewritten in another style?
• What do you think the relationship is between the
text of a play and the performance?
• Think about a group of language learners that you
are teaching or have taught in the past. Do the
quotations given on drama suggest any possible
features of plays which could be exploited with your
learners?

4. a) I would if I could but I can´t / b) I see… What´s happened to the
fellowship of man, brotherly love? C) No? d) Perhaps I could share the
one you have?
• Teacher: D´ you have a spare tea bag?
• Rutter: No
• Teacher: ………………………………………………………………………
• Rutter: No
• Teacher:………………………………………………………………………
• Rutter: That´s right. No!
• Teacher: But why?
• Rutter: Buy you own
• Teacher: …………………………………………………………………………
• Rutter: So, what do you want me to do about it?
• Teacher: A cup of tea, please?
• Rutter: No
• Teacher:………………………………………………………………………..

5. Answer:
• What kinds of connections between the lines in the dialogue
helped you to put the missing lines in the appropriate
places?.
• In line 3, Teacher makes a request of Rutter . Why does
Teacher say “perhaps” and “could”? Could this request be
made in other ways? How would this change the effect?
• Teacher says: What´s happened to the fellowship of
man, brotherly love? What does he really mean when he
says this?
• What do you think the relationship between the two
characters is?

6. Discuss:
• If you were teaching an extract from a
play you could remove certain lines from
the dialogue and ask your students to fill
the gaps as we have done.
• What would your aims be in doing so?
Think about your linguistic aims.

7. A play in performance
Costumes Sets Lightining
Music Props Gestures

8. After you have read the two extracts,
think about the following questions:
What do you think is the setting for each
text? What is the relationship between
the two characters?
With what level of students could you
use both texts?
How would you exploit these texts in the
classroom?

9. Read the following tasks and activities
which are designed to exploit the two texts
• Divide the students into pairs. Give them one of the role cards
you are given in the handouts. Ask some of the students to
perform their roleplay for the other students. While they do
so, ask the other students:
• A) Where are the two characters?
• B) What is the relationship between them?
• You can revise the functional area of what you say in English
when you first meet someone or try to initiate a conversation
with someone you don´t know. You might wish to focus on
how this differs depending on the formality of the occasion or
the setting. You can also discuss the topic of conversation when you
first meet someone and how this differs from country to country

10. Ask students to study the texts in more detail
now, by answering the following questions in pairs
or groups
• Text A:
• How does the conversation in this text begin?
What does this suggest about Jerry?
• Peter says to Jerry: “I´m sorry, were you
talking to me?” What answer would you expect
Jerry to give? What does his reply suggest
about his thoughts or his character?
• When do we usually use the phrase “good
old..” What is the effect in this context?

11. Text B:
• In what way does Cecily introduce
herself to Gwendolen? Why does she use
the word “pray”
• What do you think the two women really
• feel about each other?
• How is the relationship going to develop
further?

12. Compare the two texts by filling in the chart below.
Then ask how the texts might differ from ordinary
everyday conversation
Text A Text B
Setting
Period
Relationship
between the
characters
Type of
language
used

13. Task: Optional activity for a class at a
higher level
• Ask students to look at the text again to
find ways in which the different characters
try to establish their control or
conversational superiority.
• Example: Cecily asserts her superiority by
saying : “If you wish” when Gwendolen
asks to be called by her first name (She
implies she herself would rather address
Gwendolen more formally).

14. Lesson plan for Text C. Below is the first half of a lesson
plan for using the extract from Hello and Goodbye with a
group of intermediate learners. Think about the aim of
each activity
• Pre-reading activity:
• Divide the students into pairs and groups. Ask
them to discuss these two questions:
• What kinds of things can cause conflict between
brothers and sisters? What can bring them closer
to each other?
• Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do you get
on with them? What do you like or dislike about
them?

15. W hile-reading activity: Hand out copies of the text
and ask students to read silently. Then, follow this
procedure
• Assign roles, so that in each pair there is one student taking the
part of Hester and another the part of Johnnie, tell them to do it
with feeling
• Ask the pairs to stand up and read the text aloud, this time sort of
acting it out
• Get the pairs to change partners, so that students retain the same
role. Ask students to read the text again.
• Tell students to put the text away and ask them to act out the
scene again, supplying words if necessary.
• Students improvise an ending to the scene.

