 I am Ken Wilson. Thank you very much. That was a modest round of applause. I hope I'll get a bigger one at the end. My name is Ken Wilson. It's working, it's working. My talk is called, is improvisation good for students? Let's do something practical shall we? Can you please stand up? Great. Freaking needs. That was very good. You're very well. You're very good at standing up. I believe in telling students when they do something well. If you're not the best student in the class and you stand up when I say stand up, I'll say well done. It's a very well done. Ah, those people will be right. It's like an underground station. Okay, now this is a serious. All my activities are quite serious. They sometimes come out as funny. So at the end I'll try and tell you what the serious point is. But the first thing now is can you please choose an age between 14 and 18? For the next five minutes you're going to be a teenager. So choose a new age for yourself. How old are you? 17. 18. 18. Okay, how old are you? 14. 14. Well, you're in the class of the big girls, so that's good. Okay, now can you please choose a new nationality for yourself? Okay. Choose a different nationality from your own nationality. Have you all done that? Now I'm very short-sighted and really deaf. So I have to have a bit of a loud response to my answer question. Have you all done that? Yes. Now can you choose a name to go with your new nationality? It doesn't have to be common from that nationality. It can be an unusual name. You can be planned from Japan. It's not a problem, okay? So when I come around you can tell me my name is ... I come from ... and I'm years old. Okay? So let's find out who you all are. Who are you? Excellent. Who are you? Are you really 13? You're in the wrong class. Really, I'm not. Are you standing so typically German then? Very well. I'm British. And you're really not Italian. That was very good. I mean you don't have to ... This is amazing. You're all put on great accents as well. It's very, very impressive. Okay, now that's great. Now what I didn't tell you is that also, you are the best in your country at a particular sport. So can you please choose the sport? You do not have to demonstrate the sport. I promise. Now there's a serious point now. You must trust me in these things. But I want you to choose a sport that you're very good at. So now you can say, my name is ... I come from ... I'm very good at aiming. So have you chosen your sport? Yes. Have you chosen your sport? Yes. Okay, let's find out. I'm Kazimir. I'm 14 years old. I come from France. And I'm very good at skiing. Skiing. Excellent. Skiing in the Olympics. I should have said Olympic sport. Skiing is fine. Skiing is fine. Winter Olympics is fine. Excellent. Okay. What about you, sir? Pardon? Is he acting now? I'm from France. I'm 18 years old. And I'm good at judo. Excellent. Thank you very much, guys. Okay. Now the next week you have to help me with, because this is a bit where you have to provide the details. You have all been invited to a conference for gifted athletes somewhere hot and sunny. Now if I was doing this with a class in, say, Greece, I'd say, away from Greece. And if you're taught in Greece, you'll never say, why? What's wrong with Greece? Why not away from Greece? You know, some students get very annoyed if you say, I say, Greece is wonderful, but we're going away just for this activity. Okay, but we're coming back after. You can see more here. So away from the UK, which isn't difficult if you're looking for somewhere hot and sunny. So somewhere hot and sunny, where is it taking place? I have no idea. Somebody tell me. Thank you. Are you British? No. I'm from Spain. No, really. That's it. Okay. I'm married to an American. Americans are very good at this kind of stuff, because they know that there's a kind of element in teaching, where the teacher throws out a chance to say something. Most students in the situation, and frankly, some of you look as if you were waiting to find out what my right answer was. There's no right answer in this. I can't continue unless you give me the details, because I don't know. He was very American. He went straight in there, and that's fantastic. And he said, Egypt. Thank you. Now, because you're the best kid in the class, and you're really good at this kind of stuff, but I have to tell you, shut up now. Because we've known each other for a while now, you really might pass a while. You know that you can't keep shouting out the answers. I'm so sorry, because I love your answers. Is that enough obsequiousness? So we know it's in Egypt. But where in Egypt? Where is it? I have no idea. Cairo. Cairo, thank you. It's taking place in Cairo, Egypt. Remember, it's for you. I'm going to ask you to feel. How does it feel to be the best in your country at your school? Just feel it. You wake up in the morning knowing that you are the best here at your age in your country. How does that feel? It's good, isn't it? Well, it's very motivating, very focused. And you're not arrogant people. You don't walk down the street saying, did you know I'm the best here in my country? You don't do that. You feel it's inside. I want you to feel it for the next few minutes. You are the best in your country at your school. Cairo, Egypt. When is this conference taking place? Which month of the year? I don't know. April. April. You're not here in April. Thank you very much. That's your last answer. I'm awfully sorry. You're very good in this class. I love you, but you don't remember us. April. And how long is it going to take? Do you really have to sit down? Are you not feeling very well? Okay. Do you want to go in another room then? Are you going to swine for the wrong thing? Right. So it's, sorry, which was the month? April. April. How long is it going to take place for? Three days. Is that all? All right. Three days. Now I heard three days first. Some of you are coming from miles away. For three days I heard three days first. I accept what I heard first. And what's the start date? What's the date? It starts. 