A is for Acting

At the heart of any kind of drama is the need to be able to pretend well and convincingly:  pretending, playing and play-acting are essential apsects of a child's development but unfortunately as we get older, we tend to lose sight of the value and insight such activities can give us.  In the communicative language classroom, we often set up speaking activities (role plays, simulations, improvisations, information exchanges etc) in which students have to pretend to be a particular character in a given situation.  While it is essential we make clear to students that we are not training them to be actors, there is so much we can adapt and borrow from the actor's craft in order to make our drama/speaking activities more realistic, interesting, creative and meaningful.  Here, I'm especially referring to techniques in the actor's toolkit relating to Characterisation and Improvisation (see separate entries).