CONVERSATION CLUB : THE VOICE ACTING

Perfect imperfection

Voice acting is an easy and relevant activity to set up with students for a Conversation Club. It can be adapted to a variety of themes and formats. This workshop explores a cinematic theme while encouraging students to become actors in their own English learning by voice acting some characters in English.

The workshop can be divided into three phases:
1) Presentation of the theme and explanation of the workshop, with definitions (25min)
2) Group voice acting practice (45min)
3) Feedback, including videos of other groups (10min) I’ve already run theseConversation Clubs 5 times, with two different themes. They were always very popular, and the feedback was excellent. Each time, the students were very involved, and the most complicated part was getting them to respect the time limit!

1) Presentation of the theme and explanation of the workshop, with definitions (25min)

The first theme was Japanese animation. As the students already had some knowledge of series, I concentrated on films by Studio Ghibli, director Satoshi Kon and some great classics of Japanese animation for adults. The idea was to show the diversity of Japanese animation, not just Naruto or One Piece.

The second theme was Disney animated films. I presented the founder Walter Disney and the cultural importance of his company on the history of international cinema. Then I presented a «Which Dinsey princess are you?» quiz for a quick overview of the latest Disney movies.

The choice of extracts is very important. I searched Youtube for extracts of the films presented in the first part of this workshop. It seems to me that the ideal scene is one in which the dialogue is clearly divided between 2 or 3 characters (4max). Over the course of the workshops, I’ve come to realize that extracts lasting about a minute are more than enough. The scene should also be easy to read in terms of the characters’ intentions, without needing to know the film. Animation has the advantage of often having very expressive characters, which means that students can really play or even «overplay» comic, sad or angry roles…

Next, I take a closer look at sound in animated films, explaining the differences between dubbing, voice acting, soundtracks, and intra- or extra-diegetic sounds. From these definitions, I can explain the concept of the workshop and what they will have to produce.

2) Group voice acting practice (45min)

Students work in groups of 2 to 4. But be careful! Each group must have at least one student with a cell phone running the TikTok application! This was never a problem, and some students even had other applications that let them record sounds.
The first step is to send the selected extracts WITHOUT SOUND to one person in each group. We don’t want them to be influenced by existing dialogues… In groups, they have to choose which video they want to voice-act. This also depends on the number of characters available. I insist that everyone in the group takes part in the dialogues.
Once the video has been chosen, they can start writing the dialogue. I really encourage them to write down what they want to say for the lip- syncronization. Extracts are often very fast-moving, and without this preparation, they don’t know what to say during the recording.
Then simply upload the video to Tiktok and press the «sound recorder» button (often the last one in the options on the right of the application). They can do this in several stages, adding music and effects.
For recording, it’s essential to be in a quiet place with no other groups around. They must speak loudly and close to the microphone. I tell them they don’t have to do the whole extract, but at least 40 seconds.
Time can be difficult to manage in this workshop, each group having its own rhythm, with some perfectionist students wanting to record over and over again. I go back and forth between the groups to try and keep everyone at roughly the same level.

Important :
– each student must have a character ;
– they must write their dialogue ;
– record in a quiet place ;

3) Feedback, including videos of other groups (10min)

Students must record the Tik Tok video and send it back to me. When everyone is back inthe Immersion Room, we all watch the videos together on the TV and it’s often very funny! I also encourage students to share their feedback and observations on the workshop, what they found positive, negative, what could be done again…

by Solène Gaudfernau

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