14th of April. Mine dad's birthday. You've been 109 this year. Right. Okay. Eighth, 14th. That stuff. All right. So can you just remind me because my memory is so useless. Where is this conference taking place? And when is it starting? 14th of April. And how is it going to last? Three days. You're going to regret that three days. That's really short. Right. Okay. So you're all flying in for me. Can you introduce yourself to five or six people with hello, my name is, and I'm very good at this. Okay. Just do that part. Okay. It's slightly bigger than the normal class. Sorry about whistling, but you're doing a wonderful job. And I hate to stop you. But this evening is the first day of this course. And my memory is so bad. What's the date again? 14th of April. 14th of April. And we're in Cairo. 14th of April. That's quite warm in Cairo. So you've got your free at six o'clock. So in your new group of friends, can you make a plan to do something this evening? Let's meet at this time and do this. And remember you're under 18, so no drinking, no bars. Sorry. I've got your parents to think about. So you can't include drinking and bars, but make a plan to do something this evening with the people around you. Okay. Let's do this tonight. Okay. Now, but one person in each group, one person in each group is going to be late. 30 minutes late. Can you please decide which person in your group is going to be late? It's not a bad thing to be late. Which person? Okay. Well done for being honest. The late people, you're going to arrive at high speed, but please don't run around the room. That's dangerous. So just run on the spot. Okay. And then you go to apologize. Now, we have so many native speakers here, but you all know that in English we have a particular collocation for the verb apologize. We always apologize a lot. What's the word we use? Apologize. Apologize something late. Refusely. Thank you. In British English, in Australian English, in New Zealand English, in South African English, in Singaporean English, but not in American English, we say apologize profusely, but it's a collocation we never teach. Sorry, you'll see it on there. You'll see it on there. Okay. So the late people, I'm going to count to three, and then you must run on the spot for five seconds, and then you must apologize profusely. Three, two, one. Start running. Five, four, three, two, one. Apologize. That is the last day of this conference. Therefore, what date is it? What's the date? 16th May. No, you're right. No, it's three days, 14, 15, 16. It's a ridiculously short time to spend there. Okay. And it's the last day of this 14 excellence conference because somebody over there said three days. You can use that a minute. Right. So you're at the airport in Cairin. Now, this is an important point coming up. You're at the airport. So you're at the airport in Cairin. Now, this is an important point coming up. You're at the airport in Cairin, the international airport in Cairin. What is the name of the international airport in Cairin? You assume this girl, I don't know, right? I don't care the real names of the international airport in Cairin, but I want you to invent a name of the international airport in Cairin. What is the name of the international airport in Cairin? Fantastic answer. Cairo International Airport. Sometimes people come up for something else. You are at... So remember, you've got these wonderful new friends. You may never meet them again. This could be goodbye forever. So say goodbye for the last time to your friends. Conference for sporting actions. Thank you. Another conference for sporting actions in another hot and sunny place somewhere else in the world. Where is next year's conference? Costa Rica. Costa Rica. Costa Rica. Where in Costa Rica is it going to take place? Costa Rica. Anything else? San José. San José de Costa Rica. So next year's conference takes place in San José de Costa Rica. What month of the year does it take place? May. May. Thank you very much for your answer to that question. Thank you. You see the problem here. Once your students like doing this, the same one starts, and it's very difficult to say, shut up if you're very good. But you have to find a way to say, that's brilliant. Thank you, but one answer is easy. But thank you, two answers is fine. I forgot the answer. In May. How long is this one going to last? A month. A waste of time to go to Costa Rica for three days. Can you imagine? Costa Rica sounds fabulous. So it's a month, and it's in May. What's the start date? The third of May. Would you like to go to Costa Rica next year? Yes. You don't sound very excited. Yes. You still don't sound very excited. Yes. So what do you have to do? Go home and write to the government. When I do this in somewhere like Poland, they go, ha ha ha ha ha. Well let's imagine in a different world, you go home, you say to the government, dear government, there's a fantastic conference next year in Costa Rica. I'd like to go, yours Olga or whatever. And the government writes back and says, 10,000 euros going into it. It's another world, okay? We can have another world in the consulate. So you apply for the grant, you get the grant, but you don't tell your friends from, what was the first one? Egypt, Cairo. You don't want them to be envious, but you all get the grant. So the next time you meet, is that the conference sends you in San Juan, San Jose, San Jose. Imagine not seeing the video. What a surprise. Say hello to your old friends from Cairo. We have a multinational group here, and you're doing a drama day, so it's a bit different. We're really in an ordinary classroom with a monolingual group of students. I know many of you work in the university. My special interest is working with monolingual groups of students and how they would deal with things like this. And it's really good, it's really fantastic. So let's see what we just did there. These are the first, you can tell me notes if you want, or you can email me, my email address is at the end, and you can get this as a Word document. I don't get handouts anymore, because I'm trying to be green as well. Vegetarian food, no handouts. It's a greener world this year, okay? So you can make notes if you want. We can also, if you want, get this as a Word document