(Using Youtube Videos for Listening)
Google Drive Folder HERE
This was designed to supplement a lesson from the Lifestyle Intermediate Textbook. The textbook had a lesson on how businesses were using comedy improv techniques to train their employees on creative and spontaneous thinking. This video seemed to introduce that concept perfectly.
Of course before getting into the every day benefits of improv, it was necessary to first introduce what improv is. This isn't included in this lesson, but I did pre-teach this by first explaining the concept to students, and then playing some clips of "Whose Line is it Anyway."
The questions for this video are all on the PowerPoint. (Embedded below, and on Google Docs (drive, slides, pub).) The transcript and vocabulary exercises are printed below, and on Google (drive, docs, pub).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv36y3Fv63Q
People seem
to love improv, and-and when I ask them what it is that they like about it, the
answers that come back are: it’s fast, it’s funny, it’s spontaneous, they do
things that I just can’t imagine, um, how they do it, it seems magical, ah,
it’s fun.
And then
when I ask: do you see yourself up there doing that? Very many, not all, but very many, say: “Oh
no, I couldn’t do that.” And I tell them
my belief is that they do do that. In
fact each of us improvises a good part of each day. I mean, unless someone writes a script for us
and leaves it on our night stand, we improvise a lot—just about every day. So at home if friends drop in unexpectedly
for dinner, you improvise ways to feed them.
At the supermarket if you’re pushing your basket towards that really
short check-out line, and you get cut-off by the person with the overflowing
basket, you improvise a new exit strategy.
In a speech, when you’re just ready to go on stage, and the client comes
to you and says, “The CEO just decided she wants to have a 20 minute speech to
her people. Could you cut your hour talk
to 15?” You improvise the best 15 minute
speech you can give.
Um, you see, people think that-that-that
improv is about thinking fast and being funny and it’s really not. It’s about acting fast and being real. So-so, the key for improvisers, so what they
do, is that they act in the moment with mentally unfiltered responses, and they
become comfortable with suspending judgment of those responses, and that’s how
they begin to build the qualities that I think are the foundation for their
success, and the foundation of our success.
Those qualities are presence, acceptance, and trust.
Vocabulary
1. check
out ______
2. drop
in ______
3. exit
strategy ______
4. judgment
______
5. overflow
______
6. script
______
7. spontaneous
______
8. suspend
______
9. unfiltered
______
|
A). a
plan of how someone will end something such as a business deal or a military
operation
B). an
opinion about someone or something that you decide on after thinking
carefully
C). with
no information removed
D). the
place in a large shop, especially a food shop, where you pay for your goods
E). to
visit someone for a short time, usually without arranging it before
F). the
thing that is inside it starts coming out because it is too full
G). happening
or done in a natural, often sudden way, without any planning or without being
forced
H). the
words of a film, play, broadcast, or speech
I). to
stop something happening for a short time
|
Sample
Sentences
a
supermarket checkout
I dropped
in on George on my way home from school.
The
inspector needs to make a judgment about how the school is performing.
The bath overflowed,
and there's water all over the floor!
The bin
was overflowing with rubbish.
Bruce
Robinson wrote the script for "The Killing Fields".
His jokes
seemed spontaneous, but were in fact carefully prepared beforehand.
She's
such a spontaneous, lively woman.
The
semifinal was suspended because of bad weather.
The radio
station provides millions of people with unfiltered news and political
debate.
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