Speech and Drama - or, A Curriculum

I studied Speech and Drama (and a close cousin, Speech in Action) for a good ten or twelve years. I actually have an Associate Diploma in Speech and Drama, and I was partway towards assembling a programme to sit for the Licentiate exams when I moved to Tasmania. I always meant to finish putting together my programme and go for the Licentiate Diploma, but I guess I lost momentum.

I have my Associate Diploma through the Australian College of Music, although I did take some exams through the Australian Music Examinations Board. I also took Grade Three piano exams through the AMEB - which was enough to convince me I didn't like taking music exams. I once took a look at the curriculum offered by the Trinity College of Music, and I was interested in trying to sit an exam through them, but I ended up sticking with the ACM.

I've been thinking, lately, about these colleges and the way they operate. You see, ideally, children and teenagers take classes though a private tutor/teacher. The teachers (normally) took these classes as children, kept going through high school, took the Licentiate exams and maybe the Fellowship exams and are now in a position to make a career guiding students through the process of sitting for the exams.

The way it works is that the college publishes a curriculum, hands it over to the student (with the help of a teacher) to assemble and practice the material to meet the curriculum (for a practical exam) or find and learn the information asked for by the curriculum (for a theory exam), and then sends around an examiner to examine the student on how well they have fulfilled the curriculum.

A typical curriculum for, say, the upper grades of Speech and Drama would involve something like this:

• The student would choose a novel to read. They would read the entire novel in preparation for the exam, have a preselected passage from that novel which they have practised and can recite by heart in addition to being able to read randomly selected passages on demand. They must also be able to answer questions regarding any aspect of the book including: the life and works of the author, the plot and characters, the period of time in which the book was first published, other major works of the period.
  
• The student would compile an anthology of poems. They would be expected to recite one of the poems (of a certain length) and be prepared to read any of the other poems on demand. They must also be able to answer questions regarding any aspect of any of the poems in their anthology (see above).
  
• The student would choose a play to read. Everything that applied to the novel also applies to this play.
  
• The student would choose a Shakespearean play, and ditto.
  
• The student would prepare a speech/talk of a certain length regarding a given subject (there is usually a selection of subjects to choose from). They may have palm cards or notes, but should be able to maintain adequate eye contact with the "audience" throughout the presentation. They must be prepared to answer any questions regarding their presentation.

Usually, these curricula were themed according to literature from a particular place or time. For example, take everything I've just mentioned above and limit it to works from the 18th Century. Or the Victorian period. Or a particular country, such as Australia. This is all with the exceptioin of Shakespeare. You may be asked to specifically choose a Tragedy, History or Comedy, but you always had to do Shakespeare.

The theory curriculum would usually consist of knowledge of several areas of literary history, a bit of literary theory and the theory of speech (organs of articulated speech; the role of breath; the use of pause, pitch, pace and volume; etc).

Basically, a student is given a list of things to explore and is expected to gather a solid knowledge of literature, history and good pronunciation (with the aid of the teacher).

I've been wondering, lately, why something similar doesn't exist for language learners. Surely that would be a brilliant way to sink into a language - in addition to the "theory" of the grammar and vocabulary, you also have to explore the history and literature by finding material for a programme and knowing it inside-out?

How well would a student learn a language if they had to be able to cover the vocabulary of a selection of books, plays and poems and be able to answer questions about all of it (perhaps in 1L for the early grades and in the target language)?

I know it improved my knowledge of the English language no end - not to mention my reading skills.