from me later. Look at the things that you did, and that you did. Students chose the name, Nationality and Sporting in Luzzi. The location, the duration of the sporting exit. You see, I first saw an activity like this from an American teacher. She was a very good teacher, a wonderful teacher working in Spain, and I remember it in a class, a piece of paper that said, you are older, you come from Russia, you go to volleyball, or something like that. But why, you know, and my key word today is improvisation. You improvise those things. Well, that's what I provide. Yes, it is for a student working in that foreign language, the name, the nationality, the sport, that's what I call improvisation. It's creative, it's imaginative, and it's safe, it's manageable. For me, that's the key to any activity for it to work at any level. It's better and easier at higher levels, even at higher levels some students feel at sea, because they haven't got a clear idea of what they're supposed to do. So that's what you did. There's the word profusely. Someone is 30 minutes late and apologises profusely. You say goodbye at the airport, decide on the location, next year's conference, next year's conference is taking place where? I've forgotten already. Costa Rica, gracias, mucho gracias. But at that, at this bit of Iula. Right. And right to the government beef on you. And then if you want some people to say, well, what do you do next? Frankly, I don't care what you do next. For me, in a classroom when most of the time you spend looking in a book to do this for five minutes, sit down, open your book again, get on with it. I don't care if that's what you do. See what I mean? You don't have to have a follow-up to all these. But people say, what's the follow-up? Okay, the follow-up is you write what happened for homework. Easy. And it's a very interesting set of homework if you get back, I can tell you. I met these people from all these different countries and it was great and we did this and we did that. The funny thing for me is walking around, adults like you, listening to the apologists for being late. I walked past one just last week in Paris and this one said, I couldn't find a babysitter. I said, you're 14 years old. Oh, yes, sorry. It seems to think of myself as a parent. But that was quite funny. Okay, let's do something else. Can you please take out a piece of paper, a piece of A4 paper? You've got some in your file so there's no excuses. And just write this on it. I want to, I want to, I want to divide your piece of paper into three sections like this and you'll see what I've written here. Divide your piece of paper into three sections like this and you all have paper in your green file. Well, I had anyway, I did, I had, I did. I had paper, did I? I can't, I can't. Have you done that, okay? Have you all done this? At the back as well? I'm coming to the back to check. Right. Now, can you please complete these three sentences with three desires? I want to do something three times, okay? It can be now, it can be in your life, it can be tomorrow, it doesn't matter what. There's three desires on your piece of paper. Can you write it in a line? Because you need the space underneath, you need the space. So leave it with the space, okay? Just write it in a sentence like that. Leave the rest of it with the space. Now, I should tell you, I organised this workshop with the room that I had last year in my detech, so last year when we did this in June, July, we had a room in the other building which you could move around. So, of course, you can't move around too easy, but this is a main club, okay? Have you all written your three desires? I'm not going to look at them, I promise. I don't mind if you make spelling mistakes. I hope you haven't done anything rude because with my students, I always try and say, look, I'm giving you the opportunity to be creative and to be rude as well, okay? So I might just walk around and glance at the usual suspects who write something a bit provocative, right? I hope you've not written anything rude or sexually-oriented if you haven't. I don't think I can do about it, okay? Now, the thing is, this is a main club, but even though we can all please stand up again, I don't want to stand up. I wouldn't ask you if both of these activities are on the same day. Now, you now have three desires, okay? Talk to the nearest, listen to the instructions first, talk to the nearest person to you and say, I want to, and then give your desire. The person will reply to you, I'm afraid you can't. Whatever the desire is, I'm afraid you can't. This activity is called, I'm afraid you can't. I didn't, and you must tell them, when you're doing this, don't tell your students that at the beginning because it will direct what they're going to write down, okay? So you say to the first person, I want to, and they say I'm afraid you can't, and I say, why not? And they must give you a reason. Then go to somebody else and go to your second one, and they'll give you a, and they say, I'm afraid you can't. Ask why not? And also, of course, after you've given your desire, you listen to the person's desire back, and you say, I'm afraid you can't with them. Is that clear? So, and they write down, nobody's allowed to do anything, right? It's always I'm afraid you can't. And then, hold on, hold on, so then you've got three. If you want to need class with just one, so when you spoke to three people, you've got a reason why they say you can't do it. You then speak to a fourth person, I want you to speak to everybody in the class, in fact, eventually, as you can imagine. You go back to the first one, and you say the same one again. You don't let them see what the original blocking was, and you say, I'm afraid you can't, why not? If they give you the same reason and say, sorry, I'm not accepting that, I've already got that. So you see, they have to find another reason why you can't do it. Is that clear? So start, see how it goes. Talk to at least four people. Nationalists here, but most of you are pretty fluent speakers of English. Try and imagine doing that with an elementary class. Again, with the very, very limited