Copy of Drama-Techniques-A-Resource-Book-of-Communication-Activities-for-Language-Teachers-Third-Edition-45

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Box 56
• Last Friday at about 8 pm, an old lady was coming out of the supermarket
when a young teenager snatched her handbag and ran off.
• Some time between midnight and 5 am on Sunday morning, a Jaguar car was
stolen from outside a house in Finchley, London. The owner, the distinguished
conductor, Sir Fred Bolti, was away in Liverpool for a concert but his wife was
at home.
• The 10-year-old son of footballer Billy Everton was kidnapped outside his
school at 3.30 pm yesterday afternoon. His kidnappers are demanding
payment of $2 million as ransom.
Notes
1 This activity is good preparation for dealing with the unpredictable in
drama situations. However well the pairs try to predict the questions they
will be asked, there will always be surprises. This will mean they will
always have to ‘think on their feet’, trying to give the answer they hope
their partner will give (or has given).
2 Students usually quickly realise that they need to ask questions about
things the ‘alibists’ will not have thought of, such as: What was the
weather like?, What clothes were you wearing?, Did you hear the clock
striking? etc.
10.4 Just a minute
Aim To practise the skills of interrupting (and dealing with interruptions)
Focus Expressions used to interrupt a speaker: Excuse me, Wait a minute,
What are you talking about?, What do you mean?, etc.; expressions
used to deal with interruptions: I’ll come to that in a minute, I’ll take
questions at the end, not now, Would you please wait a minute! Just
let me finish what I am saying first. Will you give me a chance to finish
what I’m saying! etc.
Level Intermediate and above
Time Up to one class hour
Preparation You will need two poems or shortish monologues roughly at the
students’ language level. Box 57 provides two examples.
Drama Techniques
210
Procedure
1 Conduct a whole-class session eliciting ways of interrupting and dealing
with interruptions. Depending on the level of the class, you may decide to
write some of these on the board.
2 Divide the class into two. Give Group A one text, and Group B the other.
Individually, students then prepare to read their text aloud. Allow ten
minutes for this.
3 Choose one student from Group A to read their text aloud to the class.
Tell the rest of the students that they should interrupt the reading with
questions, comments, objections, etc. The student reading must
somehow deal with these interruptions.
4 After five minutes, ask a student from Group B to read their text. Follow
the same procedure. Continue the process until several students have had
a turn.
5 Conduct another class feedback session. What additional expressions
were used? Write these up on the board. If students have access to English
language TV, ask them to check on what people do in interviews. How do
they interrupt each other and respond to interruptions?
Variation
Instead of a text, simply ask students to tell a personal anecdote or a well-
known folk story, e.g. Goldilocks and the Three Bears or Little Red Riding
Hood.
Notes
1 In larger classes, you may have to split the class into groups of eight,
giving four students one text and four the other. The activity then takes
place within each group with class feedback at the end.
2 Choosing the right moment to interrupt, deciding how to do it (politely
or rudely!) and what to say is a useful conversational skill. It is also useful
in drama work, where speed of response is often important.
See also 4.16 Listen to me!, Chapter 11, Improvisation and Rehearsal.
Working from/into scenarios and scripts
211
Box 57
Intermediate
To M.M
The first time
we met as strangers
We parted as friends.
The second time
we met as friends
We parted as lovers
The last time
we met as lovers
We parted as friends
We did not meet
again
We are now
not even friends
GERALD ENGLAND
Advanced
Life, you know, is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We are all of us looking for
the key. And, I wonder, how many of you here tonight have wasted years of your
lives looking behind the kitchen dressers of this life for that key. I know I have.
Others think they’ve found the key, don’t they? They roll back the lid of the sardine
tin of life, they reveal the sardines, the riches of life therein, and they get them
out, they enjoy them. But, you know, there’s always a little bit in the corner you
can’t get out. I wonder – I wonder, is there a little bit in the corner of your life? I
know there is in mine.
ALAN BENNETT Take a Pew
© Cambridge University Press 2005
Drama Techniques
212
10.5 Telephone conversations
Aim To promote anticipation in a partially improvised dialogue
Focus Vocabulary will depend on the choice of topic; asking and answering
questions; clarification
Level Lower-Intermediate and above
Time One class hour
Preparation You need to prepare a fragment of one half of a telephone
conversation only. You need enough copies for one between every two
students. Box 58 provides three examples: - - - indicates what the
other person says (which we cannot hear). 
Procedure
1 Explain that students will have only one half of a telephone conversation,
and that they have to work out what the other half might be. This
involves imaginative interpretation. Demonstrate how this might work
on a small fragment:
- - -
Next Monday? Yes, I suppose I can ask for a day off work for it. But
when did he die?
- - -
That was sudden, wasn’t it?
- - -
Oh, I hadn’t realised he’d been in hospital so long.
2 Students work in pairs. Distribute one copy of the half conversation to
each pair. Allow 15 minutes for them to work on it together. They have to
reconstitute the missing part. This should be written down.
3 Check on the ideas students have come up with in a whole-class session.
This will be the time to offer corrections or suggestions for
improvements.
4 Back in pairs, allow students ten minutes to improve their first drafts and
to practise performing their telephone conversations.
5 In a smallish class, each pair then performs its conversation. They do this
sitting back-to-back. In a larger class, each pair joins another pair and
they perform for each other in turn.
Follow-on
1 You may wish to spend part of a later lesson looking in detail at the
possible utterances which could fill each gap. This is a useful activity for
studying spoken discourse.
Working from/into scenarios and scripts
213
2 As a homework assignment, ask students to write a short telephone
conversation, then to write out a version with one speaker’s utterances
removed (as in the examples). In a later lesson, students can exchange their
gapped versions with a partner and try to supply the missing utterances.
Variation
You may prefer to work on a theatre script. Box 59 provides an example.
Box 58
Lower-Intermediate
- - -
Wow! That’s great! What was the score?
- - -
I don’t believe it!
- - -
I’m sure they did. Was there any trouble?
- - -
Thank goodness for that!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Intermediate
- - -
Did you? I didn’t realise you knew her.
- - -
In Mexico? But how?
- - -
Aztec temples? Don’t you mean Maya? The Aztecs are in Peru.
- - -
Yes. I get them mixed up sometimes too. So was she visiting them too?
- - -
But why did she need to borrow money from you?
- - -
Yes. I know you have to be careful. And she’s so rich too. Whoever took it must
have made off with a packet of money.
- - -
As much as that? Wow! So she invited you to the premiere performance in London?
- - -
I’ll bet it was.
- - -
Lucky you, meeting all those other celebrities too.
- - -
Drama Techniques
214