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Running Head: TEACHING SHAKESPEARE TO ELLS 1

You’re Having Them Read What!?!

Teaching Shakespeare to English Language Learners

Gail Berkompas

Grand Valley State University

TEACHING SHAKESPEARE TO ELLS 2

Abstract

With the increase of immigrants in the U.S. in recent years, the integration of English Language

Learners (ELLs) in mainstream classrooms has become a common practice in the realm of

education. Such inclusion challenges teachers to use instructional methods that adequately

engage their monolingual English-speaking students while simultaneously building the literacy

skills of the ELLs in their classrooms. For secondary English educators, the task of teaching

Shakespeare in a multilingual classroom can be a difficult undertaking, as the archaic language

and unusual sentence structures featured in his plays can overwhelm ELLs. This paper presents

useful pedagogical practices for teaching Shakespeare in the multilingual classroom, focusing on

three specific strategies that teachers can implement to help ELLs better interact with

Shakespeare’s plays: teaching reading comprehension skills, incorporating drama activities, and

using graphic adaptations of the plays. By employing these practices in their classrooms,

teachers can not only improve their ELLs’ comprehension of the plays’ content, but also their

ELLs’ understanding of and connections with the plays’ themes and messages.

Keywords: English Language Learners (ELLs), mainstream, multilingual classroom,

Shakespeare, reading comprehension, drama, graphic text


You’re Having Them Read What!?!

Teaching Shakespeare to English Language Learners

Introduction

It goes without contest that the demographic of the United States is changing at a rapid

rate; over 40 million immigrants resided in the U.S. in 2012, a historical high for the country

with a foundation in immigration (Nwosu, Batalova, & Auclair, 2014). This increased diversity

in the American population carries over into the school setting, as millions of foreign-born or

first-generation American youth enter U.S. classrooms every year, bringing with them various

beliefs, cultures, and, most prominently, languages. Many of these students qualify as English

Language Learners (ELLs), or students who do not possess the level of English-language

proficiency required in the U.S. classroom, hindering them from achieving academic success in

learning environments in which instruction is provided largely or entirely in English. According

to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), an

estimated 4.4 million students receiving language support were enrolled in United States public

school systems during the 2011-2012 school year, comprising just over 9% of the country’s total

student population (2014); this percentage, however, does not account for many students who

attend school systems without access to formal English language support programs. As a result,

these students are often mainstreamed, or placed in general education classrooms, and receive

the same instruction as their monolingual English-speaking peers despite the discrepancy in

English language ability. This inclusion of ELLs into mainstream classrooms is likely to

continue for quite some time, as the student and national population continue to grow

increasingly diverse.


Another trend that shows no indication of decline is the presence of Shakespearean works

in the secondary English classroom. Historically, Shakespeare has been well-represented in the

high school English curriculum, with Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet all

falling within the twelve most commonly taught works in public high schools (Applebee, 1990).

The Bard is undeniably one of the most canonical and respected authors in English classrooms

today, often qualifying as required reading for high school students at least once in their

secondary education careers (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices &

Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). In addition to his fame as an author, Shakespeare

is infamous for his complex, antiquated language that can baffle even the most competent of

English speakers. With respect to the obsolete vocabulary, varying grammatical structures, and

abstract allusions present in the Bard’s works, teaching Shakespeare is akin to teaching English

speakers to read a text written in a foreign language – a task that has frustrated and confounded

both teachers and students alike for generations.

A unique challenge that secondary English teachers face in this matter is teaching

Shakespeare in a multilingual classroom. Due to the nearly unanimous adoption of Shakespeare

into the high school curriculum, secondary English educators face the issue of how they can

introduce the Bard’s works to their pupils, not only making Shakespeare’s complex language and

themes approachable to the native English-speaking students in the classroom, but also

understandable for the mainstreamed ELLs who are just beginning to gain proficiency in modern

English. This paper will examine current views regarding the teaching of Shakespeare and ELLs,

and will present several strategies and activities which teachers can implement in their

classrooms when studying Shakespeare to make his works more accessible to ELLs.


Literature Review

Arguments for and against the use of classic literature with English Language Learners

are not new to the realm of English education; although Shakespeare’s plays may not be the

exact literary works in mind, several authors maintain that studying literature provides

opportunities for contextual English learning for ELLs. Many points supporting this line of

argumentation are outlined by Khatib, Derakhshan, and Rezaei (2011) in their review of how

literature can be integrated as language teaching material in EFL/ESL (English as a Foreign

Language/English as a Second Language) classrooms. These authors acknowledge that literature,

especially older canonical literature such as Shakespeare, can produce many difficulties for

ELLs; features of such literature that the authors mention that are particularly problematic for

ELLs include irregular syntax, antiquated lexical terms, and unfamiliar cultural concepts (pp.

203-5).

Despite these difficulties, the authors contend that literature presents valuable learning

opportunities for the students, as the “complexity… can become a source for practice” (Khatib et

al., 2011, p. 204). In addition to recognizing arguments against the use of literature with ELLs,

the authors present many aspects of literature that support teaching literary works to ELLs:

authentic input for studying the language of native English speakers, meaningful contexts for

language learning, grammar and vocabulary knowledge that students gain through reading, and

opportunities to develop critical thinking skills in their interpretations. In all, Khatib et al.

propose that literature as a site of reading instruction “provides a motivating drive for language

learning and teaching” for students who are learning English as a second language (p. 207).


