Recently I had the pleasure of watching my students take part in a skit (roleplay!). When I came up with the idea, I felt a little like a mad scientist. Getting my quiet and seemingly terrified academic students to conduct a mini play in English, seemed like an experiment destined to go terribly wrong…I can only imagine what I would come up with if asked to do the same thing in Japanese!
Yet, it was pure gold! The English scripts were surprisingly good, but more than that, the creativity that blew my mind. Conceptual thinking is not activly taught in schools in Japan, so often students can struggle when asked to develop something overly creative where there is no right or wrong answer. In the case of this skit, it was clear initially my students thought I was having a stroke when I explained it to them. Yet, give them a week and some free reign and you will have a boy pirrouetting around another that is breakdancing like a possessed diva! This scene was to explain what happens when you cook eggs…
Gold. Importantly, they enjoyed it! They really were genuinly smiling and having a good time, whilst learning English! Wins all round (although, I can’t help thinking I won more, as I didn’t have to do a skit but I got to see some possessed breakdancing…)