Drama in English teaching

Belledi, Fabián
Durán, Diana

July 16, 2010

Abstract

This proposal will project the prospective implementation of drama in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).The authors will carry out a research study to determine the importance of interactive activities to enhance communicative competence. The study will be conducted in two private institutions with young adult students throughout a school year.

Keywords: TEFL, Drama, Classroom, Games, Video, Learning, Teaching

Introduction

The field of education has witnessed a great paradigm shift towards constructivism and social interactionist views in the teaching and learning process. Behaviorism, together with its own principles and assumptions, was the ruling system from the early 1900’s until the late 1950’s when a completely different approach brought about by psychology emerged and eclipsed the behaviorists learning and teaching approach. The cognitive revolution contributed to a series of highly important moves and changes not only in psychology but also in the field of education.

The learner became the focus of attention and a teacher-centred education shifted to a learner-oriented instruction. Bearing this principle in mind together with Bruner’s and Ausubel’s theories, it may be stated that teaching must be meaningful for the student and should satisfy his/her needs. Authentic learning should make information meaningful to the student. In today’s globalized world, English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers possess a great number of tools at hand to make their students’ learning process more natural and appealing.

Many students desire to learn how to use English in social settings. One benefit of Drama classes is that it uses real (or hypothesized) situations in which students are asked to dramatize or act out. Students can ‘play’ with the language and, with the practice of dramatizing social situations, they learn pragmatic skills, thus becoming more confident in their abilities to carry out a conversation with native speakers (Chauhan, 2004).

The aim of this research work is to shed light on how the implementation of drama in teaching ESL can become an attractive alternative in teaching a foreign language. Drama techniques employed in the communicative method lead the student to unconsciously acquire and learn the language within natural and spontaneous situations created inside the classroom environment.

Literature Review

The Communicative Approach has brought about significant changes in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). The learner is considered as an active participant during the language teaching/learning process. Teachers who support this approach are expected to provide students with a wide range of activities to promote self-learning, group work in life-like situations.

According to Richards (1995, cited in Sam, 1990), the term ‘approach’ could be defined as the theory about how languages are learnt. He also considered the psycholinguistic and cognitive processes during the learning process as well as the conditions that allow for effective learning. Thus, the Communicative Approach (CA) refers to the beliefs and theories which emphasize the acquisition of communicative competence. It should be noted then that ‘Communicative Competence’ does not only involve the knowledge of grammatical rules but also sound awareness of when, where and how to use the language in a speech community in an effective fashion. ‘Communicative activities’ refers to the techniques which teachers employ within the classroom in order to foster their students’ motivation and involve them in authentic situations.

Morrow (1981, cited in Sam, Ibid.) stated that communicative activities should conform to some principles: Students should know what they are doing and its purpose. In communication, it is essential to work in the context as a unit. Communication cannot be split into its various components. The teacher should guide the student in the process of communication. The student will acquire more proficiency only by practicing communicative activities. Students are expected to make mistakes at different stages; however, the teacher should be flexible enough and become critical after having analyzed the kind of mistake and its origin. Hence, Drama can be considered a communicative activity since it fosters communication among learners and provides different opportunities to use the target language in ‘make believe’ situations.

Vernon (n.d.) supports the view that this conversational use of language also promotes fluency. He states that “(…) while learning a play, students are encouraged to listen to, potentially read and then repeat their lines over a period of time. By repeating the words and phrases they become familiar with them and are able to say them with increasing fluency (…)” (p.2). We believe that by encouraging self expression, drama motivates students to use language confidently and creatively.

Holden (1981, cited in Sam, Ibid.) believes that Drama asks classroom participants to imagine themselves within a certain situation and pretend to be another person in an imaginary situation. Holden, thus, states that Drama refers to a world of ‘let’s pretend’. Some other authors have referred to Drama as a significant tool in TESL. Maley and Duff (1978, cited in Sam, Ibid.) assert that this communicative activity releases imagination and energy. Fernandez and Coil (1986, as cited in Sam, Ibid., p. 3) states that “Drama encourages students to exercise their sensitivity and imagination and thus makes leaning more realistic and meaningful.” Dougill (1978, cited in Sam, Ibid.) claims that Drama encourages students to develop their social, intellectual and linguistic skills.

Even though it is true that a foreign language cannot be taught separated from its culture, teachers should be extremely careful when they decide to include drama activities in their practice. They should consider what type of cultural information should be incorporated. There exist some topics which are common to almost any learner, namely holidays, schooling, etc. However, teachers should be very cautious and decide whether to include ‘thorny’ topics such as religious holidays. Much of the culture an English learner is exposed to generally comes from television series, movies or the internet. This culture that the students learn can be used in Drama activities as well, since they will probably provide a great number of topics for dramatizing.

Many times students do not gain enough confidence to use the foreign language in real situations. Their performance is only limited to writing and producing grammatically correct exercises in isolated contexts in the monotony of a conventional class. Chauhan (Ibid.) asserts that traditional classes hardly ever provide students with the opportunity to use the language in a purposeful manner. Real communication involves much more than accuracy. Communication comprises ideas, emotions, feelings, body language, to mention but a few.

Drama is an attractive tool to introduce in language teaching since it gives the student a context to produce and develop skills. Chauhan (Ibid) states that Drama techniques force students to use their language meaningfully and thus, their linguistic as well as interactional abilities may be enhanced. Richards (2005) emphasizes the use of dialogues to reach this aim. He states that “(…) talk as interaction is perhaps the most difficult skill to reach since interactional talk is very complex and it takes place under the control of unspoken rules(…)” (p.6). We believe that in order to really acquire a language one must be able to recount personal incidents and experiences, make a small talk, and react to what others say.