Kooy and Chiu (1999) also advocate the use of literature with ELLs, asserting that

“literature… merits its own place in ESL teaching and learning – not only for its intrinsic worth,

but as an integral part of a language-learning program” (p. 74). The authors assert that literary

works can be used as a source of acculturation for non-native English speakers, and can help

expose them to aspects of the English-speaking culture to which they previously had been

unaware. Echoing the argument of Khatib et al., Kooy and Chiu suggest that complete texts

should be used in English classes, as they “challenge students in their original form” with

“original, authentic vocabulary” that is not created simply for a grammar lesson (p. 76). In

examining texts with a class, the authors advise that teachers should enthusiastically receive the

perspectives of individual students to expand the collective knowledge of the group and thus

enrich the reading experience of the learners (p. 77). By encouraging deep involvement in the

literature, Kooy and Chiu maintain that students will simultaneously develop their cultural

understandings as they acquire more knowledge of and skills in the English language (p. 83).

The work of Gibbons (2002) also supports the use of complete, authentic texts with

ELLs, focusing particularly on how reading such texts affects language development. While

discussing how to teach reading in a second language, she emphasizes that teachers should not

avoid texts with unfamiliar content or cultural material, as this reduces and limits ELLs’ learning

opportunities and therefore their language development (p. 83). By encountering texts just

beyond their current knowledge and reading level, Gibbons maintains that ELLs are able to

“develop their language skills in the course of reading… because the patterns of language are

‘open to notice’ in written language in a way that they are not in spoken language” (p. 97). In

this way, she asserts that ELLs gain English language skills through wide and varied reading.


Likewise, Gibbons (2002) asserts that this view on language learning development

implies that ELLs must be provided with “rich linguistic environments” in the texts that they

read (p. 97). She establishes that simplified texts meant to “teach reading” are often merely

strings of words and sentences meant to draw the reader’s attention to a specific form or aspect

of English; consequently, this leads ELLs away from understanding the text as coherent language

and suggests to them that they should be able to “read words or sentences but not continuous

text” (p. 98). For this reason, she stresses that “children should not be restricted to the familiar,

the known, and the ‘easy,’ and fed a watered down version of written language” (p. 99). Gibbons

determines that texts containing authentic language and contexts not only encourage ELLs to

read for meaning, but also build their language and literacy skills in English.

This use of context-driven literature with ELLs does not just apply to text-only literary

works, but also extends those containing graphics. Cary (2004) explores the usefulness of comics

in building both the language and literacy skills of students in multilingual English classrooms.

He asserts that comics in the forms of cartoons, comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels

provide accessible instructional material for ELLs, defending his stance with supporting

evidence from second language acquisition studies. Drawing on Krashen’s (2003) input

hypothesis and affective filter hypothesis, Cary argues that comics provide both comprehensible

input, or understandable messages, and a low-stress reading environment for language-learning

students. He claims that

Comics provide both the needed input and positive affect [for effective language

learning]. Abundant visual clues increase the amount of comprehensible input and

consequently boost reading comprehension and L2 acquisition. Increased

comprehension, in turn, keeps the affective filter low by eliminating or


considerably reducing the anxiety and frustration many students feel when

confronting… [text] above their current independent reading level. (p. 13)

Through this process of keeping the affective filter low and reducing the stress on the learner,

Cary maintains that comics and other graphic texts aid ELLs in language learning. Similarly, he

emphasizes that multimodal texts support language learning by providing authentic materials and

literature for ELLs, as they offer “authentic language-learning opportunities” and “rich, natural

language” (pp. 15, 24), aligning with Gibbons’ (2002) textual requirements for language

development.

Not every graphic text presents adequate material for these language-learning contexts;

therefore, teachers must be selective when choosing texts to share with their students. Pagliaro

(2014) discusses several ways in which educators can evaluate graphic novels, a type of

multimodal text, for literary and educational merit. Maintaining that “[t]he more information

conveyed to the reader nonverbally, the better the graphic novel”, he determined four common

characteristics of graphic novels that achieved this objective of effective nonverbal

communication: detailed settings, a form that functions, authentic dialogue, and expressive

characters (p. 37).

The detailed settings found in the images reveal the context for the story and for the

characters in it, allowing the readers to infer information about the world in which the story takes

place. When graphic texts possess a form that functions, the structure and format of the images

on the page deliver the story’s information to the readers in a clear, understandable way.

Authentic dialogue is necessary as this written communication easily reveals and maintains the

characters and settings within the story, furthering the plot without breaking the fourth wall.


Expressive characters deliver information about the characters’ motives, relationships, and

personalities, as well as information about the plot, without requiring exposition or background

explanations. Through his study of graphic texts, Pagliaro determines that these traits displayed

in a graphic novel’s images can greatly support and enhance a reader’s understanding of the

multimodal text.

These cases of the aforementioned authors all rely on the notion that, prior to engaging

with a text, students are both familiar with and active participants in good reading strategies.

However, some authors argue that teachers do not spend enough time in their classrooms

teaching their students, ELLs and monolingual English speakers included, how to read; as Susan

Spangler (2009) puts it, “many teachers of English don’t consider themselves reading specialists

and don’t teach reading skills to their students” (p. 130). As English teachers know, many

students struggle with understanding the explicit messages of texts, much less the implicit ones.

