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Ice Breaking and Agenda
Sally Wu
About Me
• Assistant Professor at CJCU
• Free Lance Conference Interpreter and
Translator
• Author of English Learning Books
About You
• Personal Information
• Teaching Job
• Issues to be Discussed
Topics
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Reader’s Theater
Debate
Listening Strategies
Textbook Materials
Alternative English Teaching Materials (News
English)
Agenda
• We are going to meet six times (including this
one…)
Reader’s Theater
• Readers Theatre or Reader's Theater is a style
of theater in which the actors do or do not
memorize their lines.
• Actors use only vocal expression to help the
audience understand the story rather than
visual storytelling such as sets, costumes,
intricate blocking, and movement.
There are four different types of
Readers Theatre: Readers Theatre,
Free Readers Theatre, Chamber
Theatre, and Contemporary
Readers Theatre.
Readers Theater
• The original Readers Theatre was presented using only
scripts and stools or chairs. The material performed was
plays, poems, narrative fiction, and non-dramatic literature.
The performers' focus was offstage and limited costuming
was sometimes used (often the readers wore all black to
strip away character and allow for more focus on vocal
interpretation of the piece). While the readers may have
interpreted the scenes or poems cold, in most cases the
scripts were memorized and rehearsals were conducted
with even more intensity than those conducted for a
regular play. There was little to no interaction between
performers or movement. This style of performance also
helped performers deal with performance anxiety.
Free Readers Theater
• Free Readers Theater was a little freer than traditional
Readers Theater. The materials performed were all the
same except plays were no longer performed. The
performers were now able to look at and interact with
each a little more and the presence of scripts was
optional. Blocking began to appear which suggested
psychological relationships between characters and
pictorial compositions (for example, if two characters
hated each other, they might be at opposite ends of
the stage, and as the tension rises, they might move
toward each other). The performers still wore black,
but some wore additional costume pieces to help
suggest character (such as a hat or shawl).
Chamber Theater
• Chamber Theater focused on narrative fiction
only (no other type of material was performed).
Scripts were almost always memorized (a
narrator might carry a script to make their
authoritative voice). The movement became
more elaborate and could be associated with
more traditional theater practices; it was used in
such a way to reveal the character's role and
relationships in the story. Costuming evolved into
suggested or full costumes.
Contemporary Readers Theatre
• Contemporary Readers Theatre is commonly
practiced today. It is less bound by convention
and uses techniques from all of the above
traditions of Readers Theatre. It is influenced by
performance art techniques which is to say there
is an increasing emphasis on creating a critical
performance that interrogates the text instead of
being faithful to it and doing a good
representation to share the meaning and interact
with the audience.
Teaching Reader’s Theater
• Read to students first and interpret the plot.
• Let students be familiar with all parts and
practice. Choose the parts.(how?)
• Have students read parts together. Practice
and video tape the practices.
• Performance
Experience Sharing with Teaching RT