Learning a play through gestures: A Dentist to the Rescue

Abstract

Incorporating sounds, stories, and theater into foreign language teaching fosters curiosity, motivation, and long-term learning. However, the task of memorising a theatre text can be intimidating. This chapter explores the use of codified gestures—gestures with a stable meaning—as a method to introduce movement into lessons and enhance the learning process. When teachers guide their students through texts using such gestures, the classroom environment becomes safer and more supportive, boosting students’ confidence in their foreign language abilities. Codified gestures not only improve memorisation and learning efficiency but can also serve as bridge between different languages in multilingual classrooms. This chapter provides insight into the didactics of multilingualism and makes well-founded, practical suggestions for promoting multilingualism in English lessons at the lower secondary level. The lesson plan in this chapter is based on a BBC story by Isabelle Rodd and includes both the script of a play as well as a film demonstrating the gestures needed to cue the spoken words. By Implementing the ideas presented in this chapter, educators can explore understanding multilingualism not only as a challenge, but above all as a valuable resource and opportunity.