Their struggle is amplified when reading Shakespeare, as Balinska-Ourdeva et al. (2013) found

that even native-speaking students who had previous experience with reading the Bard’s texts

could not engage with or understand new Shakespearean texts without guidance. This challenge

is even more daunting for ELL students as they concentrate on understanding both the individual

words in the texts and how these words create a message in a foreign tongue. In order to help

students become aware of reading comprehension strategies that they can employ on their own,

teachers must make explicit strategy instruction an integral part of their English lessons

(DelliCarpini, 2011).

Miller and Perkins (1990) offer a variety of techniques that teachers can use in their

classrooms to teach reading comprehension to English-learning pupils. While their stance

focuses upon criticizing the lack of reading instruction that teachers infuse into their lessons, the


authors’ suggested strategies are highly applicable to teaching Shakespeare to ELLs. The authors

suggest teaching metacognitive strategies in which students track their own understanding of the

text and indicate how they came to their responses to comprehension questions; in doing so, the

students become aware that such questions can be answered from both textual and background

knowledge. This awareness is very important for ELLs encountering Shakespeare as it gives

these students the knowledge that they do not need to rely solely upon the antiquated language

featured in the texts for comprehension, but can also apply what they already know about the

context to build and enhance their overall understanding of the content.

Like Miller and Perkins, Lee (2013) refers to the importance of metacognition in reading.

Lee supports his position of explicitly teaching reading strategies in the ESL classroom by

referring to Kern’s (1989) conclusion that training students in explicit reading strategies has a

positive effect on L2 reader comprehension. He proposes several different strategies that teachers

can employ in the classroom including think-alouds (pp. 727-8) and integrating students’

responses and participation into lessons (p. 729). Overall, Lee asserts that teachers should help

their students “become both effective and active readers, not simply test takers” (p. 731). Many

of the strategies that Lee advocates in his work are particularly beneficial in teaching difficult

material such as Shakespeare to all learners in a multilingual English class, for they can readily

be adapted to demonstrate ways of approaching the incredibly-complex language of

Shakespeare’s works.

Some educators contend that tackling this problem of Shakespeare’s difficult language

with ELLs is best solved not through the instruction of specific reading strategies, but through

the employment of dramatic arts with language learners. Cheng and Winston (2011) explored

this approach through their high school English teaching practices in Taiwan. The two authors


recognized the potential benefits of utilizing Shakespeare in ESL contexts particularly through

the “pedagogic practices of educational drama” (p. 542). By considering the “interactive and

contextual essence of language use” (p. 543), as well as the necessity of the play element in

language learning (Cook as cited in Cheng & Winston, 2011), the authors sought to “strike up

memorable, personal connections between the players and [Shakespeare’s] language” in Cheng’s

ESL classroom.

This case study featured a classroom of 32 Taiwanese ESL students to whom Cheng

taught three of Shakespeare’s plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth. During instruction,

Cheng employed many teaching strategies modeled after those developed by the Royal

Shakespeare Company (Berry as cited in Cheng & Winston, 2011). Cheng’s activities gave her

students opportunities to express themselves physically as they interacted with lines from the

plays.

By collecting the reactions of the students in written journals and informal interviews, the

authors gauged that the students’ overall responses to the activities were “extremely positive” (p.

550), which prompted Cheng and Winston to conclude that

In being freed, albeit temporarily, from the pedagogical formalities of the

classroom… there is evidence that these students achieved high levels of personal

and emotional involvement and were stimulated by the verse, the plots, and the

pedagogy into complex, reflective engagements with the themes, issues, and

above all the language of the plays. (p. 554)

The intrinsic connection that Cheng’s students experienced through their dramatic interactions

with the texts demonstrates both the thematic value of teaching Shakespeare to ELLs as well as


their ability to comprehend the text despite its challenging language. As seen in this study, a

teacher needs only to help students look past the antiquated language to see the similarities

between Shakespeare’s created worlds and their own, helping them to engage in the plots and to

realize the relevance of the stories. This identification of the connections between play and

present pushes ELL students beyond puzzling over the wording and allows them to analyze the

valuable messages underlying the plays’ intricate plots.

By compiling a wide variety of scholars’ thoughts, ideas, and opinions, it is quite easy to

see that the issue of Shakespeare in the multilingual mainstream classroom is not one that is

easily solved. However, it is clear that, despite their indisputable lexical complexity,

Shakespeare’s works offer many opportunities for English Language Learners to gain more

knowledge about the English language. With an assortment of supportive activities, English

educators can implement lessons that support the learning of both the ELLs and the native

English speakers within their classroom walls.

Pedagogical Practices for Teaching Shakespeare to ELLs

Many general viewpoints and suggestions exist regarding how to instruct ELLs in the

mainstream English classroom; very few of the authors of such views, however, specifically

address how to teach Shakespeare’s works to ELLs. For this reason, it is necessary to consider

multiple avenues of instruction and apply how their qualities can benefit ELLs in the study of

Shakespeare. Through the process of researching various instructional methods and their

usefulness when working with ELLs, three types of pedagogical practice proved to be most

applicable to and beneficial in approaching Shakespeare with ELLs: teaching reading

comprehension, teaching with dramatic arts, and teaching with graphic texts. While all of the


strategies presented in this paper can be beneficial in assisting fluent English speakers to

understand Shakespeare’s antiquated language, their analyses and justifications are specifically

tailored to the benefits that such practices hold for ELLs in their encounters with Shakespeare’s

plays.