things that an elementary class can say. It's a very good improvised activity because they focus on the things they can say, and when you say, ah, somebody said that already, that's a real, real difficulty at that age. It's a very good challenge for an elementary class. So let's see what we just did there if my machine's working okay. Ah, I didn't do this first, sorry. I wanted us to think of a real classroom. I beg your pardon. Do you know this cartoonist? What are his name is? Gary Larson, well done. Let me know what the boy in blue is saying. Well done! Wow! Fantastic! I feel now. I feel so good. You know, I've seen... The reason I did that is fantastic, I'm going to remember that cartoon. I'll tell you in a minute. I've seen people, teachers ask students things and they give them an answer, which is amazingly creative and something from there, and the team goes, hmm, I want to play. If somebody doesn't agree with you, they deserve to be given a big, big congratulation. I'll always never forget my German teacher, and he said, he is then for a Hollywood film, Enstaxion Zeinsucht. Are you speaking up, Jeremy? Do you know what film that is? Enstaxion Zeinsucht. And I thought Zeinsucht is like longing or something. Enstaxion, that's kind of terminus. And I have fortunately seen the movie, which, do you know what it is? No, you don't know this. Marlon Brando is in the movie. It's Streetcar N10. Yes! Well, no, Streetcar N10. Is it Streetcar N10's art? My German teacher, who was a rather quiet man, he went, well done! We should enjoy German forever after that. Well done. In fact, he's saying, Mr Osborn, may I be excused, my brain is full. He's actually really, really crucial piece of information about the general classroom experience. Not just in learning English, but in learning most objects. So much time is spent listening to the teacher. The teacher said, okay, I've finished talking, now open your books and start reading for the next 11 minutes. And it's all this stuff going, pouring in. And sometimes your brain is full. And that's why you need to do things like this. Now, I didn't ask this after the first activity. There will be some people in this room who felt uncomfortable about doing that supporting excellence activity. That's unfortunate. If you're in the teaching profession and you didn't like doing that, that's pretty unfortunate. But many, many students don't like that kind of stuff. I'd say many. There may be 10%, 15%, 20% maximum of your students. They don't actually like the interacting stuff. But actually, that's not very good for their learning if they don't. So it's really nice to encourage the ones to go, I don't like prayer work. Okay, I'll talk to you. To encourage prayer work. Get some of those students out of that awful place they are where they're not communicating with anybody else. And the English classroom is a very good place for it. So these activities are for this kind of moment when you think Jesus has been talking for an awful long time. Let's do something a bit different. Get them on their feet, walk them around. That kind of thing. But this is what we just did. And remember, if you do this, don't say this activity is called I'm afraid you can't when you start. That gives a look. No, really. These things are really important to get in the right order. Don't tell them what it's about until later. Because you must write down the three things first. I want to. If you don't want to write down one thing because you think that's enough time, that's okay. It's a good mingler. It's an organized, limited mingler. Express one desire at a time to the students you meet. Block the desires you hear by saying I'm afraid you can't. Make a note of the block reasons and refuse to accept the same one twice. Collate for homework. Again, you just write down the things that you ask and the things that people said back to you. If you can do reported speech as they say, I asked the class I said I wanted to do this and she said I couldn't because that's quite complicated. I want to go to the toilet she said I'm afraid you can't the toilet is closed, whatever. It's as simple as that and it worked. Good. Now, as I say I did the thing at the other branch 18 months ago when there were seats around I was very much looking forward to doing my next activity which is called doctors and nurses not the sort of doctor and nurse you play when you're a child. This is a story which I'm going to show you in a minute on the board. It's got a lot of words repeated and what I do is I put people in six groups and I give them these words one is as patients or patients nurse or nurses, doctor or doctors said, sorry and hospital, thank you. The classes in six groups they have a word each and I say don't worry about the story but when you hear your word stand up and sit down very quickly and it sounds ridiculous and it's the most wonderful activity on the planet because I say at the hospital the hospital people stand up near where I live and I'll show you the story because in fact the improvisation that's my improvisation standing up and sitting down is my improvisation the reason why I'm not doing it here because I walked into here and I thought this reminds me of noble CPS a bit happened you've been to noble CPS you're Russian but even so you've still been to noble CPS it's a long way for four hours flight from Moscow so it's a long way to go noble CPS is an amazing city it's made in Central University then another university out of town which was built in the Soviet days for scientific excellence it's full of very brainy people and I hear the talk there and all these very brainy looking teachers nurses and I said at the hospital near and all the hospital people stand up and then disappear because that's history and he's real struggling I said shall we do something else anyway so I'll show you the story again you can get this as as an email attachment but this is what the story says basically at the hospital near the improvisation which is coming later all the doctors are women nurses are men when new patients arrive at the hospital they always call the doctors nurses this is surprising all the doctors