Developing English Speaking Skills through Magic Show

Objectives

• To improve listening and speaking skills
• To help students produce sentences on their own with proper pronunciation
• To enable learning with fun
• To make students use English without fear

Magic Show - the Performance

All the students of GPS Nettapakkam had gathered for the magic show. The show started with a dance performance by me and  Thamizhselvi. The students clapped in excitement. We had put on some makeup to look like clowns. Next, we showed some funny gestures to make the students laugh. Now it was our turn to introduce ourselves.

I said, “My name is Meera. What is the first letter of my name?”

Students responded, “M”.

“Can you think of a word beginning with ‘M’ that can be put before ‘Meera’?

Then came the suggestion ‘Magic Meera’. Likewise, ‘Teacher’ was elicited for Thamizhselvi. Then I called forward a student. Her name was Banu. Students came up with the adjective ‘beautiful’ and made the phrase ‘Beautiful Banu’. Similarly, adjectives were added to the names of other teachers and students.

We, then laid out certain rules:

• Talk one at a time.
• Raise your hands to speak.
• Do not answer in one word, i.e. yes/no. Reply in full sentences.
• Students who answer correctly will be given gifts (chocolates).

We began with the magic show. We interacted with the students in English. For example:

Teacher: What is this?

Students: This is a bag.

Teacher: What is inside the bag?

Students: Nothing is inside the bag.

At times, I corrected the pronunciation of certain words.

When students replied with one-word answers, I repeated the questions, till I got responses in full sentences. This worked well. Students attempted to construct full sentences, trying different structures.

After a while, I sang a song and Thamizhselvi and I danced to it. We then asked the students to join us. The students enjoyed this a lot.

The magic show continued with the student-teacher interaction. The last interaction was as follows:

Teacher: What is this? (showing a glass full of water)

Student responses:

• Water and glass
• A glass of full water
• Water in glass
• Full water glass

Finally, a girl from class 5 came up with the appropriate response: a glass full of water.

She was then gifted a chocolate. Likewise, all students who gave correct answers were given chocolates.

The teachers too enjoyed the show. The Head Teacher actively participated and enjoyed catching the chocolates thrown by us and then throwing it back to the students who answered correctly. The show ended with all the teachers dancing to ‘lalala’ song sung by the students.

Outcome

When I started with the show, students gave one-word responses. But gradually students started answering in full sentences. They also understood the use of adjectives – as words that describe things. Besides, they had so much fun, singing and dancing.

Learning English is always difficult in a typical classroom environment. It was my continuous attempt to find a way to capture students’ full attention and enable language acquisition with joy and entertainment that led me to this magic show. And finally, students did happily listen and speak in English. They did that with confidence as well, without the usual fear associated with the use of this foreign language.