Repeat, repeat, repeat when teaching non-improvisers

I hate to break the news but eh…. Not everyone is an improviser. What is normal to us, is pretty wild to most non-improvisers. And we need to not forget that when we teach ‘muggles’.

Wait, let me back up a little.

This week I did a 1-on-1 coaching with one of the students of my new online course ‘Teaching Improv With Confidence’. She is a language teacher wanting to offer a course in fun and fluency. Using improv, obviously.

As her coach (and as a person), I am in love with that plan. I think improv lends itself immensely for applying it to other areas of life.

However, while I helped her with her lesson plan I had to remind her ‘these people are not improvisers’. To them all of our improv exercises are incredibly new, exciting, weird and/or scary.

Should she back down and not do improv exercises? Hell no! There is so much joy and learning in doing improv exercises and then applying it to something else (like language learning).

But let’s not forget that being in a new course, talking to strangers, practicing a new skill, making mistakes, getting to know a new teacher, understanding their teaching style… All of these things take up a lot of energy for students. After taking a new class, their heads are probably spinning.

Now add on top of that something as ridiculous as improv.

Yes, you and I know it is not ridiculous. But it can definitely look like that from the outside. We have the silliest exercises and weirdest games, with the most unusual names and rules. (Bippity-bippity-bop, anyone?)

How to deal with that in a class? Keep the number of different improv exercises to a minimum by just expanding on the exercises you have. By that I mean: take 1 exercise that fits well with your purpose. Let them practice that exercise, let them get used to the rules (and silliness) and then add on top of that exercise.

Here is how it looked like when my coachee and I did this for the language class.

Exercise in Lesson 1: Giving gifts.

Player A pretends to give something to player B and says: “Here you go, this is for you”.

Player B responds enthusiastically with “Thank you very much for this [noun]”. The noun player B comes up with is based on the shape of player A’s hands.

Then switch roles.

With this exercise the language learners practice simple nouns.

Exercise in Lesson 2: Giving gifts with adjectives.

Same exercise. But this time player A adds an attribute to the gift.

A: “Here you go, this is for you”.

B: “Thank you very much for this [noun]”.

A: “And did you see, it is [adjective]”

With this exercise the language learners practice nouns and adjectives.

Exercise in Lesson 5: Giving gifts with reasons

Same exercise. But this time player A adds a reason for this gift:

A: “Here you go, this is for you”.

B: “Thank you very much for this [adjective] + [noun]”.

A: “I got this especially for you, because [reason]”

With this exercise the language learners practice nouns, adjectives and forming sentences.

After lesson 1 your non-improvising participants are experienced in pretending to give an object. When you continue with that same exercise in lesson 2, it is so much easier to get them on board.

They understand the exercise, they feel confident, they don’t need as much explanation, and they already bought into the fact that in this class we work with objects made of air. And when you have them there, the learning becomes so much easier.

So this is my tip for teaching non-improvisers: repeat your exercises. Add things. Change them a little to practice something new. As a teacher, it will safe you so much energy. You can always silly it up.