Teaching Reading Comprehension

Providing background information. To aid ELLs in their reading comprehension,

English teachers can build their students’ understanding of the contexts in which Shakespeare

wrote his plays by providing background knowledge. Several different methods could be

employed to help students construct their knowledge of the play prior to delving into the text.

Teachers can enrich students’ understanding of the situational contexts by supplying historical

material about the time period in which the play was written and performed, as political and

social events of Shakespeare’s time often influenced its production and reception; this studying

Shakespeare with historical knowledge, Balinska-Ourdeva et al. (2013) maintains, is “necessary”

in promoting student comprehension (p. 345). Likewise, giving background information on or

visual representations of the setting in which the play’s action takes place can give ELLs a better

understanding of the story’s context, aiding them in “seeing” where the play’s occurs.

Similarly, teachers can also enhance their ELLs’ comprehension of the play by

presenting background material about the play itself. Miller and Perkins (1990) advocate

providing a pre-reading précis, or a summary of important information about the characters, plot,

and problem presented in the text. Showing clips from or full-length films of Shakespeare stage

adaptations can also lend to better reading comprehension; Spangler (2009) contends that


[b]ringing in selections from the text after viewing will help students rethink the

productions and offer interpretive possibilities, thus sharpening their critical-

thinking skills… Students, having already seen the words performed, are better

positioned to understand the nuances in the language of the text that they have, in

effect, already “read” on screen. (pp. 131-2)

Such summaries and pre-reading viewings provide ELLs with information that is necessary to

understanding the story as a whole; this eliminates the need for language learners to struggle

through reading a text just to grasp the action and events taking place, which in turn allows them

to focus upon the language of the plays and how the characters interact with one another.

Explicit strategy instruction. Another basic way in which teachers can assist English-

learning students when approaching Shakespeare is by explicitly instructing in reading

comprehension prior to, while, and after engaging with a text. Kern (1989) addresses the

necessity for explicitly teaching ELLs reading strategies in his work. When encountering a text

for the first time, he acknowledges that ELL readers are often “more attentive to the surface

structure of the language” – essentially, they concentrate more on understanding individual

words in the text and therefore pay less attention to the overall meanings and underlying

messages of the text (Kern, p. 136). This can be particularly problematic when reading

Shakespeare, as many important aspects of the plots and themes in his plays are not stated

explicitly and instead must be gathered from the implications within the characters’ speech. If

ELLs focus too closely on the individual words and not on their meaning as a whole in the

sentence or in the context of the play, they will quickly become lost in Shakespeare’s complex

wording and will be unable to understand the general storyline of the play, much less the deep-

seated, thought-provoking themes that Shakespeare addresses in his works. In order to combat


this common word-focused practice, teachers must help ELLs become aware of helpful

comprehension-building strategies like Miller and Perkins’ (1990) metacognitive understanding

checks that they can employ when reading.

Vocabulary instruction. A simple way to assist ELLs in comprehending some of

Shakespeare’s language is teaching passage-specific vocabulary and phrases. English teachers

should be highly aware of the content which their students are to encounter during each class,

and in preparing for the lessons teachers can make note of specific words and phrases that are

exceptionally difficult to understand without explanation for ELLs and native speakers alike.

Teachers can then create a comprehensive list of these challenging words and phrases and

introduce their students to this list prior to delving into the reading. In providing such

explanations, teachers help to both prepare their ELLs for reading and improve reading fluency,

for the students are aware of the potentially problematic portions of the reading and, with the

knowledge of what these words and phrases signify, can avoid expending valuable time and

mental effort in searching for superficial meaning.

While vocabulary lists are helpful for especially challenging words, teaching ELLs how

to approach unfamiliar vocabulary on their own is an essential strategy when reading

Shakespeare. A common starting point for tackling unfamiliar vocabulary is to examine the word

parts. It can also be helpful when teachers provide sheets listing common English prefixes,

suffixes, and affixes that students can refer to while reading; however, as Freeman and Freeman

(2004) acknowledge, structural analysis alone can be difficult as it requires the reader to

recognize the word parts, know their meanings, and be able to combine the separate word parts

and their meanings to guess at the word’s overall meaning (p. 214). For this reason, ELLs must

be taught that if they cannot deduce the meaning of the word from its parts, they should look for


contextual clues that indicate its meaning by observing how the word functions in the sentence

surrounding it. In order for these vocabulary-focused approaches to be most useful for students,

teachers should provide instruction on these strategies before starting to explore a text, and

should also explicitly refer to these strategies often in the early stages of reading the play; this

gives ELLs the ability to begin practicing new reading strategies during their first encounters

with Shakespeare, and reminds them of the usefulness of these strategies in new reading

situations.

Metacognitive reading strategies. Teaching ELLs metacognitive strategies to employ

while reading Shakespeare is also incredibly helpful to their overall comprehension of the texts.

With such strategies, students keep track of their own understanding and learning as they read,

helping to shift the classroom responsibility of ensuring comprehension from the teacher to the

students (Dellicarpini, Miller).

In order to introduce ELLs to the way that fluent readers approach Shakespeare’s works,

teachers should incorporate think-aloud activities in their instruction, especially during the first

lessons. Think-alouds are activities in which readers verbally report their thinking processes

while reading a text (Lee, 2013, p. 727). The teacher is the expert reader in the classroom and

can effectively model the process of comprehending a complicated Shakespeare text to his/her

students by reading a passage aloud and pausing occasionally while reading to elaborate upon

his/her understanding of the text and how he/she came to that understanding. Once students have

become accustomed to this method and understand how to engage with the text while monitoring

their own understanding, think-aloud activities could potentially be adapted to constitute a small

group activity in which students read through a passage together and work as a group to

construct their understanding of the reading.


