The following are images of my ESL classes, I don't want to brag (I am) but you can see how much fun these students are having. For the younger groups I made puppets, and older students created their own dialogues. This was so very helpful to discover their problems in sentence structure. I'd let them write the sentences and then we'd correct them so the dialogues were perfect by the time they started practicing.
The theatre is the best possible tool to teach a language for any age group because in essence we are repeating the same thing over and over. While we focus on how we say something the language is learned rhythmically with the action.
A word or sentence can take on many different meanings depending on the way it's said. For example, how many ways can one say the word "really". How many meanings can it take on: Astonished - Actually - The real deal - Urgent - Are you sure - I don't believe you - It's a lie - Self-righteous - Surprised... What is important is the intention.
English is my second language and I remember how hard it was to learn from a book. Hopefully educators will find some ideas on this site that they will want to integrate into their class.
In the link Theatre Games you'll find many fun exercises.
In the Sample Lesson you'll find the Active - Passive method to keep the interest alive in the classroom.
ESL