According to Chauhan (Ibid), telephone conversations give students the possibility of saying what they like and reacting in accordance with unexpected situations which may arise. Students will probably feel involved in the conversation and they will do their utmost to sustain a meaningful telephone conversation. This technique helps students improve their speaking and listening skills.

Chauhan (Ibid) suggests that soliloquies can be used to interpret literary texts and understand fictitious characters. He also states that in this particular activity the student gets into the skin of the character and feels free to think and say what the character might feel at that particular moment.

The proliferation of newer technologies such as video playback devices have allowed teachers to introduce these media as tools in the classroom. Williams and Lutes (n.d.) state that:
A major advantage is that video materials can focus on information that cannot be readily presented in a traditional classroom because of constraints such as size, location, costs, etc. In the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, this can be something as simple as access to Native speakers’(NS) language in a natural context (p.4).

Discussion

Hypotheses
1. Do students need to practice a foreign language in real-life contexts?
2. Will this strategy ensure a more proficient Second Language (L2) acquisition?
3. Will the students be provided with the necessary tools for future work and study?


Delimitations

This research will be carried out in two courses for young adults in two different private English institutes. The students share similar knowledge background as regards command of the target language. Both courses are intermediate, which means that students have been exposed to the L2 for at least 3 years.

Limitations

Though the main aim of this research is to show that students will enhance their communicative strategies after the inclusion of drama and interactive activities within the classroom environment, some trouble may arise, thus hindering the implementation of the experimental research. One of the major drawbacks is time limitation. In both courses, students attend lessons for 1 ½ hour twice a week and, as communicative activities need some time to be developed, the 1 ½ period may not be enough to round up the activity in one day. If this time constraint has a late arrival surplus, the activity is even more difficult to be carried out.

There are other two potential setbacks that may limit the outcome of the research: Student’s previous learning strategies and the relationship with the teacher. Students need to feel confident and safe in order to expose themselves to peer interaction. The teacher’s attitude towards them and towards errors may enhance or limit their productions. Moreover, they may feel threatened by innovations in methodology, especially those students who come from a serious, rigid, encyclopedic background.

Procedure

Participants
This experimental research will be carried out in two groups of young adults with an age range of 21-24 years old. Both groups belong to two different private English institutes, one in Recoleta and the other in Caballito. The students mentioned above attend English lessons twice a week on a basis of 1 ½ hour each day.

Data collection and analysis

Teachers will record student’s performance with a voice recorder at the beginning of the course (in March), before the winter holidays (in July) and at the end of the course (in November) in the same cassette. At the end of the course, the teacher will listen to the three recordings and will assess the student’s performance in a special sheet (Appendix A), but will not inform the student of its result. The student will be asked to listen to the three recordings as well and will have to provide a self-assessment report. Then, student and teacher will meet and will discuss similarities and differences on their personal assessments. After this discussion, the student will receive the teacher’s assessment report.

Materials

Games such as charades are suitable enough to gauge the students’ interest in this kind of activity. The class can be divided into teams and one member of each time can mime names of films or books, for example. The actor can indicate the number of words in the title and can use common gestures to give his/her team hints (Chauhan, Ibid).

The core of the matter in this experimental research will pivot around interactive activities. Telephone conversations may provide good opportunity to react to the unexpected, as well as role play of different situations provided by the teacher taken from everyday life, i.e.: mother and daughter going together to the hairdresser’s, a student meeting his/her teacher at the supermarket, two fathers at the school gate waiting for the school bus to come from the sports field where their sons had rugby practice, etc.

Resourceful teachers may take advantage of video materials to make instruction more appealing to students. Some teachers may uphold that watching a video may be considered a passive activity. However, we hold the belief that teachers can transform it into an active learning strategy by proposing some after-watching activities. Students may watch a muted version of the video, and after the silent viewing, they may be asked to imagine a script and act it out as a rounding-off activity.

Conclusion

All in all, we believe that there exists a great number of advantages which deserve being exploited when it comes to the implementation of drama in the classroom. Drama provides practical experience in communicating, it gives students the opportunity to learn in groups facing the unexpected, to see the world from the other's perspective and it promotes active learning, thus enriching and reinforcing their traditional schooling experiences. In other words, when it comes to teaching English as a second language, drama and learning may result in a winning combination. Therefore, we believe interactive activities in the form of dramatizations may prove one of the major tools in the ESL classroom to promote communicative competence in Second Language (L2) acquisition.



References

Chauhan, V. (2004). Drama techniques for teaching English. The Internet TESL Journal,
10(10), 1-5. Retrieved June 19, 2010, from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Chauhan-Drama.html

Richards, J. (2005). Developing classroom speaking activities; from theory to practice. Retrieved June 8, 2010, from http://www.professorjackrichards.com/pdfs/developing-classroom-speaking-activities.pdf

Sam, W. (1990). Drama in teaching English as a second language – A communicative approach. The English Teacher, 9, 1-10. Retrieved June 19, 2010, from http://www.melta.org.my/ET/1990/main8.html

Vernon, S. (n.d.) The unmistakable benefits of using drama with children learning English. ESL Resources. Retrieved June 10, 2010, from http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/Articles/eslplays.htm

Williams, R., & Lutes, P. (n.d.). Using video in the ESL classroom. Retrieved June 19, 2010, from http://www.takamatsu-u.ac.jp/library/06_gakunaisyupan/kiyo/no48/001-013_williams.pdf




Appendix A
Assessment sheet

Student’s name: …………………………………………………….
Course: ……………………………………………………………...
Year: ………………………………………………………………..


FLUENCY ACCURACY CREATIVITY MISTAKES



MARCH:




JULY:




NOVEMBER:







Additional comments :







Teacher’s signature:

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