This article is about the usage of improvisational exercises for increasing speaking and listening skills.

Language learners normally do not interact with the material they are learning. This is because of difficulty to understand and integrate with the material. Actually, improvisational exercises based on acting and comedy give a space to the student with all their abilities and interests to participate and make the implementation of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation lessons in a fun and realistic situation. This way can encourage student to speak confidently, quickly and decisively. Also, the student not only depends on their native language but allowing them to utilize the vocabulary and grammatical structures of the target language. The real challenge is when learning a new language such as English, it is difficult to master the speaking and listening skills. If based on Confucian methods of teaching, the student is more receptive and the teacher is more on giving the knowledge to the student. The situation like when teacher speaks, students just take notes about the information without any interaction with real things and try to rote all information. This method is not good for student because it will reduce the ability of student to talk with a native speaker and have a difficulty to exhibit confidence in their language ability. Therefore, the improvisation exercises are important to integrate student with teaching materials. Based on studies conducted by researcher of academic, most students do not interact with the second language but only translate it into their native language and responses back into English. This habit will create long pauses and frustration for listener and speaker. The pause cause boring to the listener and the process of translation becomes difficult for the speaker because of the complexity of the mother tongue and its inability to translate well. Student should able to interact with the material and know how to use the vocabulary. Teachers are not just teaching the facts of the language but teach the skill to use the language. Students should know how to use the language in daily life.

Research by Fleming showed that the most common methods of student learning are visual, auditory and kinesthetic. When teacher writes and draws on the board, it is suitable for visual learners to learn by using this method. Speak is more on auditory learners and action is related to kinesthetic is best for instruction. Only the improvisational exercises will use the three methods of learning. The demonstration conducted by teacher can give awareness about the usefulness of exercises to build rapport and trust with the students. Improvisational exercises provide the main goals which consist of improvement on pronunciation, reinforcement for proper use of a grammatical structure and enhancement on vocabulary practice. This exercise stimulates students to use many skills at once. Therefore, students must focus on listen to their peers, alert with body language and other contextual clues. By doing this exercises, the preparation is more on activity which present the material, allow student to interact with the material and integrate a production portion. The agenda is how to teach the improvisational exercises successfully. A researcher, Maurer have studied that the exercise can teach by using a typical presentation, practice and production pattern of language instruction. In the lesson plan, the teacher can start the learning session by presenting the necessary basic material, give the opportunity for schema building and practice with gap fills and students can do the production exercises to generate ideas. Students who accustomed with teacher-based learning environments have difficulty when making mistakes and reluctant to do the exercise because the fear of failure. This matter should be eliminated by making a specific action in the event a mistake is made.

There are some examples using improvisational exercises for grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Teaching grammar through this exercise can be conducted by presenting and show to the students the pattern on the board with a number of examples. For example when teaching present continuous, teacher should relate the words with daily conversation. For the phase of practice, teacher can show a picture of a number of people or animals that are doing many activities which can describe by using present continuous. By doing this, student can visualize in their mind and integrate the picture in their mind with the terms of grammar. For the production phase, teacher can ask student to list down all activity in the classroom or what is happening on the paper. Preparation is for student to do something that based on their previous knowledge abut verbs they know and write them on the board. These are for student to visual the verbs and give some input for them to integrate with something. In the modeling phase, the teacher will do activity by using the participation of the student to do some activity like brushing teeth with mimics. Other student can ask their friend about what he or she doing with the mimic. So, the student will know the action and can integrate with the verb. By playing some activities, student will enjoy with their learning because the stimulation on visual, audio and kinesthetic which generate some idea and student can identify the verb and can do the action. Making some variation can polish up the pronunciation of the student by saying verbs that begin with I. For example, Im listening to music or Im letting the dog out.

Teaching pronunciation is more emphasis on sounds and phonetics. So, this activity should come out with the knowledge about the mechanism of sound and how to pronounce correctly. Student should can differentiate a sigh and an ah sound in order to master the speaking skill. In the presentation phase, teacher begins with how to make sound by putting the unfamiliar sound into a familiar framework. The placement of the tongue should be taught by teacher to explain about voiced and unvoiced sounds. Practice is drilling on saying the words zip,zap,zop which try to polish up the pronunciation relating to word like zebra, zoo and zealous. For production, teacher should encourage student to read aloud and practice to pronounce correctly. Story book or another reading material can be used for this activity. These show that the improvisational can be a fun and rewarding way to engage students. These exercises can integrate the material with the fact of language and at the same time stimulate the visual, audio and kinesthetic tendency.