Another helpful metacognition strategy that teachers can employ with their ELLs in

reading Shakespeare stems from Raphael and Pearson’s (1982) instructional strategy that helps

students monitor their own awareness when responding to inference and literal questions. In this

method, students learn to answer the comprehension question – “How do I know? – in three

different ways: with textually explicit responses in which the student indicates the answer to a

question by labelling their answer RIGHT HERE in the same sentence from which the question

developed; with textually implicit responses in which the student find his/her answer in a portion

of text different from the question-developing sentence and indicates the answer to this question

by labelling their answer THINK AND SEARCH; and with scriptally implicit responses

originating from the student’s background knowledge which are labelled ON MY OWN (Miller

and Perkins, p. 86).

This activity can be viewed as a written version of a think-aloud activity, and helps

students to track and evaluate their comprehension in a written form. A written approach such as

this can be especially helpful to ELLs encountering Shakespeare as it gives them the opportunity

to think about what they know or need to know about the text to understand it, and allows them

time to re-read through portions of the text to enhance their understanding. This type of

instruction assists students in their awareness that they can use both their knowledge of the text

as well as their background knowledge to build their overall understanding of the piece, not just

relying on one or the other (Miller & Perkins, p. 86). This is important in the study of

Shakespeare as the playwright often includes out-of-text references or allusions to prior events in

the play, which requires ELLs to draw upon their prior knowledge to help make sense of the

current portions of the text.


Through the explicit instruction and guided practice of such reading comprehension

strategies as mentioned in this section, ELLs are able to become more independent in their

reading and understanding, and therefore they become more responsible for their own learning

(DelliCarpini, 2011, p. 109). By using such strategies on their own, ELLs can become more fluid

in their reading abilities and more confident in their abilities to tackle Shakespeare.

Teaching With Dramatic Arts

Dramatic arts have proven to be incredibly useful in engaging ELLs and helping them to

connect with the texts that they read. In addition to increasing motivation, reducing anxiety, and

enhancing language acquisition for ELLs (Richard-Amato, 1998), performance-infused lessons

can provide visual, auditory, and kinesthetic input that helps to integrate new information

presented in the texts with the students’ previous knowledge (Greenfader & Brouillette, 2013).

Since Shakespeare’s plays were written with the intention of being staged and viewed as

theatrical performances, it is only fitting that teachers incorporate drama activities into their

lesson plans when studying such works, especially considering the benefits that such activities

reap in aiding both the comprehension and contribution of ELLs in the mainstream classroom.

A prominent way in which dramatic activities assist in ELL understanding of

Shakespeare is through direct connection with the aspects of the text. As noted by Greenfader

and Brouillette (2013), “[d]ramatization helps students better understand the plot and the feelings

of the characters, even if they do not initially comprehend all of the words” (p. 173). As they

read and act from the perspective of a particular character, students draw upon their own life

experiences and knowledge to bring that character to life. Likewise, students must imagine

themselves in the positions of the characters and therefore begin to comprehend the relationships


that characters have with one another, as well as how specific story events affect the characters.

This is especially important in the multilingual classroom, as ELLs are able to “[bring] their own

interests, linguistic resources, and forms of cultural expression to bear on their roles, rendering

visible contesting perspectives and values to the classroom community” (Medina & Campano,

2006, p. 333). In this way, ELLs are able to engage in deeper levels of thinking that are

necessary to understanding the intricacies of Shakespeare’s plays as well as contribute their

unique life experiences to the roles and to post-activity discussions, enriching not only their own

understanding but also the collective understanding of the class as a whole. To help initiate such

high levels of thinking and facilitate meaningful peer interaction, teachers can implement a

variety of drama and role-playing activities when studying Shakespeare in the English classroom

to engage ELLs.

Freeze-frames. One such strategy is often known as freeze-frames or tableaus, which

allow the participants to “analyze a particular event more deeply” as well as “conceptualize

bodily visual representations” (Medina & Campano, 2006, p. 340). In this activity, a group of

students is assigned a scene or a portion of a scene and must choose a specific moment from that

scene to portray as if the characters were frozen for a moment in the middle of the action. This

activity is socially useful for ELLs as it gives them the opportunity to discuss with and learn

from their fellow group members about their assigned scene and allows them to contribute in

deciding the portion to portray. Likewise, this activity is beneficial in helping ELLs to connect

with Shakespeare’s characters; in order to re-create a scene effectively and believably portray the

characters’ various reactions, the students must understand the relationships between the

characters and the action in the scene, as well as how these relationships and actions affect each

character on an individual basis. This activity can also help teachers formatively assess their


students’ understanding of the play as they can ask individual students to justify their choices of

portrayal and to elaborate on the connections that they are making with the play.

