Can the Art of Improv Benefit English-Learner Students?

Improv is a form of spontaneous performance where the story, characters and dialogue are made up on the spot and acted out as the story moves along. As the comedian Tina Fey describes it, “You just say yes and figure it out afterward.” Improv performer and coach Rob Schiffman says, “Improv teaches the importance of support through true listening.”

In his Educational Leadership Program dissertation brief, David Metz (Ed.D., ’21) explored the use of improvisational theater to engage newcomer English learners. The brief highlights the benefits of using improv with English learners, making clear that it is effective in helping to reduce anxiety and encourage engagement. The brief also identifies effective aspects of improv and offers recommendations for practitioners.

There are a lot of English learner students in Los Angeles schools, and Metz started working with them at the Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts. The school agreed to have him implement improv as an enrichment program with the students after school once or twice a week. He started playing theater games with the kids (and provided the ever-popular incentive of hot pizza) and the program evolved into a kind of English learner improv workshop. Eventually, the newcomers in the program would also engage in mask work activities with improvisation using Commedia dell’Arte-style masks, as a culmination, and put on a show for their parents and classmates.

Metz did that for five years. It was intense and exciting, and he had a sense it was helping students. However, he did not know how to measure it and he had a hard time justifying what he was doing to his ever-changing cadre of administrators. He knew he needed to do some research, so he applied to the UCLA Educational Leadership Program.

David Metz ('21, Ph.D., Educational Leadership Program) currently teaches high school theater at Santee Education Complex in downtown Los Angeles.

To conduct the study, Metz designed and taught a seven-week improv program, whereby he observed and interviewed eleven high school newcomer students enrolled in a sheltered English class. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the improv activities were adapted to a format that could be performed on Zoom, as distance learning protocols had been in place at the time of the study. All students were Latinx, and all but one used Spanish as his primary language (his first was Kʼicheʼ, a Mesoamerican language). The students participated in improv theater activities and recorded their engagement and anxiety levels in a journal. Ten of the eleven students also shared their thoughts in semi-structured exit interviews.

“English learners or second-language learners are notoriously anxious. The kids were anxious about speaking English and being made fun of, especially the beginners,” Metz says. “In a way, improv kind of tricks you out of doing certain things, a sort of benevolent manipulator. It’s kind of like magic, a magician is redirecting you, or a good teacher redirecting your attention into something that’s going to take up all your bandwidth, so that you don’t have the energy to be worrying about what that guy over there is thinking about you.”

Three best practices in implementing improv with ELs emerged from the research, including an ascending array of difficulty levels, heterogeneous student grouping to encourage participation from students with less skill or confidence, and reflective journaling in students’ primary language to address anxiety. Metz’s research also highlights the effective aspects of improv, underscoring that it is enjoyable and accessible and that it offers opportunities for collaborative learning and numerous points of access to participation. The students also enjoyed and embraced the diversity of games in the improv exercises.

“Improv that kids do is just play; it’s play in its purest sense. And that is essential to meaningful learning,” Metz says.

Read the complete story in UCLA Ed&IS Magazine.