Practice a Language Through Drama | Acting Tools to be Loved

In our previous article, we explored the essential activity that underpins our work: shared reading aloud. Today, we will explore why second-language speakers should practice a language through Drama.

About Drama for Language Learning

Drama for second language learning is relatively recent but is increasingly embraced by teachers and students alike. Teachers incorporate drama techniques into their lessons while students join theatre groups that stage plays for language immersion or participate in improvisation classes conducted in the target language.

However, Drama is an extensive field. Each person’s imagination pictures something different when thinking about it.

Some picture costumes and props, people dancing and singing, cabaret performances or a musical. Others may imagine clown noses, masks and puppets, street theatre, or people in sweat clothes moving around a room acting out like lions or goats. Others may visualize a woman in a flowing black long dress emoting on the stage, or a funny other woman sitting on a stool at a club making people laugh. Spotlights, glamour, and legendary movie moments may also come to mind. Even that quirky modern performance you attended last week that left you feeling so confused!! In Drama, almost any scenario you can imagine can be valid and true.

In such a diverse eclectic field, teachers integrating Drama into their second language lessons have a wide range of possibilities to explore. Their chosen exercises are likely to be determined by the specific goals they aim to achieve.

Do they wish to inject freshness and spontaneity into the lesson?

Is it rather about having some fun while simultaneously learning?

Or maybe the focus is on fostering teamwork and a shared sense of purpose.

Other objectives could be encouraging students to speak more or overcome shyness, language immersion, transcending traditional classroom environments, or increasing overall classroom participation; the reasons are endless.

Similarly, students who choose to enrol in Drama courses for second-language speakers may have a variety of motivations.

At Rilymi, we will concentrate on a few key aspects of Drama, leaving other areas to those who are already addressing them wonderfully

Written Script vs Improvisation

To clarify our objectives, we will begin by distinguishing between two forms of acting that differ in a few key aspects: Acting with a Written Play and Improvisation. Let’s break them down to understand their most fundamental differences:

• Acting with a Written script: The author crafts a sequence of moments, characters, dialogue, and plot, shaping the play with a clear beginning and end. The cast, director, and crew bring this vision to life, ensuring each performance feels as spontaneous and fresh as if it were happening for the first time, even when repeated.
• Improvisation: It starts with an empty space, undefined time, and open-ended characters, plots, and actions. From this emptiness, something captivating must emerge. Successful improvisation follows rules and requires mastery; otherwise, it leads to dull chaos Each performance is unique, a one-time occurrence that will never be repeated.

These two acting arts require different techniques and training and follow divergent paths.

From a cognitive perspective, both acting with a script and improvising engage what are called top-down and bottom-up brain processes:

• top-down processes involve using our existing knowledge to make sense of the outside world
•  bottom-up processes focus on decoding sensory input from the outside

However, the body-brain processes involved in working with a script and improvisation take divergent paths.

• In working with written text, the starting point is the input data that comes from the text. First, we should analyze and process the text. Next, we fill it in with meaning and intention across different levels. And last, we transform it into an output called performance
• The starting point in improvisation is emptiness. Participants may be given a sentence defining a theme, random words, or no prompt. With this limited information, they must generate and construct a coherent narrative. This requires being open enough to identify relevant sensory data- external cues- and discern how these can be woven into a sequence. Furthermore, the storyline must maintain a clear beginning, middle and end.

Essentially, they differ in what leads and what follows, as well as the timing of each.

When used to enhance fluency in a second language, these two forms of acting, while sharing the common goal of improving speech and offering remarkable benefits beyond that, focus on different stages of the learning process:

• In improvisation, we must be open to the outside world so we can communicate something, but to do so, we first must have enough material stored inside of us
• Working with a script limits this openness to the scene at hand and encourages us to focus our attention and be more specific

Fluency and Proficiency

We, second-language speakers, all share the same ultimate final goal: to improvise confidently in the second language.

Achieving mastery in improvisation can only come through repetition in action (at least, for the average individual). When someone is very good at improvising in a second language, we say they are fluent speakers.

Fluent speakers can effortlessly express themselves, say mostly correct things, comprehend others easily, and communicate across various situations and levels of complexity. It goes without saying that to become what we commonly understand as fluent speakers we must also have achieved a certain level of proficiency in the language.

Let’s briefly reflect on the differences between fluency and proficiency, drawing on an example from the book Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language:

Imagine the opera singer who is fluent while delivering her lines on the stage but is unable to call for a taxi once the performance ends. While she is on the stage, she is fluent. But her lack of proficiency prevents her from effectively communicating offstage.

Proficiency, in our analogy with acting, can be regarded as the ‘library of scripts’ along with the ‘library of knowledge of the language and culture’ we have stored in our brains. The fewer scripts and knowledge, the fewer situations we can handle seamlessly.

Proficiency and fluency are two sides of the same coin that ideally should develop together.  Regardless of the situation, understanding these stages can greatly assist us in identifying our current level, pinpointing areas for improvement, and determining the most effective pathways for advancement.

As second language learners, we should chart our course toward both proficiency and fluency, and we may require different tools to succeed.