16. Opinions about the lesson plan
• Asking students to talk about their own experiences
before reading the text is threatening and invasive
• Shy or inhibited students get a lot of non-threatening
practice in pairs.
• The activity can get very noisy.
• Students will find improvising relatively easy after
reading aloud a number of times.
• The teacher doesn´t need to provide any background to
the text before the students read it.
• Changing partners during the activity confuses students.
• The activity is difficult to do with large groups.

17. Other activities for use with Text C: Below are some activities which
could be used with the students after they have read Text C and
acted it out. The overall aim is to encourage students to think about
the different kinds of meanings that can be communicated by the
costumes, sets and acting in a performance of a play. At the same
time students would be practising their reading and speaking skills
• Activity I: The characters
• With a partner, discuss these questions. Use your
imagination:
• Who are Hester and Johnnie?
• What is their relationship?
• How do they feel about each other?

18. What do you think Hester and Johnnie look like?
How old are they?
How do you think they move around the stage?
What kind of gestures do you think they might use?
What sort of voices do you think they have?
For which one do you have the most sympathy? Why?
• Activity 2: The Set
• Look at the description of two possible sets
for the play. Discuss which one you think
provides the background for the dialogue
between Hester and Johnnie

19. A- The stage is empty of furniture except for a
kitchen table and four chairs. A single electric bulb
hangs above the table, on which there is a jug of
fruit squash. The rest of the stage is a jumble-three
or four boxes and suitcases have been opened and
their contents are all spilling out onto the stage.
Piles of old clothes and newspapers litter the stage.
Hester is sitting looking at an old photograph album
• B- On the stage is an elegant dining table with four
chairs. To the right stands a tall lamp with a silk shade, to
the left a large plant.
• Hester is paging through three leather-bound photo
albums spread out on the table

20. Using plays extracts with lower levels
• The following activities can be used to exploit text D with a
class of lower intermediate students. Look at the activities and
answer the questions:
• A- Which one(s) of the activities would you use and why?
• B- How would you order the activities to make a coherent
lesson plan?Which one(s) could you use before students read
the text and which one(s) after students have read the text?
• C- What other possible activities could you incorporate into
your lesson?

21. Activity I
• Working in pairs, the students read the possible descriptions of Gus
and Ben and decide which one they like best. Then, they write the
rest of the dialogue between Gus and Ben.
• A- Gus and Ben are two brothers, who share the same house. They are
getting old now, and cannot see or hear very well. Ben is older than
Gus and likes to tell him what to do
• B- Gus and Ben work in the same office together. Ben is the boss and
likes telling Gus what to do.
• C-Gus and Ben are two hired killers who work together. They are
nervously waiting for their instructions about who they must kill
next.
• D- Gus and Ben are two students who share the same room. Gus is
very quiet and shy but Ben is very confident.

22. Activity 2
• The teacher brings three or four packages into the
classroom which contain small objects, perhaps objects
which are fairly unusual. For variety include an
envelope, something wrapped like a gift, something in a
carrier bag, etc. The students have to try to guess what is
in each package by asking questions about the objects.
The teacher is only allowed to provide one-word answers
to the questions. Before starting this activity, you may
wish to revise any question that the students might find
useful, for example: “Where does it come from? And What
is it made of?”

23. Activity 3
• When the students have finished writing the
dialogue in activity I , each pair reads it aloud to
the class who have to guess which one of the
descriptions of Gus and Ben the pair chose before
completing the dialogue

24. Activity4
• We usually say “What?” if we didn´t hear what
someone said, or if we are surprised by what
someone says. We usually say : What do you
mean?” if we don´t really understand what
someone means, and we want them to explain
more clearly what they mean. How are these two
phrases used in the text from the play? Does this
tell you anything about the characters or their
relationship?

25. Activity 6
• Working in pairs, try to complete the following
text about Gus and Ben. Use your imagination!
• Gus and Ben are………………………………………….
• They live……………………………………………………..
• Gus is………………………………………………………….
• Ben is …………………………………………………………..
• One day……………………………………………………….
• So……………………………………………………………………