Activity

1. Everybody stands.
2. Look down at the floor.
3. When I say ‘now’, breathe in, and as you breathe in, raise your heads, and sigh out with an emotion added to the sigh—pleasure, exasperation, sadness, joy, relief, etc.
4. When I say ‘now’, breathe in again, and as you breathe in, raise your heads, but this time sigh out, saying a word.
5. Now I will listen to you individually, sighing out on a word.

6Go around the group listening to each learner individually, sighing out with a word.

7Ask one of the group to sigh out with a word and see whether someone else in the group can add their sigh in a conversation of sighs. See how long a conversation of sighs can be made.

Activity

1. Everybody stands up and spreads out in the room.
2. Each of you picks up a slip of paper from the envelope. On it, you will see a word which you probably don’t recognise.
3. This word is going to be a greeting!
4. Read it to yourself, “silently aloud”. You may not be sure of its pronunciation, but don’t worry. Just try to make it sound English! Once you are familiar with your word, put it back in the envelope, without showing it to anyone.
5. Now, with my first signal, start walking around as if you were walking in the street, going to catch the tram.
        The teacher makes the first signal.
6. When you hear my next signal, go to someone and greet them with your word: first “silently aloud”, then aloud. You can say it twice, but no more.
        The teacher makes a second signal.
7. On my signal, start walking again.
        The teacher makes the first signal again.
8. On my next signal, go to someone else. This time you are greeting a friend that you have not seen for a long time.
        The teacher makes the second signal again.
9. On my next signal, start walking again.
        The teacher makes the first signal.
10. On my next signal, go to someone else. This time you are greeting someone with whom you had a big argument the last time you met.
         The teacher makes the second signal.

9The teacher continues with the exercise, suggesting different contexts for the greeting.

Suggested text

12Michael. What’s in a name? Juliet said that if we called a rose by another name, it would still smell as sweet. But we all know how the story of Romeo and Juliet ended. Ah, don’t worry, you will not need to get your handkerchiefs out. You will not need to dry your tears. This story does not have a tragic ending. But sometimes I wonder if Michael had been given a name like Kelly, or Samantha, or Abigail, how things would have turned out. Did Michael’s name determine her character and how she would behave?

Activity

1. Divide the group into two: group 1 remains seated for the moment. Each person in group 2 is going to come into the ‘arena’ and take a position. A very clear position, carrying an intention. So even your facial expression and your look are important. Hold this position.
2. One by one, learners from group 1 now enter the space and, after having observed a member of group 2 very carefully, you take up their position. Be careful to incorporate all the physical details, including facial expression and positions of limbs—hands and feet, as well as arms and legs.
3. Group 1 people now leave the space. Each group 2’s person hold the position you have and, when you are ready, say something related to what you feel in that position. What I mean by that is that you say something that the person might say aloud in that position.
4. Now we will change over so that group 2 will enter the space one by one and take up a position, and then group 1 will go into the space, and each person will take up the same position as their partner.
5. Group 2 leave the space; each group 1’s person hold the position you have and, when you are ready, say something related to what you feel in that position.

Activity

1. Stand in a circle.
2. I am going to ask one of you to leave the circle and then to walk back into it in a particular way (slowly, defensively, with bravado, searching, etc.), walk around inside the circle for a while with your particular emotion.
3. While the person is walking in and around the circle, I want the rest of you to watch this person and try to think of a situation this person might be in and what they might say if they spoke.
4. After a while, you, the person walking in the circle, will go and stand next to someone. You, the person who has been standing next to them, will then say something aloud for all of us to hear, which you think the other person might say if they spoke. Do not look at the other person—it is as if you are the voice of this person.
5. You, the person who has spoken, will replace the person who has been walking in the circle. Walk with another emotion, showing up in your way of walking and the visual expression that you have.

15After a short time, the person walking in the circle goes and stands next to someone in the circle. The chosen person then says aloud a line of speech that they think the person who has been walking might say.

16The person who has spoken replaces the walking person in the circle. The sequence of events is repeated.

Activity

1. I would like a volunteer to come to the front of the class/into the space to ask one simple question.
        The teacher waits for a learner, learner A, to volunteer.
2. Good. Now the sentence I want you to say is this: ‘Where have you been?’ Could you repeat that, please?
        Learner A repeats the phrase.
3. Now you are going to say it again, but in the following situation: to a friend that you haven’t seen for a while. To give you a stimulus for saying this sentence, I would like a volunteer to walk into the speaking arena. The moment that person appears, you ask the question. Let’s have a volunteer.
        The teacher waits for a volunteer, learner B, to walk into the speaking arena. Student A speaks.
4. Thank you. I now want 2 other volunteers. We keep the same sentence: ‘Where have you been?’ Just say it, please, learner A.
5. Now, the next time you’ll say it, the context is: you are a parent of this teenager. He/she is coming home at 7 pm when he/she should have been back at 6 pm. Learner B, could you please be the teenager and walk into the speaking arena?

19Continue this exercise, with variations in the contexts and in the sentences.

