Wednesday, 6 January 2016

The London International Mime Festival: an idea for a lesson about miming and non-verbal language


The London International Mime Festival  is taking place from Saturday 9 January to Saturday 6 February 2016. It  is an annual theatre event in London and it features live art, new circus, clown and physical theatre at various London venues. It was established in 1977 by Joseph Seelig and Nola Rae.



Click on my Blendspace lesson below to get more information.



An example of a Mime Performance at the Festival

Mime stimulates imagination, physical control and self confidence, moreover non-verbal language is doubtless a very important part of the communication (most of all for non-native speakers who use it while speaking a foreign language to be better understood!). For these reasons I prepared a lesson for esl students about miming and non-verbal language,  using some sources from the Web.

What does "mime" mean?

Some Esl Miming Games!
http://www.teach-this.com/esl-games/miming-games

Miming Games Worksheets
http://www.eslprintables.com/games_worksheets/miming_games/

Let's have fun with mime vocabulary and theatre audience etiquette with flashcards, quizzes, tests and games!

Can you guess what they are miming?



What is non-verbal communication?
https://www.andrews.edu/~tidwell/bsad560/NonVerbal.html

Cultural differences in non-verbal communication
As an Italian, I can say that non-verbal communication is very important in my language!



(slides from  my presentation "Differences between Italians and British")

Watch the following videos



Now describe some gestures or body movements that are typical of your own culture.