are actually women that's the key line here you see but when you're doing it when you're standing up and sitting down you're not listening to the story at all so this is later which makes the doctors feel quite annoyed and they also call the nurses doctors which makes the nurses feel quite pleased one day at the hospital a patient a man approached the doctor listen say the doctor I'm a doctor and the man over there that you think he's a doctor is actually a student nurse can you imagine the doctor and the nurses during the I said the doctor the man over there you think he's a doctor he's actually a student nurse great fantastic point and very rarely are there broken bones it's okay oh sorry that's the first example of sorry so the sorry people always go through the roof with excitement said the patient that doctor sorry that nurse said that you were a nurse well I'm not said the doctor I'm a doctor not a nurse but once again sorry about that said the patient by the way what's your name nurse said the doctor where's the problem where's the problem the name now this is the important part course material is full of stuff like this narrative stories written by coursebook writers like me at two o'clock in the morning we've seen like a good idea and the editor read it at two o'clock in the morning and she thought it was a good idea as well eventually you got published you go oh Jesus that's a good idea anyway so but you find your course material full of okay-ish narrative not authentic material and even if it was I'd still do this so I say to the students close your books now okay this is up at the hospital near my head where is the hospital so they all look that's no closure books the answer is not in your book the answer is in your mind I said no come on imagine it was written and I did this with a bunch of Hungarian 16 year anybody here from Hungary before I say something wonderful about that Hungary is the brainiest country on the planet 10 million people they've had 22 Nobel Prize winners they've had 50 Nobel Prize winners if the other scientists have chosen to written their findings in English not in Hungarian there's no going to be Hungarian maybe you understand a bit of Hungarian we'll say Finnish people understand Hungarian but that's what Hungarian is anyway so but it's very difficult getting Hungarians to do something they don't want to do so I faced with this bunch of 16 year olds I said where is the hospital and if you know Hungarian languages it starts very high it's like start, sign, finish, load in English and in Hungarian how long my name is John O'Shaith so I said to this class where is the hospital so they all looked down it wasn't a course book it was a piece of paper I said the answer is not on the piece of paper where is the hospital I said near where I live I said near where you live no near where you live I knew where it is he said I don't know where it is I said no I don't know where it is and he said plastic line if you don't know how can I know I said look the whole point is none of us know it doesn't say there so we have to decide for ourselves okay and I don't know where it is promise so I don't believe you that's why most of the time you've got an idea and you're going to use the N word they're going to say Boston and you're going to say no there's no room for the N word you can't compare in teaching teaching any subject you should never say no go back to my lovely German teacher if you did something fantastic well done fantastic well done fantastic if you made a mistake you say well done try again it was nice you always said fantastic and I've never ever forgotten that and the word no is a terrible word to use but in this situation Y cwylwyr yw. Mwysleidd yn y cwylwyr yng nghymru enghreifft. Fe yw ysgol yw ymdweithio? Fe yw ymdweithio? Fe yw ddweudio. Ddeli. Ddeli? Ddeli yn Indiad. Mae'r cwylwyr yw Ddeli yn Indiad. Ac mae'n gwylwyr yw'r cwylwyr. Mae'n ddeli o'r gwylltig. 100 ysgol. 100 ysgol? Felly yw ddweudio? 200 bydds. 10th floor was 200 beds. How many bedstatt floors there? 20 beds per floor. How many doctors in the hospital? 23. 23 only three. I heard 20 but she's already answered three doctors. How many nurses? None at all. None at all. This is a great story and it's a great story you would never see in a book you see. There's a hospital in Delhi, it was built in 1909. 10th floors with three doctors and no nurses. Byddwch, mae'n cael ei chweithio. Mae'n gweithio sydd wedi'u ei chweithio, mae'n rhaid o'ch gweithio gyda'r hwnnw, mae'n cael ei chweithio sydd wedi'u gweithio, mae'n cael ei chweithio, ac yn ymlaen, mae'n cael ei ddim yn suwedd ddim yn ni? Robert, ddwych. Dwi'n fyddech chi'n mynd i dweud? Dwi'n ddim yn ei ddim yn ei ddim yn ei dweud, ac mae'n ddim yn ei ddim yn ei ddweud. Mae'n ddweud pan rwybab, dwi'n nhw fyddwch. Rydych chi'n gweld y pwynt? Rydych yn ôl i fi ar gyfer ffyrdd a mynd i'r fawr, yn y syniad hynny? Mae'r ddyn nhw os yw'r ddau sydd yn ychwanel itf wedi... First Life Adelwch! Rheut, roedd y ffrwaith! Yr holl bobl yn anodd? Rheut. Adon. Rheut? Rheut. Rheut. Rheut! Rheut. Rheut. Rheut! Roed digan! Rheut! Rheut! Ac here I am as the figure. I have done this with so many groups like 16 year olds or 14 year olds. And say he is really really old. Look at the old starrys. He is really old, how old is he? And this is like how he said 30? I said he is really old. 30, too. Because if you are 16 there is a little experiment here. And like you all, you don't have to tell me how old you are. Diolch yn ychwanegwch! Diolch yn ychwanegwch! Rwy'n meddwl i ymgyrch yn y ddechrau gan maen nhw. Ru'n ymbylch yn y ddechrau? Ymgyrch yn y ddechrau? Yna yw 16 oed, 32 oed, a mae'n dweud. Mae'n dweud yn y ddechrau. Mae'n dweud yn dweud yn y ddechrau. Mae'n dweud yn gyfnod 90 oed. Mae'n dweud yn y ddechrau. Mae'n dweud yn dweud i gael'r Daerol. Mae'n dweud i pan yw Robert Barostey? Diarrhea. Dei chi'n beirio! Okay? He's not horrible, but he's not horrible in the same time I met him. This is the part where you go, diarrhea! Very good! Actually it's not very good! I should tell you this, this is an interesting moment when you are actually find a rule saying