Using improv in the language classroom: What is improv?

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to incorporate improv games and activities into your language classroom.

Image source: https://outschool.com/classes/improv-for-beginners-zF5ESyMY

This is part I of a series of posts on using improv in the language classroom.

Did you know? Improv was invented in the 1930s when Viola Spolin, inspired by Neva Boyd’s play-based progressive educational philosophy, needed a way to engage children and immigrants in theatre. Improv, she found, was able to bridge gaps in language and culture. Despite these educationally based origins, almost a 100 years later, improv is not a major presence in most language classes.

I think that improv games and activities can be one of the most valuable tools in a teacher’s repertoire. The beauty of improv is that most activities take no time to prep, need no supplies, and involve a lot of laughter and joy. You can use improv to enhance the lesson plans you already use as a way to reinforce grammatical concepts or practice communicative strategies, or you can transition to an entirely improv-based curriculum. It’s your choice! I’m going to assume that most readers want to enhance their existing lessons, so will be basing most of my posts on simple games to add some fun to your day. However, I will eventually share some of the ways that I’ve successfully used improv as the basis for entire units.

What is improv? Improv, which is short for “improvised theater”, is when participants use language or movement in an unrehearsed manner. Improv falls into various categories: free scenes, role plays, scenarios, and games. Some improv is just playing around with language, such as playing the “What are you doing?” warm-up game.  Some improv, like asking students to present an original story that incorporates four idioms they’ve pulled from a hat, is meant to be presented and entertain others. Traditionally, improv means no preparation, but when working with language learners, I don’t always follow that rule. I discuss more about that in my post about free scenes. All in all, improv can mean a lot of things, but there are some things that I think are the most important:

Why is improv so powerful? Margaret Piccoli notes that:

  • Both language skills and creativity must be practiced often and with different degrees of difficulty, and that improv is a way to accomplish success in both areas.

  • The fundamentals of improv, such as ‘yes, and’, ‘no mistakes, only opportunities’, and ‘make everyone look good’, create collaborative and supportive environments for students to develop their L2.

  • Improv builds students’ confidence by letting them focus on the natural desire to play rather than on the possibility of embarrassment, as well as letting them focus on the process of using the L2 rather than the mechanics.

  • The “process-focused, not product-focused” nature of improv also allows students to explore an infinite number of possible scenarios, giving them the confidence to use the target language in situations not previously studied in the classroom, i.e., authentic language use.

  • The need for collaboration for improv to be successful not only creates an environment of positive feedback and an opportunity to celebrate peers’ achievements, but a chance for students from various backgrounds to work together on common ground.

  • Improv accesses multiple intelligences, allows students to explore themes that are relevant to their lives, and gives them a sense of control over their own learning.

Who ‘owns’ improv? Everybody! Although the seeds of improv can be seen in commedia dell’arte, vaudeville, and burlesque, it is Viola Spolin who is widely considered the founder of modern improv.  Viola would invent new games every time she came across a barrier in communication or understanding with the children and immigrants she was working with. She went on to found Second City Improv, and in 1986 wrote the ‘bible’ of improv in education: Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook. However, Viola Spolin, or more modern improv names such as Ryan Styles and Amy Poehler, are not seen as the authority on improv. Instead, improv games, like many folk ideas, vary from person to person in regard to how they are played, what name they go by, and the purpose for which they are used.

Citation needed? Due to the elastic nature of improv, while there have been many wonderful educational article and books published outlining how one can use improv in the classroom, it is very difficult to determine who has intellectual ownership of any of them, if such a thing is possible. Like many educational techniques, such as doing a jigsaw, reading aloud, or think-pair-share, it can be difficult to determine who originated these ideas. When sharing games on my blog, I try to attribute where I can, particularly if a certain permutation is new to me in an educational context and I can share in which book or article I found it. However, I have come across many of these games in my own experience as an improv performer, which began long before I became a teacher.

For more on improv, check out:



T.A.L.K. Strategy

Your language-teaching mission, should you choose to accept it, is to support your students as they engage in dynamic discussions in the target language.

