“Show, don’t tell!”

Abstract

While the field of drama and theater continues to inspire many foreign language teachers, improvisational theater has not received more than passing attention as a resource providing interesting warm-ups and games to be used periodically in our classroom. This article makes a case for using the format of an improvisational theater workshop in beginning foreign language teaching. The example of a three-week experimental workshop in January 2006 suggests that improvisational theater and systematic work with its basic directive ‘Show, don’t tell!’ encourage students to communicate in a foreign language environment before they may feel prepared to do so in the target language itself. Physical engagement with a situation opens up communicative possibilities, and it eventually enables students to overcome cognitive and psychological barriers to successfully move towards greater linguistic proficiency and communicative freedom. While the field of drama and theater continues to inspire many foreign language teachers, improvisational theater has not received more than passing attention as a resource providing interesting warm-ups and games to be used periodically in our classroom. This article makes a case for using the format of an improvisational theater workshop in beginning foreign language teaching. The example of a three-week experimental workshop in January 2006 suggests that improvisational theater and systematic work with its basic directive ‘Show, don’t tell!’ encourage students to communicate in a foreign language environment before they may feel prepared to do so in the target language itself. Physical engagement with a situation opens up communicative possibilities, and it eventually enables students to overcome cognitive and psychological barriers to successfully move towards greater linguistic proficiency and communicative freedom.