Our route map and tools

Rilymi proposes that we enhance our fluency by broadening our internal ‘scripts library,’ which indirectly enriches our overall knowledge and fluency.

What about adult L2 speakers who already have a vast ‘scripts and knowledge library’? 

We mentioned that fluency requires repetition in action, and real life offers unlimited opportunities for such repetition. But, then, why do adult second-language speakers struggle to become fluent even when proficient? 

Apart from the obvious challenge of lacking conversation partners or opportunities for real-life conversations, some adults may find that even available real-life situations do not provide the right environment for improving their natural conversation in the second language, however contradictory that may seem.

Some people are not good at recalling words and expressions under pressure or don’t have a quick reaction time. Others may have a vast passive vocabulary but not enough active, or just not the specific one for particular areas. Furthermore, the prospect of engaging in real-life conversations can evoke distress and discouragement for some, as they feel overwhelmed by the rapid pace of interaction. Emotions and feelings play a significant role in these dynamics.

Working with drama scripts serves as a bridge for speakers to overcome all these obstacles and many more before diving into real-life improvisation.

Unlike in the performing arts, the goal of using written scenes to improve fluency should not be to memorize the lines verbatim. The scripts will serve us to foster resonance and association, facilitating the transfer of ‘chunks of speech’ from our passive vocabulary into our active usage. By connecting target words with emotions, actions, situations, characters, and more, we will ensure that they get fixed in our long-term memory.

In Rilymi, we will help you build a scaffolding of associations by using the techniques actors employ to work with their scenes, lines, and characters.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that enrolling in improv classes in the target language is another excellent method for enhancing fluency with acting techniques. However, at least for now, improvisation falls beyond the scope of Rilymi.

Conclusion: Using Drama for language learning provides holistic ways to improve several areas simultaneously. When selecting which tools to use, we must keep our goals in focus. Working with written scripts will help us enhance our fluency and proficiency and build a scaffolding of associations for long-term memory.

Tip: Is there a movie or play you love and can’t stop watching? Is there a character that inspires you? If yes, don’t wait any longer. Get the play or the movie with subtitles and read the lines aloud. Try to synchronize with the mood of the scene and the character’s energy. Does it feel different to hear you say these words in this new way?

Resources

Brown, Steven, et al. “The Neuroscience of Romeo and Juliet : An fMRI Study of Acting.” Royal Society Open Science, vol. 6, no. 3, 2019, p. 181908, doi:10.1098/rsos.181908.

Frazzetto, Giovanni. “Neuroscience: Powerful Acts.” Nature, vol. 482, no. 7386, 2012, pp. 466–467, doi:10.1038/482466a.

McDonald, Brennan, et al. “Could Acting Training Improve Social Cognition and Emotional Control?” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 14, 2020, doi:10.3389/fnhum.2020.00348.

Noice, Helga. “Elaborative Memory Strategies of Professional Actors.” Applied Cognitive Psychology, vol. 6, no. 5, 1992, pp. 417–427, doi:10.1002/acp.2350060506.

Noice, Helga, and Tony Noice. “Long-Term Retention of Theatrical Roles.” Memory (Hove, England), vol. 7, no. 3, 1999, pp. 357–382, doi:10.1080/096582199387977.

Noice, Helga, and Tony Noice. “The Effects of Segmentation on the Recall of Theatrical Material.” Poetics (Hague, Netherlands), vol. 22, no. 1–2, 1993, pp. 51–67, doi:10.1016/0304-422x(93)90020-h.

Roberts, Richard M., and Roger J. Kreuz. “Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language.” MIT Press, 2016.

Seth, Anil. “Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (the Sunday Times Bestseller).” Faber & Faber, 2021.

Schwenke, Diana, et al. “Improv to Improve: The Impact of Improvisational Theater on Creativity, Acceptance, and Psychological Well-Being.” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, vol. 16, no. 1, 2021, pp. 31–48, doi:10.1080/15401383.2020.1754987.

Walker, Matthew. “Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams.” Penguin Books, 2018.

Websites:

Main, Paul. “Top-Down Processing and Bottom-Up Processing.” Structural-learning.com, Structural Learning, 30 Nov. 2023, https://www.structural-learning.com/post/top-down-processing-and-bottom-up-processing.

Young, Emma. “Simply Imagining Other People Can Change Our Own Sense of Self.” BPS, The British Psychological Society, 20 Nov. 2019, https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/simply-imagining-other-people-can-change-our-own-sense-self.

Wikipedia contributors. “Bottom–up and Top–down Design.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 Jan. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bottom%E2%80%93up_and_top%E2%80%93down_design&oldid=1194789061.

Podcasts

Huberman, Andrew. “Dr. Wendy Suzuki: Boost Attention & Memory with Science-Based Tools.” Huberman Lab Podcast no. 73, 22 May 2022. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-wendy-suzuki-boost-attention-and-memory-with-science-based-tools

Huberman, Andrew. “Tools to Enhance Working Memory & Attention.” Huberman Lab, YouTube, 27 Mar. 2023, https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/tools-to-enhance-working-memory-attention