Hot seat. Another drama activity that Medina and Campano (2006) suggest can increase

ELL’s understanding of and connections with the text is a hot seat, or interview, with specific

characters. One or two students act as specified characters, and the rest of the class members play

the roles of interviewers, coming up with questions to ask the characters regarding their actions

and thoughts in the play. The student playing the role of the character must then respond to the

questions from that character’s perspective. This activity is beneficial to both the students who

conduct the interview as well as those acting as the characters themselves: the interviewers must

think of questions that they have which relate to both the plot and the character and are able to

hear their questions answered from a different perspective, while those acting as the characters

must respond from the characters’ perspectives, drawing upon both their prior knowledge of

what the character has experienced in the play as well as their personal experiences to indicate

how the character would react and respond to the questions. Even if ELLs do not participate as

characters during the activity, as such tasks require a strong grasp of the language that ELLs may

lack, hot seats can help to flesh out Shakespeare’s complicated characters, solidify their

understanding of the events in the plays, and clarify how the characters affect and are affected by

these events.

Readers Theater. Readers Theater, as outlined by Kerry-Moran (2006), can also be

useful in supporting ELLs in their encounters with Shakespeare. She describes Readers Theater

as “a staged reading of a play or dramatic piece of work designed to entertain, inform, or

influence” the audience (p. 317). In this activity, students read aloud a modified script with one

reader per character; should the time, teacher, and class permit, a script could also be dramatized


and performed for the class or for an outside audience, such as another class or in a public

showcase. A Shakespeare play presented as Readers Theater can be beneficial for ELLs in

several different ways. First, the language in a Readers Theater script can be more modern,

making it more accessible to and less intimidating for emerging readers. Additionally, the oral

element of the activity allows ELLs to hear the language as they see it, simultaneously

reinforcing both pronunciation and meaning while giving the students two modes of input with

which to process the words. Finally, reading Shakespeare’s plays mimics the way that the

playwright intended the stories to be performed, allowing students to hear the poetry in his

wording and catch nuances of the characters embedded in their language.

This activity can be adapted for the level and interest of the students; classes with

beginning English Language (EL) readers can read from more simplified adaptations, whereas

classes with intermediate-level learners could be asked to read or even create and perform their

own scripts (Peregoy & Boyle as cited in Rieg & Paquette, 2009). This process of writing a

Readers Theater script can also be useful in helping ELLs engage with Shakespeare as it causes

students to carefully analyze the portion of text to ensure comprehension and accuracy prior to

rewriting the scenes in modern language.

Teaching With Graphic Texts

Due to their status as language learners, it is an unavoidable fact that ELLs struggle

greatly with reading texts, especially when encountering complex texts such as Shakespeare’s. In

a similar vein, ELLs face “formidable barriers” when they approach a written text that lacks

accompanying visual contexts (Chun, 2009, p. 146). A potential remedy to this issue can be


found in the use of graphic representations and adaptations of Shakespeare’s texts while teaching

the plays.

Comprehension assistance. Graphic novels, or complete stories presented in a comic-

like manner through visuals often complemented by text, offer a wealth of comprehension

assistance for ELLs. Paula Wolfe and Danielle Kleijwegt (2012) maintain that “visual

[interpretations] may provide students the ability to understand and communicate ideas they

cannot yet comprehend from text alone” (p. 30). This aspect of graphic novels can be especially

helpful to ELLs when considering the antiquated language of Shakespeare’s plays. The visual

story that supplements the text in graphic texts has the potential to “provide clues that shed light

on the meaning of an unfamiliar word or grammatical structure” (Krashen, 1989, p 402). By

seeing the written words and viewing the visuals that accompany the text, ELLs can have a better

opportunity to understand or guess at the meaning of an unfamiliar word or phrase; this

opportunity improves when the teacher reads the text aloud, as the addition of aural input boosts

the probability of comprehending or recognizing the written words. By using Pagliaro’s (2014)

qualifications of a good multimodal text when choosing a graphic adaptation of a Shakespeare

play, teachers can increase ELLs’ abilities to understand the content of the text and the plot of

the play as a whole.

Enhancing conceptual understanding. Similarly, graphic versions of Shakespeare’s

plays can also aid students in recognizing the complex relationships between and dispositions of

the characters. The detailed images of graphic representations, coupled with relevant text, allow

ELLs to connect how the characters’ verbal exchanges, actions, and relationships affect the

story’s events. In their adaptations of the plays, graphic novel artists and manga mangakas are

able to represent personality traits in the characters’ appearances, and can elaborate upon the


characters’ relationships with one another – their allegiances, alliances, and animosities –

through their illustrations; for example, in the graphic adaptation Romeo and Juliet: The War

(Work et al., 2011) all Capulets wear white to show their affiliation with one another, whereas

Montagues contrastingly dress in black to show their societal opposition.

These physical depictions can also be altered to symbolize character changes throughout

the story. A character’s coloring or appearance may vary during the course of the novel to

demonstrate a modification in mindset or temperament. In addressing such micro-semiotic

nuances, Wolfe and Kleijwegt (2012) stress that “[g]ood multimodal texts seek not to simply

represent but rather to reveal underlying conceptual relations” (p. 30), and furthermore

emphasize that teachers must provide explicit instruction to all students, including ELLs, in

being “active perceivers” of such intricacies in visual representations of Shakespeare’s plays (pp.

