Drama and Theatre Studies library

Nic Harvey on developing speaking and listening skills

Well this is what Drama is all about – the actors speak and the audience listens. But without well developed speaking skills, the actor will lose the audience’s attention and the purpose of the performance will be lost. Drama is a useful tool for developing speaking and listening skills – with some English and Drama departments working together in order to complete some of this element of the English Curriculum.

So can you teach pupils speaking and listening skills?

You can  practise vocal warm ups and exercises – tongue twisters and facial and vocal exercises can be fun and amusing and will prepare a Y9 mouth and voice for some beautifully clear and precise diction!

Listening skills are not so easy to develop but it can be easier for pupils to focus if they know what they are listening for. A simple table to complete or a list of simple questions to answer about the performance they are watching and listening to, can help them to listen for particular intonation or volume changes, pause or accent and as they are concentrating so hard, the audience volume level should be zero! Drama presentations - feedback sheet and Evaluation prompts, both from Drama essentials, can help with this. 

Lessons 9 & 10 in Introduction to Drama focus on persuasive drama and allow pupils to experiment with a variety of vocal and physical techniques in order to get what they want and create interesting drama. These two lessons work well as they are grounded in issues that pupils can relate to – asking to stay out late at night and persuading a sibling to keep their mouth shut!

For KS4 students, Romeo and Juliet: The Trial (from Romeo and Juliet in the KS4 prose library) can be used as a Drama speaking & listening activity. The nurse and the friar are put on trial, using this comprehensive pack of instructions which guides pupils through the trial process, allowing them to focus on what they say and how they say it.

All that is left is for the teacher to sit back and listen (with a cup of coffee to help them concentrate of course!).

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