ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines four techniques that can, used appropriately, enable close attention to Shakespeare’s language.
One way of easing pupils into the language is, after going through a summary of the plot, to invite them to relate selected lines to the plot summary: Which characters are likely to have said these things, in what circumstances? The aim is not to be right, but to make sense. The lines must be carefully selected in relation to the abilities of the class, keeping a balance between the obvious, so that they can succeed to some degree straight away, and the really quite difficult. The lines can also be chosen to focus on those aspects of the play that the teacher wants to focus on, whether it’s the nature of love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, servanthood and slavery, or magic and power, in The Tempest, or passion and destiny in Romeo and Juliet. After the pupils have discussed and attempted justification of their answers, they will have an enhanced sense of the plot and will have begun to get the feel of some limited samples of the language. It may be best not to finish this discussion by giving the ‘right’ answers; instead leave the class to notice the lines as they come up in the reading of the play.
