Improv Games for the ESL Classroom

This past Saturday, I attended the CFTESOL mini-conference at my homebase, the Center for Multilingual Multicultural Studies. It was short, sweet, and satisfying. Not only was I able to see familiar faces from my graduate program who are also CFTESOL members, but I was also able to learn from some fantastic presenters, including one who I had never met in person but only before on Skype while she was living in China as an English Language Fellow!

As per request, I am including a brief overview of my presentation "Improv Games for the ESL Classroom" which demonstrated techniques I integrate in my classroom utilizing the philosophy and affective barrier-lowering benefits of improv comedy warm-ups.

Inspired by the 2009 article by Berk and Treiber "Whose
Classroom is it Anyway" I decided to create a presentation with the following:

• Pass the Clap
• An easy way to establish attentive listening, trust, and spontaneity
• Rules:
• Gather in a circle and pass the clap from person to person.
• Each person must face the other person and clap simultaneously.
• You must establish eye contact!
• Notes:
• The clap can be reversed.
• It can also be sped up.
• Name Game
• A way to learn names and establish trust and acceptance
• Everyone says their name and a gesture, and you pass it from person to person.
• Rules:
• Every student must come up with a gesture to go along with their name.
• As you go around the circle, a student says their name and gesture and all students repeat it chorally. 
• Finally, you pass the names from person to person.
• Zip Zap Zop
• An improv staple that establishes attentive listening and can incorporate classification vocabulary into a game
• Rules:
• One person says “zip”, next person says “zap”, last person says “zop”.
• You must establish eye contact!
• Notes:
• A variation can be creating a group of three different things which belong in a category.
• Ex: If the category were animals, one person may say cow, another says chicken, the last says pig.
• Patterns
• Another classification game that requires each student to choose and memorize vocabulary from a given category
• Rules:
• Students stand in a circle.
• The teacher picks a category under which students must choose a component of that category, e.g. “movies” and a student says Empire Strikes Back.
• To choose the order of the pattern, have each student raise their hand, then point to another student who will go next in the circle.
• Works similar to the Name Game in that you pass the movie to the next person
• Notes: 
• Can have multiple patterns moving through a circle at one time
• Can adapt to use any vocabulary you are currently studying
• "Yes, and..." Stories
• The most classic demonstration of the “Golden Rule” of acceptance combined with storytelling for the ESL classroom.
• Rules:
• Students stand in a circle and the story moves around it.
• The teacher provides a topic and begins the story.
• The next person must say “Yes, and…” and add another sentence to the story.
• Example: 
• The teacher says, “My fifth birthday was my most memorable childhood moment.”
• The student says, “Yes, and I had the most delicious birthday cake ever.”
• You must say “Yes, and…” No buts!
• Notes:
• Can be completed as a whole class, as a group, or in partners
• Can also use one word 
• Can also be used in writing

I have moved into improv scene work with some of my classes and hope to continue the presentations at SSTESOL this May.