32-4). This necessity of actively perceiving intricacies also extends to the common practice of

studying literary techniques utilized in Shakespeare’s plays. To help students grasp complex,

implicit messages conveyed by the Bard through his works, teachers often focus their learners’

attention on literary devices that offer additional significance to the plays, such as theme, mood,

tone, symbolism, and metaphor. These devices, however, are often rather abstract in texts and

can easily be misunderstood by students, especially ELLs who lack the necessary vocabulary for

grasping the in-depth definitions of these concepts. To combat this lack of understanding,

Dallacqua (2012) proposes that graphic adaptations of classic works are useful for introducing

struggling readers to these devices as such texts “provide a different way to read the work[s]

without altering the characters, themes, and tones” present in the classics (p. 366). Through close

examinations of the images in multimodal texts, teachers can present and explain concrete

examples of the literary devices in Shakespeare’s plays to their students. This practice makes


these vital but abstract concepts significantly more approachable for ELLs; by associating a

device with a specific image or series of images in the graphic adaptation, ELLs are better able to

grasp the idea of the device, even if they do not understand all of the words in its definition, and

can understand how it affects the plot, the characters, and Shakespeare’s messages in the play.

Teaching visual literacy. Teachers must keep in mind that ELL students may never have

been exposed to a graphic novel’s visual structure and therefore may have to adjust to this

specific type of visual literacy in order to understand the story (Chun, 2009). To help ELLs

understand the format of graphic texts, teachers can improve students’ visual literacy by

providing explicit instruction and explanations in unique features of graphic texts (e.g. captions,

speech balloons, onomatopoeias, motion lines, etc.), modelling reading a multimodal text for

students, and providing practice by reading comic panels and strips. By viewing the scenes of a

graphic text in succession, a reader must make inferential leaps to understand what occurs in the

story, and “the conventions of action and movement must be correctly read to visualize the

action” (Pagliaro, 2014, p. 34). These inferential leaps are necessary for comprehending the

content of the story, and can also be explicitly addressed during ELLs’ initial encounters with

graphic texts to ensure that the students understand how to read such an adaptation. It is

important to call attention to these details when reading graphic adaptations of Shakespeare’s

plays with ELLs because such elements contribute to their overall understanding of the play as

well as their own interpretations of the story and its characters.

Readers as an audience. Perhaps the most convincing case for the use of graphic

representations when teaching Shakespeare to ELLs stems from the visual portrayal of the play

as a whole through such media and how this can affect readers. Serban (2014) argues that

graphic text such as manga “[highlights] not only the importance of actually seeing/watching


Shakespeare’s plays (on stage), but also their main purpose, as Shakespeare mostly wrote for

entertainment” (p. 22). Shakespeare’s stories were written to be viewed by an audience, and the

visual representations in manga and graphic novels effectively “provide their reader with a

cinematic experience of Shakespeare’s work… [that allows] the reader to move through the story

at his/her own rhythm” (Serban, 2014, p. 26). This aspect of flexibility is incredibly important

for ELLs, as their reading skills, motivations, and confidence vary drastically when reading

modern texts, let alone Shakespearean ones. By being able to read at their own pace while

simultaneously engaging emotionally with the characters (Serban, 2014), ELLs are able to enjoy

the story as part of its audience, matching the Bard’s intentions in his production of his plays.

Sample Case Application

I will now demonstrate how several of these activities can be implemented to make

Shakespeare more accessible to the ELLs in the mainstream English classroom. I have created

this sample case study under the notion that there is no ELL program in my school district and

that any and all ELL students are immediately placed into mainstream classrooms without

outside support, no matter their degree of fluency in English. However, if such services and

programs were to be available to students in my school district, I would openly collaborate with

ESL professionals in order to best provide instruction that scaffolds my ELL students’ learning,

following O’Byrne’s (2001) suggestion of collaboration to improve ELL preparation and

experiences in the mainstream classroom.

My diverse 9th grade English class contains 27 students and speakers four different first

languages: eighteen students are native English speakers, one student is fluent in Bosnian, two

students speak Vietnamese as their first language, and six students are native Spanish speakers.


My Bosnian student is the only of my ELLs who can read English at grade level; of the Spanish

speakers only two are fluent in spoken English, and neither Vietnamese student is fluent in

conversational English.

In my school district, freshmen are required to read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

(noted hereafter as R&J) in the drama unit of the curriculum. Prior to presenting the play, I

would spend a few class periods introducing my students to the concept of dramatic

performances and explicitly teaching them how to read scripts. With the theme of the R&J

portion being choices and their effects, I would pique my students’ interest with an anticipatory

activity in which I would ask them to write about a time in their lives when they chose to do

something that went against their parents’ wishes. After being given the opportunity to share

their stories and how their choices affected their lives and relationships with the class, I would

give them a brief introduction to the play --- like a teaser from the back of a book or movie ---

and would have them write and share their prior knowledge about the play, including other

versions and adaptations of the “star-crossed lovers” story, in small groups.

The following class period I would give each student a sheet providing some background

history on Shakespeare and the play’s setting in Venice. We would read through the sheet

together and view images of the playwright, the setting, and the characters. As a class, we would

brainstorm conjectures about the characters’ personalities and roles in the play, being sure to

justify our ideas by referencing a character’s positioning, dress, or expression in the image.

Students would write their descriptions on a character sheet that I would provide for them, and

they would keep this sheet to add to throughout the duration of the R&J unit. We would conclude

the class period by going over a list of vocabulary and phrases from the first three scenes of the


play, and discussing how to read comics and graphic novels with me modelling how to do so on

a sample comic distributed to the class.

