High Drama at Novogireevo

From Lorraine:

My Upper Intermediate class at Novokosino wrote and performed a short play. The cast consisted of Alina Abalova as Stevie Wondermanson, Natasha Rogachjova, as Gucci Poochy, Kate Beskova, as detective Shirley Sherlock Pirot Colombo, and Kate Glazkova, as Katia Corpse and Maria Juana Louisa Theresa Pedro Inglisias. The following are comments on the process the students followed in order to bring the production to performance.

As part of our lessons we have been writing our own version of a murder mystery. This has helped us to enhance our speaking of English through work in dialogue. Practice in emphasis and response to the lines has allowed us to experiment with the language and gave us an opportunity to learn in a dramatic way the timing that is necessary when working with dialogue in another language. This also has broadened our understanding of the humor to be found in speaking English. We spent some time laughing at what we had written and once we understood the humor between the lines and how delivering a line a certain way added to this humor we enjoyed it even more.

Our work is a simple production, designed around the confines of a classroom. It is a "take off" of a standard murder mystery plot. We wrote it over a period of four months and spent time in developing ideas for the scenes and correcting our sentence structure. Pronunciation and enunciation of some of the language was also practiced. We directed actions inside each scene and decided what costumes our characters would wear.

This has been an enjoyable process and certainly wasn't boring!

From Claire:

On Wednesday April 26th Natasha C. and I braved the Moscow metro at rush hour to travel to Novogireevo to see the premier of 'Grisilda Grisinsky's Magic Word Shop', which was written and directed by Lorraine Lantaigne and performed by her five 'Snapshot' Intermediate students.

Comfortably settled in our seats armed with buckets of popcorn and bottles of fizzy pop, Natasha and I eagerly awaited the start of the performance. It took the form of a narration in which a little girl who has magical powers is able to bring English letters and words to life. The energetic and dynamic narration was delightful. They had obviously worked hard memorizing their lines, perfecting their pronunciation and getting their timing right in the choral chanting.

The project began life as part of a series of stories for Lorraine's grandson. Lorraine also has experience of working in children's theatre at home in Canada. She adapted the story for a vocabulary and listening lesson and as the students enjoyed it so much Lorraine turned it into an opportunity to develop their speaking skills. They began work on the story back in February and in preparation for the performance, the students spent class time learning lines, rehearsing and producing props. The students made beautifully illustrated letters of the alphabet to represent Grisilda's flying letters and words.

Natasha and I were very impressed by the students' language skills and the effort that had been put into the project. Both Lorraine and her group of students should be congratulated on their hard work and commitment. I look forward to seeing them all at Cannes in the future. Well done!!

Lorraine & Claire