Activity

1. Please, stand up everybody.
2. Say: ‘I saw her last week’.
3. Now close your eyes and see the colour yellow. Breathe in the colour yellow until you can visualise your whole body being yellow.
4. Say the sentence again, several times, and as the words come out of your mouth, imagine them coming out yellow: ‘I saw her last week.’
5. Now close your eyes again and see the colour red. Breathe in the colour red until you imagine your whole body becomes red inside.
6. Say the sentence this time, imagining the words coming out of your mouth in red: ‘I saw her last week.’
7. Now close your eyes again and see the colour blue. Breathe in the colour blue until you imagine your whole body becomes blue inside.
8. Say the sentence this time, imagining the words coming out of your mouth in blue: ‘I saw her last week.’
9. Did you feel any difference in the way you experienced saying the sentence?

Activity

1. Say the following sentence aloud: ‘The cat is sleeping on the sofa.’
2. Now close your eyes and think of the cat as a young cat, almost a kitten. You love this cat and you love to stroke it because of the feeling of relaxation it induces in you. And you love its young feline smell.
3. Give it a name. Say the cat’s name to yourself, silently aloud.
4. Now, keeping the image of the cat and the feelings you have for it in mind and body, say the sentence: ‘The cat is sleeping on the sofa.’
5. Note how you experience saying the sentence.
6. Now change the image. This time, think of the cat as an old, fur-dropping, incontinent cat that leaves traces of its passage wherever it goes. The cat smells. The cat belongs to your partner, and you certainly don’t love it. The sofa is a new purchase, and you love to stretch out on it in the evening, feeling the softness of its soft cotton tissue with which it is covered. Fix the image of this much-disliked cat on the much-liked sofa.
7. Feel in body and mind your disgust at the sight of the cat there, and repeat the sentence ‘The cat is sleeping on the sofa.’
8. Note how you experience saying the sentence.

Activity

1. Write the verb ‘to be’ in its conjugated form. First, write ‘I am’ and then leave two lines before writing ‘thou art.’ Yes, ‘thou art’, the ancient form of the second person singular of the verb, which you find in the plays of Shakespeare.
2. Now drop another two lines before writing ‘he is’ and then another two lines before writing ‘she is.’
3. Drop two lines and write ‘we are’ and two more lines before writing ‘you are.’
4. Finally, drop two more lines and write ‘they are.’
5. What you have in front of you is a verb poem. I gave you ‘thou art’ instead of ‘you are’ for you to say the word ‘thou’ with the ‘th’ sound.
6. I want you now to read this poem silently aloud. I want to see your mouths open and the words being articulated, although I will not be able to hear you. As you do this, play with the length and the intonation of the words.
7. Now I am going to ask you in turn to read this conjugation of the verb as a poem. Playing with the words will make it sound like a poem rather than a grammar exercise.

27The teacher invites learners to read the poem aloud.

Beware of Oral Grandiosity—Version 1

I was upset with him. So, I told him that he was a bletherskate. He replied by telling me that I was a fribble. That really upset me, because I know I’m not a fribble, nor a speaker of gibberish. I told him that he was talking tosh. That will keep him quiet, I thought. I was wrong.

‘Flummadiddle’, he said. Well, I could not let him get away with that, could I? I told him that he was jealous because I spoke with such stultiloquence. I like using long, unusual words.

‘Exactly’, he said.

That surprised me. He was admitting that I spoke with stultiloquence.

I had won. I asked him why he had changed his mind.

‘I haven’t changed it’, he replied. He paused and then, with a smile on his face, asked me if I knew what ‘stultiloquence’ meant.

‘Of course I do’, I said, ‘it means—’. I stopped. Oh no, I had confused my words. Again. I had meant to say

‘Magniloquence is the word I think you meant to say’, he said in that superior manner that he always uses.

He was right. Sometimes I do have a problem with words.

Beware of Oral Grandiosity—Version 2

I was upset with him.

⌛⌛⌛

I told him that he was a bletherskate.

⌛⌛⌛

He replied by calling me a fribble. That really upset me, because I know I’m not a fribble, nor a talker of gibberish, nor a bugaboo.

⌛⌛⌛

I told him that he was talking TOSH.

⌛⌛⌛

That will keep him quiet I thought.

⌛⌛⌛

I was wrong.

⌛⌛⌛

‘ FLUMMADIDDLE’, he said.

Well, I could not let him get away with that, ⌛⌛⌛

could I?

⌛⌛⌛

I told him that he was jealous because I spoke with stultiloquence. I like using long, unusual words.

‘Exactly’, he said.

⌛⌛⌛

That surprised me. He was admitting that I spoke with stultiloquence.

I had won.

⌛⌛⌛

I asked him why he had changed his mind.

⌛⌛⌛

‘I haven’t changed it’, he replied. He paused and then, with a smile on his face, asked me if I knew what ‘stultiloquence’ meant. ‘Of course I do’, I said, ‘it means—’. I stopped.

⌛⌛⌛

Oh no. I had confused my words. Again. I had meant to say—

‘Magniloquence is the word I think you meant to say’, he said in that superior manner that he always uses.

⌛⌛⌛

He was right. Sometimes, yes sometimes, I do have a problem with words.