What Is Taught In Acting Classes? 10 Great Things You’ll Learn

Although not every school offers theater classes, as teachers we can exercise our creativity and integrate acting opportunities with our students. We can develop our students’ acting potential that will benefit them far beyond school performances. Hence, let’s take a look at what is taught in acting classes.

Prologue

“All the world’s a stage, 

And all men and women merely players.”

I just love reading the lines of Jacques in the famous play of William Shakespeare, As You Like It.  It connotes that people are actors and are assigned to different roles in the world.

Hence, acting really plays a big role in our existence as human beings and as professionals.

We act every day! We teach with enthusiasm. We make a difference in the lives of our students.

As for me, I appreciate the roles I play every day. Being a mother and a teacher makes me a worthy person, I believe.

I act. I dramatize. I teach. I live. Well, this is life and acting has made it even more colorful.

And sometimes we celebrate it in the teaching profession to make learning more enriching. Learning to act for this reason is a pretty good one!

Throughout our lives, we are acting to perform our roles better. “And one man in his time plays many parts…” The roles we play in real life will somehow give the foundation on how we act as role models to our students.

Just like acting on stage, it’s a matter of expression and passion to use effective teaching methods in order to capture students’ attention.

Since I wasn’t able to attend acting school when I was a student, I intensively used search engines to scour the Internet on what to learn in acting classes.

And I wonder, can we also teach them in our regular classes?  I crafted this so we can actually get into the real work of acting.

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The Role of Acting in the Classroom

Through differentiated instruction, I usually include role-playing as one of the interactive performance tasks.  Notably, my students enjoy doing it and they get excited every time they perform in front of an audience.

I find it a useful task to help build confidence among my students and to improve their acting skills because I believe that it’s useful even after they graduate.

How many times do you talk with learners who are not comfortable in their drama roles? What do you say? How do you encourage your students to act and perform?

With the diversity of learners, we can never say that all our learners love acting and are kinesthetically and artistically inclined.

However, by giving them opportunities to perform in varied interactive activities, somehow they learn to develop and appreciate their acting skills.

Moreover, they tend to carve self-awareness and help them appreciate their differences.

Theatrical acting requires talent and it can be harnessed. Attending acting classes can be your first step to becoming an actor and actress or to becoming a member of a theater play.

If you’re interested in launching an acting career in the future, then enrolling in acting classes is a big help. It can help you discover your acting prowess.

But I guess, as teachers, there’s no need for us to extend our studies and attend acting classes because I know we have the innate ability to act. I am just very confident in our versatility, flexibility, and adaptability.

All right. I know that some of your students are performers and they love to act in front of everyone but unfortunately, not all schools offer acting classes.

But, as teachers, we can make our students act through the different performance tasks we embed in our lessons. By that, we can somehow give our students opportunities to develop their acting skills.

Through in-depth research, I gathered important things that one might learn in acting classes.

Now, if acting is one of the things that you and your students enjoy doing, then journey with me, and let’s learn together what is taught in acting classes.

What Is Taught In Acting Classes? 10 Great Things You’ll Learn

1. Confidence

Attending acting classes requires confidence. Although it can be developed and learned, still one needs to have the guts to perform in front of many people.

Learning to act is indeed a confidence expounder. Expressing emotions at the forefront can’t really work with people with low self-esteem.

Students in acting classes are bubbly. Acting makes them so. They have to be ready with every role given to them. And every act requires confidence.

Gladly, professionals who are handling acting classes enhance their strategies to help boost the confidence levels of their students.

Speaking comfortably in front of an audience requires skills and confidence. It’s essential to portray roles effectively.

Confidence is crucial in acting. It can be developed through consistent and diligent practice. The more you gain experience in acting the more confident you can become.

Delivering lines in front of many people doesn’t just require memorizing them perfectly but also expressing them like they’re real.

That is why for school presentations, like roleplaying and drama, we always give time for our students to practice. It’s an initial step to building their confidence and discovering their innate abilities.

One can’t act effectively if he or she is timid or shy. Remember that the emotional range of the characters is made visible by the way they are portrayed by the ones acting.

In acting classes, students are given solid acting training and workshops to help them always prepare for scenes they may portray in their classes or if they want to pursue to get acting work in the future.

2. Public Speaking

How to become a better speaker? Well, you can’t do this again without number 1! It’s because speaking effectively and leaving an impression requires confidence.

Delivering a speech and portraying roles may be different but they are both performed in front of many people. Acting classes can still give you training on how to speak both with conviction and proper expression.

Acting classes provide training for public speaking. The simple oral recitations in your class might cause intimidation to your students, especially those who are meek. They tend to be nervous. They stammer. They perspire profusely.

Then, I really believe that acting on stage is not just for everyone. There are people who are really meant for acting and performing on stage.

However, through proper training gained in acting classes, one can develop and learn the schemes for public speaking.

The speech activities I have in my language classes somehow encourage my students to give their best shot. They master their piece by practicing intensely.

Of course, they have to be given instruction with the basics of public speaking like pronunciation, expression, and delivery.

I usually tell my students to practice the mirror-face test before they set for their individual performance whether it’s individual speech delivery or a dramatic presentation.

Practicing in front of the mirror can help. By looking at your facial expressions, you seemingly know how to appear in front of your audience and you know which angles make you look best.

3. Expression

The presentational art gained in acting classes requires ultimate expressions of a wide range of emotions to portray larger-than-life characters.

If you’re really interested in this line of skills, then you’ve got to express yourself sensibly.

