One session will be dedicated to just that! With a little perseverance, practice and FUN, students will soon find Shakespearean language not only a little easier to understand, but ALSO beautiful and hard to forget!
Students will discover that he wrote in verse rather than in prose. That means they sound more rhyming and poetic than conversational. Also, Shakespeare was an important figure in contributing to the English language! He wrote during the Elizabethan era and thus, modern English speakers like ourselves will not be familiar with the kind of English spoken during those times.
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| Shakespeare had an everlasting effect on the English language - He introduced in excess of 1,700 of his own newly constructed words into his works. These words would permanently enter into the English vocabulary and appear in normal conversation today! |
That said, here's a little fun fact: The Shakespearean plays we watch and read today are spoken and written in early modern English. And, much of it - it's pronunciation, puns and rhymes are actually lost and can't be picked up by us because the sounds and pronunciation used by Shakespeare during the Elizabethan period has been lost.
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| Spoken English during the Elizabethan period may not be readily understood in modern times. |
The short forms:
To start, students should familiarize themselves with commonly used Shakespearean words. Shakespeare loved to contract words. Instead of "it is", he wrote 'tis. Most times, this was meant to make the plays he wrote sound more harmonious. These are a few more examples:
't - it
'tis - it is
'twas - it was
o'er - over
ne'er - never
e'er - ever
lov'd - loved
Commonly used words:
Here is a list of commonly used Shakespearean words which I found from a textbook, Mining for Meaning (Choo & Yeo, 2013, pp. 203-204).
Teachers can get students to do a translation exercise with these examples:
(i) 'tis a nice day
(ii) Get thee hence
(iii) Whither did he go?
(iv) Get thee here anon!
(v) The lady doth protest too much
(vi) Forsooth I swear by my name
After which, time permitting, they could try translating a longer verse. Perhaps a short extract from Romeo and Juliet.
Activity:
Just to add to student engagement and get ALL students involved and be a part of the learning process, all students must pretend to get into character. They will have to act and speak as if they were living in the Elizabethan period. Thus, just as how EAL/D students are required to use English in-class while they're learning the language, the class will be forced to use only Shakespearean language - and perhaps even speak in rhymes! Of course, I will have visuals all around the classroom to help them along. I reckon this small activity would be full of laughs and would cater to my students with various learning needs. This is also a good activity into reading The Tempest (read next post) together as a class.
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| As part of a collaborative effort to learn The Tempest and Hag-Seed, I'd get my students, day by day, to add to the class' bulletin board and decoration. |
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| Shakespearean Language: Quotes and phrases poster |