he's got diarrhea! He's got diarrhea! Very good! Dwi'n rydyn ni'n gweithio eich gweld, nid gweithio ddau hynny. Hwn yn ddefnyddio, wedi fawr yn gweithio ddau, o'n dweud gennym. Rydyn ni'n ddau'n ddeif 생각 o'r parwu dechrau, er mwyn a'r paru dechrau. Rydyn ni'n ddau'n ddau'n ddau, dweud i chi'n ddechrau, dwi'n ddau'n ddau'n ddau'n ddau, i'r gweithio ddau'n ddau'n ddau, Oh ok, thank you! He said, Where are you from? So Mali accent. Very good, it's not actually, that's why I'm here. So there are points that I mustn't say very good like that. And then he got so enthuesased and he said, why are you here Mohammed? I've come here to learn English from his ars, he said, refugee. Sorry? He said, refugee. He said, what's he saying? He's a refugee. Oh, refugee! Try again, try again. Very good. Occasionally, don't say brand. So back to our man. I forgot his name already. What's his name? I'm Daniel Rossi in this hospital in Delhi. Remind me where the hospital was built. How many beds has he got? 200. Okay. So then, and then, so we need two more things wrong with Rebecca Rossi. He's got diarrhea and anything else? He's limping. He's limping. He's limping. He's limping. He's got a limp. Very good in my elementary class and where he's going to live. Another serious point, another serious point. This is on the elementary class, and she says, he's limping. And I said, very good. Because they didn't understand the word. They look at me, right? Because that's what students do. Whenever a student says in the class, they look at the teacher for confirmation. And unfortunately, most of us enjoy that. We like to be going, help, do it, tell me. And we shouldn't help them. She's the one who knows. She knows the answer. Because I'm again used to working with monolingual classes. It will then turn to her and say something in Hungarian or Polish or whatever their local language is. Nothing wrong with that. They ask her in their local language what did you just say? And she tells them, live and translate it for them. There's nothing wrong with them. Can I say it in my language? Zopika. Zopika. I went to an NLP workshop once. I want somebody who can't spell. Who can't spell? I'm not very good at spelling. It's great sometimes. There's one sitting there. Let's find a really difficult word for Andrea to spell. Anybody got a word that you have a problem with? This woman said, I always have a problem with diarrhea. So we've got to spell diarrhea. Anyway, sorry, I'm going back. Where is the improvisation? When we get to the end of the story, we've had a whole bunch of information about the hospital, about the hospital, about the hospital, about the hospital, about the man, about the doctor. We find something nice to say about the doctor and the nurse. One doctor, of course, is a woman, one nurse is a man, and Richard Roberts Rossi. OK, and then I put the students into threes. Basically, as simple as that. The improvisation comes out of all that information you now have generated together. That is another key. Don't keep giving people a bit of paper saying you're a vet or Rossi, you've got diarrhea. You wouldn't do that anyway. Don't give people the information. Let them find it for themselves. Put them in threes and say, come up with a little conversation between yourself. You've got so much backstory there. So that's how that works. Right, what's next? What am I doing next? Ah, my God! How much longer? You've got about five minutes. Five minutes. Should I do the fetch a goodja? Yeah. All right. This is basically some... Most of the rest of it is... I'll go through the notes that I was writing. Because what have we made of these activities? So what did I write in the abstract? What did I bring in? This is what I wrote in the abstract if you saw that. Anyone familiar with improvised theatre and comedy may think that improvisation is inappropriate for their students. How can students who often struggle to put together the simpler senses be expected to improvise? And I hope that these activities show you that you can find a way, a limited focus, carefully organised way that the students can actually say something different and unusual and imaginative, even elementary students. So these are just some thoughts. Again, you can get this as a Word document at the end. So, and this is a key for me. Some teachers spend... A lot of us have to spend most of their time following the course book and preparing for exams or tests. This is the unwritten reality behind most people like me coming on saying, do this in your teaching. Most people are following a book or preparing for an exam. That is really 80% or 90% of the reality of most, certainly the most non native speaker teachers teaching in their own country. And I think that this means you can become lecturers and providers of information and the students are passively involved with the lesson. This is my constant feeling that you can't avoid that. You have to be giving information either verbally or asking people to read things. So what can we do about it? We want activities that are quick to set up and fun to do and don't take up much time. Very, very, very important and crucial. Quick, fun and not much time. You can spend more... If you've got more time, spend more time. You know? When I have classes in international arts, I had 10 hours a week with the same students. That is just not a real circumstance. I mean you guys work in the UK, maybe you have that sort of situation. Well, don't have that. Okay. And this is important too. In terms of... Try and remember... Those of you who are language teachers tend to have been good language learners as well. But the fact is when people walk into a classroom, they know exactly where they are in the kind of pecking order of the people in the classroom. You know what I mean? He's the best in the class. She's absolutely hopeless. And a lot of them... So the ones at the bottom of it, this is another nightmare. And they love you sometimes and they really don't want to disappoint you. This is the key. They love you to bits. They don't want to disappoint you. And they can't do all this grammar stuff. But they may be the ones who come up with