Our main text for the unit would be Classic Comic Ltd.’s Romeo and Juliet: The

Graphic Novel (Original Text Version) (2009), as this graphic adaptation of the play uses both

imagery and Shakespeare’s original language to present the story to its readers. For each section

of the play that we would discuss in class on a particular day, I would implement various

activities. Early on in our reading, I would show clips from a stage or movie adaptation of the

play to introduce my students to the sound of Shakespeare’s language, as well as to help them

visualize how the story would be presented following Shakespeare’s intent. We would then

discuss portions of the reading in class, with me reading selected or difficult sections aloud and

modelling how I interpret these portions through think-alouds to better help my ELLs understand

how an experienced reader tackles such complex language. In discussions and response

activities, I would encourage my students to explain not only their understanding of the

characters, lines, and story, but also how they are represented in Classic Comics’ adaptation,

focusing not only on the text present on the pages but also in the physical portrayals of the

characters and their actions. We would draw connections between the choices that the characters

make throughout the story and how these choices affect their relationships with other characters,

the story itself, and the way that the characters are displayed in both the visual art and in the

opinions of the readers.

As my ELL students become comfortable with reading the text and with incorporating

the reading strategies that I present, I would assign more group activities allowing for reciprocal

teaching. For such activities, I would choose the groups and would create heterogeneous groups

of four students each, taking care to put my ELLs in groups with strong native English speakers


who can help them in their understanding and will encourage them to share their interpretations

and thoughts. Reciprocal teaching small group activities would allow my ELLs to hone their

reading comprehension skills in a low-stakes group setting while simultaneously ensuring that

their voice and ideas are heard within the group.

Additionally, I would also incorporate the use of Readers Theater with modern language

during our reading of the play, particularly in complex scenes such as Act III Scene I, in which

Mercutio and Tybalt meet their violent demise and Romeo is banished. I would use a previously-

written Readers Theater script from Kroll’s Simply Shakespeare: Readers Theatre for Young

People (2003), which supplies a modern version of Romeo and Juliet. Since all of my students,

including my ELLs, already should have read the scenes prior to class, they will know the events

that occur in the scene. In this situation, Readers Theater can allow my students to explore the

thought processes and reactions of the characters in such scenes, as well as “see” firsthand how

the choices of the characters affect the story and its events. This activity also gives my ELLs the

opportunity to participate and learn with the modernized adaptation of the text, which is even

less daunting than the accessible graphic version that Classic Comics presents.

In a final project, I would have my students work in groups to create their own

adaptations of R&J by writing their own scripts and presenting their works to the class. For this

project, my students would need to work together to develop the setting, dialogue, and characters

of their adaptations, drawing on their collective knowledge and interpretations of R&J to create a

finished piece. This product could be a filmed or staged version, a comic representation, or a

Readers Theater performance of the script. This project would be appropriate for my ELLs as it

allows them to review what they have learned about R&J with their classmates and gives them

the opportunity to share and contribute to the group’s understanding and final product.


Conclusions

In researching teaching practices that English educators can employ in order to assist

mainstreamed ELLs in understanding Shakespeare’s plays, three overarching methods have

arisen as potentially being useful, each with their own set of unique strategies and aspects to

engage and support ELLs.

Explicitly teaching reading comprehension strategies and providing students with key

information to build their contextual knowledge of the plays has proven to be beneficial in that it

aids ELLs in constructing their own meaning of the texts. This is essential in promoting learning

with ELLs, for, as Ahmadi and Gilakjani (2012) remark, “[w]ithout meaning construction,

learning does not take place” (p. 2054). By supplying students with the necessary information

and strategies to enhance both their literary comprehension and thematic understanding of

Shakespeare’s texts, teachers help their students achieve higher levels of thinking about the text

and its implications, thus facilitating the higher-order talk and writing that Applebee (2002)

asserts are imperative to academic success.

The use of dramatic play when studying Shakespeare also provides ELLs with a

purposeful platform for learning. Rieg and Paquette (2009) affirm that “[u]sing drama and

movement facilitates the brain to learn and retain information… [which provides] a stimulating

environment for… ELLs” (p. 153). By utilizing drama exercises and performance activities in

the classroom, not only do teachers engage their ELLs in social actions that can improve not only

their English communication skills but can also help students appreciate that the significance of

the play and its multifaceted characteristics is best realized through Shakespeare’s intended

manner: through the interaction of audience and performance.


Using graphic representations can also be beneficial in aiding ELLs while engaging with

Shakespeare’s plays as these sources provide both visual and textual input for the reader,

enhancing their ability to follow the plot and increasing their understanding of the story as a

whole. Pagliaro (2014) provide many suggestions for teachers in choosing graphic novels to best

serve students, emphasizing that utilizing such texts in visual literacy pedagogy “has benefits

for… English Language Learners (ELLs)” (p. 34). Likewise, this practice has the potential to

encourage ELLs to read more texts on their own, as employing well-done graphic novels in the

classroom “can enrich the students’ experiences as a new way of imparting information, serving

as transitions into more print-intensive works, enticing reluctant readers into prose books and…

offering literary experiences that linger in the mind long after the book is finished” (Weiner,

2004, p. 115).

In order to confirm the beneficial natures of these strategies, further research must be

conducted in this field, focusing specifically upon determining which pedagogical practices are

most effective in helping ELLs to explore Shakespeare’s themes without becoming overwhelmed

by the archaic language and complex plot structures featured in the plays. This exploration

should be the true purpose of all teaching and learning activities provided in English classrooms

around the world. Such endeavors which stretch the abilities, intellects, and imaginations of

learner and teacher often prove to be the most worthwhile, making the study of Shakespeare a

challenging but incredibly rewarding experience for both students and educators alike.


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