Alice Savage,Lone Star College, Houston, Texas, USA
Walton Burns, Alphabet Publishing Ltd., Branford, Connecticut, USA

Spoken communication in the real world involves trying to get things done with words. Pragmatics looks at how we choose words, grammar structures, and rhetorical strategies to achieve our goals. If we want to persuade someone to our point of view, how do we go about doing that? Do we threaten? Do we flatter? Do we appeal to logic? Or emotion? And how do we react if someone disagrees with us? This is done not just through word choice, but also through how we use our voice. Pragmatics thus also includes using prosody (our tone, intonation, rhythm, and volume) as well as body language and facial expressions. How we choose to say something can be as important as what we say.

We make all these choices taking into consideration the situation, the context, and our relationships with the people we are talking to. Native English speakers unconsciously (or sometimes consciously) modulate their grammar structures, word choices, and voices to send important signals about the way they want the listener to understand the message. The way we talk to our children at home is very different from the way we talk to our boss during a business meeting.

Pragmatics is thus an important key to effective communication. The way we say something is just as important as what we say: “What are you doing here?” can be an expression of pleasure or a sign of anger, depending on how it is said and the context. Or, consider how the situation changes the meaning of a simple phrase. If someone says, “I had a nice time tonight,” then answering, “I like you a lot,” means I care about you, I enjoy your company, I’d like to see you again. But if someone says, “I love you,” then the response “I like you a lot” could mean the end of the relationship. And in both situations, the speakers will no doubt be paying a great deal of attention to each other’s tone and body language!

Why Drama?

Drama is a natural resource for teaching and practicing pragmatics. First, a play is one of the few works of prose that is written but meant to be read aloud. A script also tends to feature high stakes and emotionally charged functional language, such as persuading, breaking bad news, arguing, or apologizing. Finally, the rehearsal process allows for reiteration, but with a purpose. When students are preparing to perform for an audience, the collaboration and ultimate goal scaffold intrinsic motivation.

Most plays are written in conversational spoken language. Playwrights mimic natural conversation of fluent English speakers in their scripts, both the actual language and the conversational moves. In fact, plays are essentially stories about characters trying to do things with words. Often, the tension of the play derives from the lead characters attempting and failing to use pragmatics correctly, either because they are bad communicators or they misevaluate the situation. Drama, then, is a powerful resource for drawing students’ awareness to the power of prosody and giving them material to practice that can be transferred to the real world.

The rehearsal process for a production, whether it is readers theater with script in hand or a fully staged production, gives students abundant opportunities to focus on the articulation of sounds and at the same time elocution, or speaking style. In other words, they can develop the personality of the character, and in doing so, experience pragmatics choices that they can use or reject in their own second language interactions.

A theater production also gives students an opportunity to try on a new identity. It is not them speaking; it’s their character. This distance can encourage them to take risks and not worry about mistakes. It also allows students to play with motivations and strategies. Because the situation is not real, students are more willing to experiment with ways to solve problems.

With all this in mind, here are some activities taken from The Drama Book (Savage, 2019) that demonstrate the benefits of drama in the classroom to teach prosody, pronunciation, and pragmatics.

1. Playing With Pragmatics Activity

Find a short scene or sketch with a clear pragmatics goal. This works best if the scene and characters are unknown to the students. Put students in pairs to answer the following questions:

• What do we know about the characters?
• What do we know about their relationship?
• What do the characters want? Who gets what they want?

The idea is to have students analyze the text for information about relationships and feelings when there may be more than one right answer.

Have each pair take turns sharing their answers and then reading the script based on those assumptions. This will lead to different readings of the same scene as students make choices about stress and intonation that are context rich. Then, they can practice communicating those feelings, and even show how a character’s feelings change over the course of a scene. This is very much worth doing as these prosodic features build trust and increase likeability (Winston & Stinson, 2016).

Draw attention to the way the different assumptions lead to different readings. Be sure to include concrete and specific details. If, for example, a group decides one character is being sarcastic and another group thinks the character is sincere, each performance will sound very different.

From here, you can have students rewrite the scene to more fully reflect their characterizations. They can also mine the scene for useful language and then brainstorm more language. You can also look at the strategies each character uses to get what they want and then brainstorm other strategies for a similar situation.