really funny answers to the questions about either from the sporting excellence activity or looking at the reading text and finding the extra details. Things like we can't talk about that. Singing and mining and drawing. And they may be very quick witted. The person who says no nurses in the class like that might be the person in the class who's never said anything. It's very funny. An image of a hospital with no nurses is a very strong image. It took very little language to say that. And suddenly he who's normally at the bottom of the class is the kid who's come up with a brilliant answer. And it makes a difference because that's what I want to focus on. The wonderful Albert Einstein. Even Albert Einstein, because as we all know he failed exams to get into the first college he applied to. He understands what I mean. I understand what he means. This is the key of what I've just been talking about. That when you walk into the classroom apart from that pecking order of how good you are in English there should be another one. Joe's completely used to never done this. Boy does he say some funny things when he gets the chance. That's that last bit. This is me. That's my book which all these are from. You can have a look at it in a minute. This is my blog. There's my blog address. I put a lot of improvisation activities on my blog. I relate them to things like the comedy store. That's the title of the blog. Ken Wilson ELT. Wordpress.com That's what it looks like. Here's an... Are we going to do this? Does anybody here know what Pechacuche is? I'll come back to that in a minute because also on my blog, apart from things to do with language I've got a little as Nick very kind of said a bit later a bit earlier. When you go to my blog there's a whole bunch of sketches and songs that I download for free. These are things that I published a long time ago that are now out of print and I want to give them away. When a book goes out of print nobody ever sees it anymore. So I take the sketches out of the book. Language school sketches hilarious. What would you do? The WMA ones are songs so you get the song and a worksheet. Lots of that stuff. Just go to the website, the blog site and click on box.net. It's free. If you're not on Twitter you should be if you're involved in language teaching. Get on Twitter. Who's on Twitter already? Not enough people. If you're on education you should be on Twitter. There's some great, great groups of teachers of all languages working on Twitter. There's a fantastic ELT community up there sharing ideas with them or just sharing observations about life. If you know who Scott Thornberry is or Jeremy Harmer or Nick Bilbram or Ken Wilson are you on Twitter? You should be. You should be on Twitter. Because it's full of people. You know, Scott Thornberry every day tells you what he's having for lunch. Which is a good size picture of it. He takes photographs of his lunch and puts them on. Which is the kind of silly side of Twitter which also makes Scott into a real human being. He's a very, very funny guy when he's not talking about language. But also, a lot of them he's also a funny guy when he's talking about language. He's a very funny guy. He's a funny guy. We're getting on Twitter. Nick's idea is at Nick Bilbram, isn't it? That's your Twitter address. It's at Nick Bilbram. Mine is at Ken Wilson London. I should have an asset at the beginning to find it. Here's my email address. If you want this stuff as a word document, the activities and those thoughts at the end and the images, I'll put the images of the cartoon from Gary Larson. OK? I showed you before. So, quickly, kenrightatbtinternet.com get that written down because you won't get another chance. Because I'm going back to this one or I'll give you another little moment to write that down. Because I can't resist doing would you, Nick, would you kind of get rid of this and put the other one up while I'm standing here explaining? Because you'll find it's actually on the internet. So, just before you do that. OK, does anybody here know what Pechak Pechak is? Right. A quick explanation. Because I feel, having just done this, that there is a place for this in the classroom if you have the technology. Pechak Pechak, as we're calling it these days, anybody here Japanese or speak Japanese? Right, so Pechak Pechak, does it mean Chichichat? Do you know what it's about, this Pechak Pechak? Of course it is. But the Pechak Pechak, English people for some stupid reason say it. Is as follows. You have to do a presentation that consists of 20 PowerPoint slides. Each slide only stays up for 20 seconds and it auto advances as they say. You have no control. When we start this, I will have no control over the movement of the slides. So I have 6 minutes and 40 seconds. You will know that my presentation from now on will last for 6 minutes and 40 seconds. And in those 6 minutes and 40 seconds, I'm going to try and find things to say that are the right length to fit in with the slides. Does that make sense? Yes. And I did it for the first time last Saturday in Paris at the TESOL Paris Conference. I was as nervous as a nervous thing on nervous day. I was so nervous about it. And I thought that the last minute, can I actually say I don't want to do this, you know, can I get out of this? So sitting next to me was a Turkish woman who's also one of the ELT's best-known non-native speaker bloggers. Her name is Burcu Akyol. You can also follow her on Twitter and her blog is brilliant from the point of view of a non-native speaker teacher. She was sitting next to me, she was doing her first petrcocha, and she was the only non-native speaker I thought, if she can do it, I can do it. So I did it. And I'm going to try and do it again. And it involves me speaking lots of different languages so I've got a cheat card here. Let me just see if I know right or wrong. OK, I'm ready. I'm going to use 60 minutes and 40 seconds. I only have 20 seconds per slide. OK, here we go. No, that's just mine. The other one is. There's another one down, crossing, I should say. Oh, right. That was so brilliant and boring. Which one is it then? Petrcocha, got it. Right, and then, so hit the start. