This section will gradually bring together ELT activities I have developed, adapted, and refined over many years of teaching English through drama. I will be adding them little by little and will try to post one new activity each month.
Most of them grew from ideas I encountered in many different places: acting classes, creative drama workshops, books, improv sessions, performances, and conversations with colleagues. I have adapted them for my own students, changed them to suit particular teaching contexts, and kept returning to those that worked well.
I would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, all the teachers, drama practitioners, colleagues, artists, and students whose ideas have inspired me. The list would be far too long to write in full, but I do not want to pretend that these activities are simply “mine” in isolation. Teaching is full of borrowing, reshaping, tweaking, and passing things on. An idea may come from someone else, grow in a new classroom, and become something slightly different through use.
To the best of my knowledge, I am sharing activities to which I have added something of my own - a new context, a language-learning purpose, a different structure etc. If you recognise an activity that feels familiar, I hope you will read it in this spirit. The same or similar ideas often appear in different classrooms, workshops, and corners of the world.
I am sharing these activities because they have helped my students speak, listen, imagine, move, cooperate, and enjoy learning English - and I hope they may be useful in your classroom too.
We are at a party. Students mingle and spontaneously form groups of three. One student introduces the other two students to each other, using their real names but inventing occupations and other details about them. The two students being introduced pretend they do not know each other. For example: “This is Jana. She is an opera singer from Australia. Jana, this is Petr. He is a...