Dr Michael Savvas

Breaking through the language barrier

When he was 10, Michael Savvas had his breakthrough role – playing Tutankhamen’s corpse in a play at La Mama theatre in Adelaide. Shy by nature, Michael found the opportunity to dress up and get some attention under the spotlight opened up a new facet of his life.

Now teaching grammar and writing to international and mature age students as part of the Transition Team, Dr Savvas is focusing his love of performance on developing ways to engage students more effectively in the often dry but critically important skills of English expression.

One week, he might dress up as a drunk Shakespeare, hectoring students about the damage done to the Bard’s historic texts. Confronted with teaching grammar, he re-titled the subject wizardry and delivered part of the course dressed in a wizard’s costume, replete with wand.

“After the initial shock of seeing a lecturer dressed up, even when the costume is simple and obvious, it changes the dynamics in the room. It puts people in a different frame of mind – they are hanging on to see what will happen next,” Dr Savvas said.

“You have to carefully plan lessons, to ensure that lessons are clear – but there is no reason you can’t get a better result by using your imagination and having a laugh.”

Dr Savvas is currently developing a series of writing lessons based on the lyrics of the Beatles, and is hoping that his online video lessons will be useful to students across the University.

“Grammar is very important for all students so that they can express themselves properly, but the examples used in textbooks are often very dry and boring. I want to show that they don’t have to be,” Dr Savvas said.