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I want to talk about the beauty and variety of language. And I've used this image to show you what I'm talking about. This is the Tower of Babel. And it was built, as some of you may know, by the Babylonians because they wanted to build a tower so tall it would go through the clouds and reach the sky. The kind of thing you see in Dubai all the time. OK? But this man, actually that's Thor, but I'm using him for God. God was not happy. He said, Oi Babylonians, what's you up to? I'm not happy. So from now on, you will not speak one language. You'll speak lots of languages. Because I say, thank God for God. Because now we have a multiplicity of one of the languages and I'm going to speak seven of them now. You will see which language from the image. Which language should I speak first? Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ken Wilson. I live in London and I'm extremely happy to be here at the Drama Day. And so as November 13, 2009. Which language should I speak next? Tell me. Come on, tell me. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ken Wilson. I live in London. And I'm Ravi. That's a very good word in French, actually. Ravi, I hope you're sorry. Ravi, let's see the goal of the Arthekian Rheintal study. Oh, which one next? What language should I speak next? Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ken Wilson. I live in London. And I'm very happy to be here in the school in the Arthekian Rheintal studies. More or less. I don't know exactly. Which language should I speak next? Come on, tell me. I don't know which language should I speak next. How? Thank you. German. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the flight of the air. I'm a German, I know. I'm Ken Wilson. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. I live in the Arthekian Rheintal study. Ac yn allu'n ffwrdd gweithio'r axon Bryzol. Oh, rhaid i'n gweithio. Fawr o'n fawr. Mi'n nôl me'n Cael Wilson i mor o'n Londres i son. Rwy'n fawr, rwy'n fawr, o'n fawr i'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'r axon Bryzol. So, finally. Oh no, it was Japanese people. Y cwneetzi wa, wat ych chi wa, Cael Wilson des. Rondon karakamys te, rondon. Rondon karakamys te, arigatod gwasanaethu. Right, so those are the seven languages. Those are the seven languages. But what's the point I want to say? The problem I see now is that people from the English speaking world don't learn enough languages. I mean look at this, this is outrageous. I want you to speak English or get out. Look at that. You have reached the US immigration hotline. Press one if you speak English, press two if it's connected. Who are we playing for this? I'm playing this man. Not that man, the next one. Here, I'm playing Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill, who famously said, you don't have to speak, I can't do a Winston Churchill translation. You don't have to speak a foreign language. You just have to speak English slowly and loud and people will understand you. In fact, he could speak French. He was interviewed on French radio about his past. He said, did you know you're going to be a great man? He said, well, my past is a fine for two parties. When he talked about his past life, he said, when I look behind, I see the division of the party. I'm not sure what you meant to say. Those are the results. People in the English speaking world don't learn foreign languages. This is disgrace. The worst thing always is that we go, English speaking people, go around the world and there are always science words in English because they know that English will never learn languages or that English speaking people is in general. And we just laugh at the science. This is so unfair. We should be grateful for what people write. We should be grateful when we see signs like this one. I mean, what's wrong with that? You see, you're laughing. You go there. Somebody is trying to be helpful, trying to show that they speak your language and they want to take your money away from you. I found a lot of the strangest signs are outside toilets and I have the toilet picture now. Toilets, please. Can I see the toilet? Thank you. Look at that one. Fee man. No restroom. And look at the man on the third sign there. His head is a marijuana leaf. He's lost his mind to marijuana. He needs to go to the toilet. Women kingdom, I'd rather lie to you. And this one's in Moscow. You can only go in there if you have a shit in there. You shouldn't laugh. You shouldn't laugh. You shouldn't laugh. This is a genuine sign in Japan, which they were building a building. That's what it means in a direction. Now, unfortunately, people think that if you go to Japan, you will see some very strange reactions. I love this one. I love this one. It's outside a temple. Those who are not allowed to enter the temple are. Look at number five. Devotees get impure due to death. And number six, mad ladies and gentlemen. You know they have to have a piece of paper saying, look, I've been discharged from the local mental hospital. And, but when they come to England, these people, they see signs like this. Caution, pedestrian, slippery, wet and wet. Of course they are. These do not throw signs to south stones at this sign. What are they going to do with south stones? Morning. Children lack understanding when we talk to the service. This is just terrible. This is what foreign visitors to our country have to put up with. And finally, in Canada, I saw this out in a forest. Are you wearing keel underwear? We know that Canadians are very funny about hygiene, but that's ridiculous. When my friend said, hen, there may be bears in the forest. So finally, finally up to the end, I want to say thank you for language. Thank you in many different languages in fact. So the next one you'll see, can we all say it again, that's Arabic, shakran, and the next one, merci altogether and thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Arigatodd i'r barnasol i'r cefnwys. I'n dda'r cefnwysbryd. And gracie. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Petty Cuccio. Thank you very much indeed.