2. ZIP ZAP ZOP

This fun improvisational activity can be adapted to practice individual sounds and consonant clusters. First, have students stand in a circle. Have them repeat zip, zap, zop, paying attention to the different vowel sounds. Then say zip and gesture to someone across the circle. Tell that person to say zap and gesture to a third person, who says zop. That person gestures to a fourth, who starts again with zip. Have learners continue to move the sound quickly around the circle, gesturing to the next person and repeating the pattern.

Next, substitute a new sound. For example, you can change it tozik, zak, zok and repeat the activity. Repeat with additional patterns that you want to work on (for example, rik, rak, rok), and then increase the difficulty with consonant clusters, such as riks, raks, roks or spriks, spracks, sproks. As students practice, give them immediate corrective feedback and move on. It’s a great way to energize and connect students at the beginning of class, and they are likely to laugh.

3. Stuffed Squash

In this staged-out activity, students also practice consonant clusters but move on to stress and intonation with a lexical set. The following example uses vegetables as a theme for a full pronunciation sequence that starts with consonant clusters and ends with intonation.

Start by drilling the following words individually. Identify the stress, and then add a modifier that provides new information. Show how adding a modifier slightly changes the stress to emphasize new information.

• ToMAtoes / SLICED Tomatoes
• EGGplant / ROAsted eggplant
• squash / STUFFED squash
• SPInach / CREAMED spinach
• CARrots / COOKED carrots
• CELery / Celery STICKS
• Sprouts / BRUssel sprouts
• Corn/ GRILLED corn
• BrOccoli/ STEAMED broccoli

Next, break students into three groups and have each group stand together at the points of a triangle. Give each group one of the phrases from the drill that has sounds you want to work on. For example,stuffed squash, creamed spinach, and steamed broccoli all have consonant clusters with s. Tell each group to say their phrase together one group at a time to set the language.

Then, direct one group to answer your question with enthusiasm. Say, “What’s for dinner?” Everyone in that group should say their vegetable phrase, all together and with energy. Now ask the next group, “What’s for dinner?” and have them answer. Repeat with the third group. Use gestures to get each group to call out their phrase and build momentum and enthusiasm by pointing and encouraging them to outdo each other.

Do another round, but this time, direct the groups to respond with disgust, or practice additional emotions, such as surprise, or disappointment.

Elaboration

Have everyone stand in a circle for a chain drill. Start by saying, “Let’s have some celery sticks!” to the person on your right (Student A). Have Student A repeat the phrase with surprise, “Celery sticks?” Say, “Yes, celery sticks.”

Direct Student A to substitute another phrase, for example, “How about creamed onions?” Respond by saying, “Ask her/him,” and point to the student on Student A’s right. Direct A to turn to B and say, “Let’s have some creamed onions.” Then A and B repeat the pattern:

B: “Creamed onions?”

A: “Yes, creamed onions,”

B: “How about grilled corn?”

Continue with each student substituting a different vegetable phrase. Note how new information is stressed and the prosodic features (including nonverbal communication) are reiterated.

4. Intonation With an Attitude

Introduce the importance of tone with this simple activity. Choose a line from a script or a piece of natural conversation, one that is open to different emotional readings, such as “Where did he go?” or “He forgot his phone.” Make a list of emotion words appropriate to the level of your students. Have students work in groups, each student saying the line with a listed emotion. The rest of the group must guess the emotion. For example:

Extend it by having students discuss how the different emotions change the meaning. Groups can go on to write a short scene highlighting one of the emotions. When students work with a script, they should note the emotions of their character and let that guide how they say their lines.

Drama is a powerful tool for teaching language, as it represents spoken language, acting skills, a safety net, and engaging, creative fun. We hope you’ll try out these activities and dive in to find more.

References

Savage, A. (2019). The drama book. Alphabet.

Winston, J., & Stinson, M. (Eds.). (2016). Drama education and second language learning. Routledge.

Walton Burns is the senior editor at Alphabet Publishing. He began teaching English in the South Pacific and went on to teach Russian oil executives, middle-school children, and Kazakh scholarship recipients. He is an award-winning materials writer with books published by Pro-Lingua, Compass Publishing, and Oxford University Press.