Practice

When learning a new dance or musical instrument or even a speech, little nerve endings in your brain flash electrical impulses between your neurons. Through practice, electrical pathways are established that can be re-travelled at a later date. In my longtime, well-practiced Shakespeare Out Loud students, I have noted developed pathways or increased abilities.

The brain does not remember well, or play with, vocabulary that just sits on a page. Vocabulary is best remembered through oral practice, in context with other words. I believe the different skull vibrations produced by different words also helps with memory. Once pronounced and practiced, the word becomes known and owned. The route between brain and mouth becomes clearer and quicker.

Metaphor and a host of other rhetorical devices also become familiar structures of oral communication through practice. These inventions, or inversions, or repetitions or juxtaposition of words - these ways of thinking - don’t need names. If they are just practiced aloud these linguistic pathways will be imbedded as well. Who cares if a student can name a metaphor? Can he think a metaphor? Can he create a new one? Does he realize how much information a metaphor can carry?  All this is best realized through oral practice.

Antithetical thought, the ability to see both sides of an argument, what some people view as intelligence, can also become familiar through practice. Shakespeare is riddled with antithesis. It was habitual for Shakespeare: he just had to articulate the opposite of everything. Barack Obama does as well. Practicing antithesis also contributes greatly to a lively sense of humor.

Practice is how we get better at everything. What students need are talented teachers to guide them in this practice of Shakespeare Out Loud; teachers who listen well, suggest well, and don’t talk too much. Their students learn most through Shakespeare and practice.