Materials design and lesson planning: Plays This chapter, which examines the place of plays in the language classroom, begins by discussing the distinctive features of plays and how plays can be exploited in the classroom. Ways of using both play extracts and whole plays are examined. A section on using play extracts with learners at lower levels and a section on preparing students for a theatre visit are included. 7.1 What is distinctive about plays? Following the pattern of the previous two chapters, we will begin by discussing what is meant by a play and its similarities and differences to other literary genres. First let us examine the two quotations below. A. . . . drama is not made of words alone, but of sights and sounds, stillness and motion, noise and silence, relationships and responses. (J. L. Sryan, 1975,Drama, Stage and Audience.) B. However familiar or unfamiliar the world of a tragedy, comedy, farce or melodrama may be, everything that we experience has its source, in the long run, in words. (Gareth Lloyd Evans, 1977,The Language of Modern Drama.) Task 1 a) Think about a play that you know well, either in English or another language. If you have seen the play performed, what examples of ‘sights and sounds, stillness and motion, noise and silence’ do you remember from the play? What examples of ‘relationships and responses’ can you remember? If you have read it, were you able to recreate these in your imagination? b) How important were the words in the play? Could you imagine the play rewritten in another style? Would it still have the same effect? c) What do you think the relationship is between the text of a play and its performance? d) Think about a group of language learners that you are teaching or have taught in the past. Do the quotations above suggest any possible features of plays which could be exploited with your learners? What kinds of tasks and activities could be devised to make use of these features?
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Task 2 As you read the extract below you will see that some lines of the dialogue have been left out. These can be found underneath the dialogue. Decide where each one of the missing lines belong. When you have done this, look at the key at the back of the book - is your version of the dialogue the same, or different from, the original play?
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