7 minute read
Can the Art of Improv Benefit English-Learner Students?
BY JOHN MCDONALD
Educational Leadership Program study by David Metz suggests improv’s play-based, spontaneous activities can reduce anxiety and increase engagement among newcomer English-language learner students.
Improv is a form of spontaneous performance where the story, characters and dialogue are made up on the spot and acted out as the story moves along. As the comedian Tina Fey describes it, “You just say yes and figure it out afterward.” Improv performer and coach Rob Schiffman says, “Improv teaches the importance of support through true listening.”
In his Educational Leadership Program dissertation brief, David Metz (Ed.D., ’21) explored the use of improvisational theater to engage newcomer English learners.
Metz’s research adds to what is known about the benefits of the use of improv in education, extending the research to include English-learner students. To Metz’s knowledge, it’s the first study to detail what happens when you do improv with newcomer English learners as a group. The brief highlights the benefits of using improv with English learners, making clear that it is effective in helping to reduce anxiety and encourage engagement. The brief also identifies effective aspects of improv and offers recommendations for practitioners.
All but one participant in the study reported feeling social anxiety when attempting language tasks, but the improv activities offered a point of entry to all levels of students. Participation in a variety of games and other improv activities helped to reduce their anxiety.
There are a lot of English learner students in Los Angeles schools, and Metz started working with them at the Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts. The school agreed to have him implement improv as an enrichment program with the students after school once or twice a week. He started playing theater games with the kids (and provided the ever-popular incentive of hot pizza) and the program evolved into a kind of English learner improv workshop. Eventually, the newcomers in the program would also engage in mask work activities with improvisation using Commedia dell’Arte-style masks, as a culmination, and put on a show for their parents and classmates.
Metz did that for five years. It was intense and exciting, and he had a sense it was helping students. However, he did not know how to measure it and he had a hard time justifying what he was doing to his ever-changing cadre of administrators. He knew he needed to do some research, so he applied to the UCLA Educational Leadership Program.
To conduct the study, Metz designed and taught a seven-week improv program, whereby he observed and interviewed eleven high school newcomer students enrolled in a sheltered English class. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the improv activities were adapted to a format that could be performed on Zoom, as distance learning protocols had been in place at the time of the study. All students were Latinx, and all but one used Spanish as his primary language (his first was Kʼicheʼ, a Mesoamerican language). The students participated in improv theater activities and recorded their engagement and anxiety levels in a journal. Ten of the eleven students also shared their thoughts in semi-structured exit interviews.
“It was just a chance to kind of listen to what these students were saying about their experiences with improv,” Metz says. “I wanted to know, ‘How does doing improv make you feel?’”
All but one participant in the study reported feeling social anxiety when attempting language tasks, but the improv activities offered a point of entry to all levels of students. Participation in a variety of games and other improv activities helped to reduce their anxiety. One student described the experience as “letting go” of his anxiety. The students pointed to specific ways that the games had an effect, including building group trust, engaging their bodies, and redirecting their minds, allowing them to transition from being spectators to participants.
“English learners or second-language learners are notoriously anxious. The kids were anxious about speaking English and being made fun of, especially the beginners,” Metz says. “In a way, improv kind of tricks you out of doing certain things, a sort of benevolent manipulator. It’s kind of like magic, a magician is redirecting you, or a good teacher redirecting your attention into something that’s going to take up all your bandwidth, so that you don’t have the energy to be worrying about what that guy over there is thinking about you.”
Metz’s research also highlights the effective aspects of improv, underscoring that it is enjoyable and accessible and that it offers opportunities for collaborative learning and numerous points of access to participation. The students also enjoyed and embraced the diversity of games in the improv exercises.
“Improv that kids do is just play; it’s play in its purest sense. And that is essential to meaningful learning,” Metz says.
Most importantly, Metz wants educators to try improv with their students. “There are plenty of resources out there to learn about improv. Go take an improv class and start letting improv build your students’ confidence and unleash their imaginations.”
How did improv reduce students’ anxiety?
Building group trust: The English learners in the study reported that the collaborative nature of the improv activities built feelings of trust and community with their peers.
Engaging bodies and redirecting minds: Students’ feedback indicates that the improv games helped prevent them from excessively monitoring themselves and their use of English because they had to commit fully to a physical activity.
From spectator to participant: Engagement gradually increased for some students as their anxiety lessened and their role shifted from spectator to participant.
Three best practices in implementing improv with ELs emerged from the research.
1. Include an array of difficulty levels. Including games that are sufficiently simple as well as more complex will help ensure that game play engages all levels of ELs. Over time, even the most reluctant students will progress from passive spectators to active participants.
2. Employ heterogeneous student grouping. As advanced students engage with complex vocabulary and grammar combinations, students who are less actively engaged may be overlooked. However, those in the silent period of language acquisition may comprehend bits and pieces of their classmates’ spontaneous linguistic contributions, and they should not be excluded from these classroom performances. Much like a room full of mousetraps, when one student “snaps” into a spontaneous state (Mann, 1970), it may inspire others with less skill or confidence to give it a try. This can create a cascading wave of participation over time.
3. Incorporate reflective journaling. EL students’ reflections in their primary language about their emotions (especially anxiety) and engagement during and after improv games offer a window into their minds and can help identify which students may be ready to “pop up” to a new level of language mastery.