Anyway, acting is a skill that can be honed. You can develop this craft if you attend acting classes sincerely.

After all, the first requirement is to be human after all. We are rich with emotions so we can easily connect to the roles we play.

Self-expression is an important aspect of our life. And this is quite an interesting and fun avenue in acting classes where students can freely express themselves to feel the lines they say.

Although acting means pretending to be someone else, it’s more effective if you feel your real emotions and be more of you as you speak the lines.

Acting also gives you the opportunity to feel varied emotions and make yourself experience those. The more you feel the lines, the more you express real emotions. It makes you more human.

4. Communication Skills

We need communication in our lives. We need to let others know how we feel. If you don’t like playing the role of a villain, then speak it out.

If words aren’t enough then try gestures and actions. Your communication skills are honed deeply in acting classes.

In an acting class, you will be asked to interact more oftentimes to develop your skills. You can sometimes be a leader of a group or a member.

In performing your real-life roles, whether as a leader or a member, you have to say your piece and tell others your insights and opinion. More so, when you are delivering your lines of the character you pretend to be.

Speaking in front of a large audience means refining your oral communication skills aside from honing your non-verbal cues. We have communication going on every day in our classroom.

There is interaction because good communication takes place. The classroom itself serves as a real-life theater where communication verbal or non-verbal finds its way.

It’s the same air with acting. Being involved in a play means getting the message of a piece across through remarkable dialogues

As an effective communicator, you can impact clear and intense emotions in your audience which makes them react and respond.

5. Teamwork

Working with people requires teamwork skills. Remember, acting is about pretending that you have the emotions of the characters you portray.

Needless to say, you are dealing with different people in an acting class and you deal with different emotions!

In acting classes, you have to work in teams. Then,  you have to learn teamwork skills effectively because you will be interacting with others more often.

You need to analyze roles to create a perfect match for different abilities within the group.

Moreover, you will be asked to accept certain roles that you think are new and challenging for you. This is where the excitement begins.

You should know how to deal with people around you and become an important part of the whole production team.

Then, you come to acknowledge the importance of everyone else in the group.  The contribution of all members matters a lot therefore, you should know how to mingle with the group.

Appreciate one another and celebrate each one’s skills. All this rolled into one, call respect!

6. Flexibility

Be adaptable. Adjusting your sails and acting will side your regimen.

In an acting class, you will be introduced to new concepts and ideas to which you should adapt to.

It means that you can’t be a protagonist all the time nor can you be the villain most of the time.

You need to be flexible to make the show work! Or else you will be left with your own monolog! Learn to play roles effectively. Just like in life, you can’t be victorious all the time nor can you be forever sad.

The spices in your life can help you easily adjust to the specific roles given to you. Tap your experiences and live with them in the scenes you put up.

<<< Interested to pursue theater arts?

Here are the most wanted skills basically taught in acting classes that might excite you! These are typically well-developed to those who track theater studies.

Keep a close eye on them. They are more comprehensive and significant than you may realize.

Speech Communication. Communication is based on the act of speaking. It plays an important role not just in the business world but also in everyday life.

Theater classes offer a lot of opportunities for you to enjoy speaking in a fashion more appealing to the audience.

Thus, the process enables you to develop your oral communication skills which help you advance your expertise and go on to a greater position in the education arena.

Acting onstage better develops your speaking skills and getting used to speaking in front of a large audience.

Also, your theater experiences will teach you how to develop clear, concise, and well-organized speeches that will help you advance to public speaking.

With the dedicated training, you already have a leg up to own the finest oral communication skills.

Enhance Commitment and Engagement. Participating in theater plays and classes takes commitment and engagement. And these are positive attitudes crucial for teachers like us.

We can also apply our theatrical skills to other areas of our lives such as in our family and in our careers.

Most likely, we already possess commitment and dedication but these can be more enhanced in theater arts as we are trained to accomplish any task at hand.

Time Management. How’s your time-on-task management? As teachers, we ought to possess effective strategies to manage our time so we can be more productive.

Being involved in theater, just like in teaching, we need to plan our days properly.

Theater arts students are juggling tasks like rehearsals, performances, and creative group tasks. This further enhances our ability to budget time as our profession places a high value on efficient time management abilities.

Become More Resilient and Flexible. The educational arena is full of changes that everyone must cope up especially teachers and students. These attributes are also best developed in theater classes.

When enrolled in theater classes, you must be versatile and flexible. It strikes the cord of being resilient. You must be willing to make endeavors, embrace new challenges, and adapt to continually changing settings and circumstances.

Better known as adaptive to changes are the professionals like us. As teachers, we can easily adapt to stressful situations and recover from difficult situations.

Additionally, if we are more flexible we can be very adaptive since this attitude demonstrates our ability and willingness to master new skills and to enhance our expertise.

Epilogue

If your students are attending acting classes, they will enjoy learning the things mentioned above. The confidence they’ll gain from their workshops and training can also help them in their academic performance.

Anyway, your emotionally supportive classroom is a big help for students to harness their acting skills.

If you are a language teacher, perhaps you are teaching speech and drama, that can be your initial step to help students learn the things shared in this post.

By and large, your classroom is a great stage show. Your students are the actors and actresses while you consider yourself as the director.

With the appropriate teaching strategies and classroom management, you are actually leading them to become successful actors.

Now, if acting quite interests you and has improved your students’ performance, we would most appreciate it if you leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Happy acting! Happy teaching!