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Once I was privileged enough to attend a primary school music concert. All the children were
playing 4 hands pieces with their teacher. From a point of view of certain methodists, one can find
several flaws i.e. the student isn’t counting beats on his own, isn’t holding the tempo, the
dynamics are also being highlighted too much by the teacher’s bottom part, but in anyway the
audience was listening with tremendous pleasure. Student’s parts were quite simple, there were
only a couple of notes and passages, but they weren’t dropped into nowhere but were hanging,
lonely in the sound expanse. They were consistently, thoughtfully braided as flowers in a wreath,
into the rich teacher’s part with its expanded arpeggio and passages texture.

And now, let’s play precisely alike, 4 hands, but in the english language. The teacher’s part must
be much harder than the student’s one, and besides one shouldn’t be afraid to braid the most
compound speech figures and unknown vocabulary into this «wreath». Let the children’s response
lines be short and monosyllabic to your expatiations, but your reaction should be impetuous,
expressive and extremely genuine, coming from the heart. How important is it for a pupil to feel
heard, understood and included in a real conversation and not in a pretend one!

Example:
In front of children is an informational questionnaire which they have to answer:
- Where are you from?
- How old are you?
- Do you like …ing?

I’d also like to note that the correspondence game is one of my favourite dialog schemes, as the
reporter (a child often sees different interviews on TV) can’t just ask questions slowly, as the
«client» will simply leave. Professionally grasping and retentive manner should be assimilated by
the child, when it’s him who, becomes the reporter in the game and takes a toy microphone in his
hand. So, the children’s simplest replicas (literally the 10th lesson for 5-year olds) should «drown»
in your speaking. Fantasize, spare no interjections, exclaim!

- I’m very pleased to have you with me…
- …The leader of the group is, of course, John…
- Where are you from, John?
- I’m from Leeds
- Oh really! And what are your hobbies? Do you like swimming?
- …And now let’s talk to this pretty girl. You are the youngest person in the group, aren’t you?
How old are you Ann?
- I’m 6.
- Still only 6! That’s incredible!

This principal of «playing in 4 hands» I use for the «animation» exercises in text books. But text
books initially must consist of «live» material, fit for commutative technique teaching. Otherwise,
it’s just a selection of «dead» phrases, even if you bend over backwards, these exercises will fail
becoming alive. 

Example (from teachers book «Go» part 3):
Rewrite these sentences using the Present Perfect:
1. The last time Sam ate meat was a fortnight ago.
The teacher starts playing a trick dialog with the imaginary companion:
- Did you see Sam this morning?
- No, I didn’t, why?
- He was all skin and bone! It seems to me the last time he ate meat was a fortnight ago!
- Yes, that’s right! He hasn’t eaten meat for a fortnight.
The last phrase is picked up by the student.
Your task is to bring up a situation. Say anything that comes to your mind: about the poor Pete,
who is all skin and bones, who hasn’t eaten meat for two weeks already, make it sound like a
gossipy dialog. An introduction of such length to only a one phrase is like taking a musket to kill a
butterfly, but in this scenario, the intro plays a role of an overture to an opera for warming up and
preparing the children for an informal conversation. For the following phrases a brief opening, a
couple of bars or maybe even an «off-beat» would be enough, if only the student could start in the
«right tonality».

- I last had a good pizza six months ago.
When pronouncing this phrase, we carry an imaginary piece of pizza close to the face and say
with an expression of total displeasure: «Do you call this pizza?! I last had a good pizza six
months ago in Italy!». And the child, sighing, echoes back the teacher, as if he agrees with him:
«Yes I haven’t had a good pizza for six months!».

Right this moment, we were able to «reanimate» the pizza episode with the help of the tiniest«offbeat».
Imagine to yourself, that you’re spinning a balloon on a string, which suddenly breaks and the
balloon flies exactly at the speed and direction that you’ve set. So the child simply, won’t be able
not to fit in the dialog’s tempo and temper, that you’ve assigned (if you’d done it right), and to
answer stamping the words «deadly», as he will disturb «the music of speech».

Thus, the lesson is conducted as a whole, live friendly chat. If we’re bringing in new vocabulary
(furniture, for example), we don’t just pronounce the words «table, bed, sofa, wardrobe», but we
put them in some kind of context in: «Look, what a cosy room! Do you like it? And the furniture is
lovely too: a table, a sofa, a bed!» One would think, we’re just listing the words, but it’s a different
and «live» intonation of enumeration, which drastically alternates from the one if we’d articulate
«New words! TABLE, SOFA, WARDROBE». Listen carefully for the intonation of enumeration
where terms like crescendo, accelerando, diminuendo, ritenuto (gradual increase/decrease of tempo
and volume in a musical phrase [ital.]) are always present and that’s what makes the words «alive».

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