Should Shakespeare Be Allowed To Learn By Live Theater?

Even though people think it is still necessary to read Shakespeare in order to learn what is known as "Olde English,” students should have Shakespeare introduced to them by live theater. Students can learn “Olde English” by being in a Shakespeare play if they wish. Students may get bored while reading, but theater provides fun entertainment. Students may not like Shakespeare if they are bored when the material is introduced, and there are many fun non-traditional ways to introduce Shakespeare (like “Shakespeare Star-Wars”). Also, students may have a hard time visualizing the scene while reading. However, in modern-style live theater, the scene is already set up onstage so the students are able to just watch instead of having to try to imagine a scene (sometimes, Shakespeare does not give a lot of clues about the setting in his writing, which can be a pain in the butt for students).
Performing in a play causes students to memorize the “Olde English” because the students need to memorize their lines. Plus, in order to understand the motives of the characters, the students need to figure out the meaning of the words in “Olde English”. The students will then be learning “Olde English” by not only translating from modern English to “Olde English”, but the students will also be speaking “Olde English” which allows them to “assess [their] own confidence in how well [they] know each concept, thereby facilitating optimal learning techniques such as confidence-based repetition” (Cohen). Students would definitely get feedback if they are pronouncing a word wrong because of fellow classmates and/or the teacher of the class. Performing the play will allow more memorization to happen and students could possibly learn “Olde English” faster than they would reading the