Drama with ESL

My journey to the world of ESL was a circuitous route that started when I began hosting international students. Back then, we called them foreign exchange students, but I guess the term “foreign” has become politically incorrect. Nonetheless, they came from “far away places with strange sounding names,” and the gypsy in me was intrigued: no – more than that – I was entranced.
My belief in the value of drama in the classroom, however, came directly via a non-stop do not pass go epiphany. But I get ahead of myself.
My very first exchange student was from Italy – Guiseppe, although he introduced himself as Joseph. He was shy and not at all what I’d expected. Nor was he much like the rest of his group who were flamboyant and outgoing. Years later, I had the pleasure of visiting him at his home in Turin – or Torino – where I was treated like long last family. He went with me to Rome where a friend of his, who introduced herself as a Roman, took us on the most amazing bicycle tour of the city where we saw all of the tourist sights and much that wasn’t in the guidebooks.
My very first female exchange student was from Japan – Kyoko. She was as fragile as a traditional Japanese doll, yet she was very high-spirited and fun to be around. I also had the pleasure of visiting with her in her home outside of Osaka. Her mother and a couple of sisters took me on a wonderful tour of the northern mountainous region of Honshu. There’s nothing quite like seeing a place with a native as your personal tour guide.
But it was another Japanese student who convinced me that drama was an effective teaching tools years before I knew anything about teaching. He was young, about 18, and his name was Hideaki. And he was terribly, terribly shy. By then I was volunteering in the classes, and I felt so bad for him. He never raised his hand. He almost seemed to cower in his seat always near the back. Even at home, he was reluctant to say much and hardly ever joined in any of our family activities even though my son, John, was almost the same age.
After a week or two on a hot July evening, I found myself not particularly excited about having to dress up three teen-agers and myself and go to the Halloween party the school was giving for the exchange students and their families. And I was getting impatient. My daughter and I were ready long before the two boys who were ensconced in the downstairs bathroom where – it turned out – John was busily transforming Hideaki into some kind of motor cycle tattooed gangster type. “Come on, you guys!” I said knocking on the door. And I had just turned away from the door when it flew open and someone jumped out with a karate kind of yell and landed in a grasshopper pose and darn near scared the daylights out of me. Brandishing a rubber knife he lunged at me and growled menacingly.
When we got to the party, Hideaki’s classmates did not recognize him – not because of the make-up job, but because he was in character. He was just not himself. When the music started, he was among the first to ask a girl to dance. Can one use the word vivacious for a boy? He was “ON.” And his classmates were stunned. No one could believe that this was the shy almost backward boy who’d been in class that very morning.
I was amazed. And the most amazing thing was that the change was permanent. The next morning at breakfast with the make-up off and the music only a memory, he was talkative and engaged. He spoke to everyone. He asked about making plans for the week-end. He was changed. And though I wouldn’t realized it for some time, I was changed, too.

For my colleagues:

Several years later, a former colleague of ours, Penny Bernal, and her friend, Lonny Hewitt, took four classic plays and rewrote them for the ESL student. And I ran into Penny this summer. It seems they’ve combined the four plays into one book Cool Classics and she graciously gave me a class set which I would like to share with you. They’ll be in the tutoring center later this week. And if you’d like any help getting started, just let me know.