Lesson Plan: Focus & Listening Exercise

Communication skills are important in life and in the drama classroom. Whether you want your students to be focused on their scene partner, active listening in an improv scenario, or doing both in group work, learning how to receive and respond in a conversation is key to successful communication. 

To that end, start incorporating communication activities as soon as possible in the school year. The more your students focus on hearing what their classmates say and responding accordingly (instead of just staying in their head and thinking about what they’re going to say next), the more they’ll work together as an ensemble in whatever they take on in your program. 

Use this exercise as a warm-up or as part of your ensemble building exercises at the beginning of the year. 

Instruction

• Everyone stands in a circle.
• Instruct everyone to think of a flower (rose, daisy, tulip, violet, carnation).
• Take a large, soft ball, like a nerf ball. Instruct students that you’re going to throw the ball to someone. That person has to catch the ball, say a flower, and throw the ball to someone else.
• Then that person has to catch the ball, say a new flower, repeat the flower of the previous person, and throw the ball to a third person.
• That person then has to catch, say a new flower, repeat the previous flowers, and throw the ball to a new person. 

What’s being created is a pattern. And everyone in the circle must focus on the pattern so when they are thrown the ball, they can not only say a new flower, but also repeat all the previous flowers. Make it a rule that students can repeat flower names, but not twice in a row.

Variation: Once students have this pattern down, add in a second ball and create a second pattern (colours, food, cities). How do students focus and listen in order to keep the two patterns going at the same time?  

You can then apply what students have learned to scene work. Have students go through a scene slowly with an emphasis on focus and listening. In a pairs scene, have each partner summarize what they heard and give a gut reaction before reading their next line.