Classroom Activity 3
Classroom Activity 3
The Incredible Shrinking Dialogue
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Level: Upper Intermediate and above
Time required: 60 minutes, depending on class size
Goals: To encourage students to analyze a text to find the most important ideas; to give students practice in paraphrasing, speaking, and performing
Materials: short dialogues with 4 or 5 lines for speakers A and B or cartoon strips with 6–10 panels
Background: This activity is based on the concept of improve comedy, which is dialogue and action that actors create spontaneously to make an audience laugh. The students do not need to know this, but they do need to know that this activity depends on a template—a set of steps the students perform—and that through these steps, they can make the audience laugh.
Procedures:
1. Put students into pairs. As each pair performs ,the activity, a student from another pair can act as timekeeper.
2. Tell the students what they will do in each round of this activity so that they can prepare for the full activity before performing in front of the class:
Round 1:
Read the dialogue while acting it out with gestures.
Round 2:
Shorten the dialogue and act it out in half the time. Paraphrase well\ to keep the main ideas, and use gestures to enhance the audience’s understanding.
Round 3:
Shorten the dialogue again and act it out in 5 seconds. Be sure to keep the main idea and use gestures.
Round 4:
Act out the dialogue in 1 second. You should use gestures, but you have time for each speaker to say only one word.
3. Hand out dialogues to each pair. Each pair must have a different dialogue. Student A will have several lines to speak, and Student B will have several lines to speak. The best dialogues to use include some action (gestures, facial expressions, and body movement) and some kind of conflict.
If you don’t have dialogues, or if you want to give students practice writing creatively, have them work in pairs to write their own dialogues or create their own cartoon strips. Students can then exchange those dialogues. The pair that receives the dialogue acts it out. You can promote the creation of new dialogues by asking students to use vocabulary they are currently studying. For example, if students are learning about holidays, have them write dialogues focused on those holidays. In this way, the activity provides vocabulary practice and review.
4. Each pair practices the dialogue together to prepare to present it in front of the class. Students should practice the dialogue enough times so that they feel comfortable reading it. Tell students to use action with their hands or body whenever possible and also to use facial expressions to show meaning. Students do not have to memorize the dialogue when they act it out and in fact should read the script exactly for Round 1.
Round 2.
The students must shorten the dialogue so that they can read it and act it out in half the time. Depending on students’ abilities, they should probably write
out the shortened dialogue and practice it, making sure it takes exactly half the time.
Round 3:
Students shorten the dialogue again, making sure they can perform it in 5 seconds. Finally, the pair should decide on the one word each student will say in Round 4.
5. Have the students perform their dialogues in front of the class. Before each pair performs, assign someone from another pair to act as timekeeper.
Round 1:
It should take the students about 30 seconds to 1 minute to act out the dialogue. When the students finish, the timekeeper should note how long Round 1 has taken.
Round 2:
The two students perform a shortened dialogue in half the time. If Round 1 took 1 minute, Round 2 should take 30 seconds; if Round 1 took 30 seconds, Round 2 should take 15 seconds. The students should shorten the dialogue but keep as much of the original meaning as possible. Because the pair planned out and practiced each round before performing, they should need only a few seconds at the end of Round 1 to prepare to perform Round 2. The timekeeper should yell out and stop the action when the time is up.
It is important that the pair keep the dialogue to the correct amount of time. It is not okay for students to do the dialogue in much less time or much more time than the round allows. Controlling the time in this way helps the class appreciate the humor of the activity.
Round 3:
The students perform the shortened dialogue in 5 seconds. The students must keep the meaning of the original dialogue while also making sure not to go over 5 seconds. The timekeeper should make sure that the dialogue does not go over 5 seconds.
Round 4:
The students perform the dialogue one final time, but this time in 1 second. There is usually enough time for Speaker A to say one word and Speaker B to say one word. What words correctly capture the meaning of the whole dialogue? The students must decide. The timekeeper usually doesn’t do anything for this step because the performers are in a hurry.
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4-Active Learning 3 .
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