TALK strategy.png

As teachers of communication, I think we can often forget that we need to teach how to communicate, not just how to use the target language. Participating in a group discussion in an active and respectful manner is a skill as much as correctly conjugating verbs. Those of us who became language teachers probably do a lot of the skills I discuss below innately, but some students, especially the younger ones, can really benefit from explicit teaching. 

So, several years ago, after realizing that I needed a strategy to get students to be better group communicators, I talked to the literacy coordinator of my district and together we came up with ‘TALK’ (which we thought was an original idea but is actually similar to a strategy with a different acronym that is found in Shrum & Glisan's Teacher's Handbook and is referenced in the ACTFL Keys to Planning for Learning book by Terrill & Clementi).

 I have had a lot of success with this strategy, and it only takes about three to five minutes out of class time but has improved the small group conversations my students have been having in my language classes (see how I adapted into French below) as well as my Social Studies classes!

The beauty is that this can work from elementary school all the way through to senior students and can be used for almost any cooperative task students are engaged in, though I primary used it for small discussion groups.

How it works:

I’ll let students know we’re going to ‘TALK’ today in class, and remind them of the four components:

T – tell an idea

A – ask a question (these can be content based questions or questions that involve someone who hasn’t told an idea yet, such as “what do you think about this Billy?”)

L – listen to others

K – knit ideas together (able to help the group solve a problem or make connections between what everyone has said)

I made big signs for my classroom (printed each page on 11x17 paper) so I could point to it and use it as a reminder.

RESOURCE: TALK classroom signs

talk table mat.png

I also made table mats that could be printed and laminated as TALK reminders. Another possible use would be to print them and have students put them in their notebooks.

RESOURCE: TALK table mat

 At the end of all the class activities and discussions I give them time to reflect.  The goal is to be “all talk” but sometimes a student can be an ‘alk’ (asked, listened, helped problem solve, but didn’t contribute new ideas), a ‘lat’ (listened, asked, told, didn’t problem solve), a ‘ta’, ‘kat’ – you get the idea.  It gives them concrete goals to work towards and a very quick way of reflecting on how they did that day. 

I also would occasionally ask students to reflect more concretely on their TALK skills and use an exit slip to see how they thought they were doing.

RESOURCE: TALK self-evaluation

In doing this activity I actually had one student say “I’m glad I worked with [classmate] because I’m a ‘tk’ and he’s an ‘al’ so together we can help each other be ‘all talk’ – I ask him what he’s thinking so he can add a ‘t’ and then I stop talking while he’s answering so I can be an ‘l’.”  While ideally, I’d like them to be sharing and listening for the sake of sharing and listening, if it’s about ‘winning’ the cooperation activity, why not!

How to use this in a non-ELL/English L1 classroom:

I love this strategy so much that I would encourage you to take the time to make an acronym in your target language. It could even be a fun activity to brainstorm ideas with your students and utilize their creativity in creating it. Please also consider sharing what you came up with in the comments!

For my French students I developed P.A.R.L.E (literally “talk” in French).

P – Posez une question (ask a question)

A – Aidez une autre (help another person)

R – Racontez des idées (tell some ideas)

L – Lisez-les ensemble (tie them [ideas] together)

E – Écoutez attentivement (listen carefully)

PARLE.png

You’ll notice there’s an extra letter than the English TALK, so I was able to add “Help another person” which is especially important in a language class when some people struggle to find the right word or get their ideas out the way they want to. We also discussed how helping someone else can mean NOT supplying the right word, but letting them engage in productive struggle by using their language strategies (like rephrasing, gesturing, finding a synonym, etc.)

RESOURCE: PARLE signs

I also developed a guided conversation tool for more advanced French students to use. It guides groups through using a variety of tenses but talking about the same subject (in the example, books) and also gives them a chance to practice PARLE! In my classroom I liked to keep a bucket of activities that were self-explanatory in case I was ever so sick that my note to the substitue could be one line: “please use any activities you want from the green bucket”. In said bucket were some games, improv prompts, and this guided conversation.

RESOURCE: Multi-tense guided conversation for French