The Use of Drama in Language Teaching

The Use of Drama in Language Teaching

• Drama is not only about the product (the performance) but also part of the process of language learning, and teachers seek practical teaching strategies to motivate and enhance students' learning experiences.
• The use of drama promotes meaningful, active, and reflective thinking processes as well as enhancing communication skills development.
• Listening activities enable students to enhance their learning experience as they have to supply many different learning styles, and thus they may be able to increase their motivation and participation in the learning process.

Reflective Teaching

• Reflective teaching involves examining one's underlying beliefs about teaching and learning and one's alignment with actual classroom practice before, during, and after a course is taught.
• Reflective teaching involves thinking critically about teaching and looking for evidence of effective teaching.

Reflective Thinking

• Reflective thinking is a form of critical thinking that reflects on experiences and learnings, requiring intense introspection and improving decision-making and problem-solving processes.
• Reflective thinking means taking the bigger picture and understanding all of its consequences.

Reflective Thinking in ELL Process

• Constructivist language learning environments require teachers and learners to reflect on classroom dynamics utilizing appropriate tools such as diaries, videos, portfolios/e-portfolios, and blogs.

Using Drama in ELT

• Teaching language through drama gives students an opportunity to relax the mind while learning and retain knowledge better.
• Memorization of lines activates and trains the brain while connecting language with gestures.
• Acting helps students remember words and sentences.
• The use of the body on stage helps teachers get a total physical response (TPR) from students, which is one of many effective ESL teaching methods.

Feeling More Grown-up

• Learners respond to literary pieces in different ways as they differ from each other according to their personal literacy and language levels.
• Drama helps learners improve the socialization process in and out of the classroom.
• Empathy and drama activities in teaching a foreign language permit students to understand the actions and emotions of others with their own body.

Intercultural Awareness

• Intercultural awareness is having an understanding of both one's own and other cultures, particularly the similarities and differences between them.
• Recognizing that everyone brings something unique to the table, and harnessing that can make the group better than the sum of its parts.

Improving Linguistic Competence

• Drama is an enormously beneficial inclusion to the established functional communicative language syllabuses all over the world today.
• The rehearsal and performance of an appropriate play combine the best of both structural and communicative syllabuses, providing rote learning and repetition of a model, attention to exact wording, practice in all four skills, motivating and authentic language, and activity.

Pragmatics

• Pragmatics is the study of how language is affected by the situation in which it is used, of how language is used to get things or perform actions, and of how words can express things that are different from what they appear to mean.
• Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in which it is used.

Rote Learning

• Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition, where the recall of repeated material becomes faster the more one repeats it.
• Some of the alternatives to rote learning include meaningful learning, associative learning, spaced repetition, and active learning.

Meaningful Learning

• Meaningful learning involves understanding how all the pieces of an entire concept fit together, and the knowledge gained applies to new learning situations.
• Meaningful learning is active, constructive, and long-lasting, allowing students to be fully engaged in the learning process.

Strengthening Speaking and Listening Skills

• Language is the ability to realize and conduct a structured system of communication, and drama creates an independent area for learners to talk and discuss in the classroom.
• Goodlad and Sizer (1984) revealed that education has traditionally relied on a high percentage of 'teacher talk' as opposed to active involvement by pupils.
• Drama provides a structure for interpreting, expressing, and communicating, giving concrete form to personal and collective creative thought for learners in the language classrooms.

Drama Strategies and Activities for EFL Classes

• Drama strategies achievable in EFL classes range from exercise-based games, brief rehearsed plots performed in the class, short but lively role-plays, designed simulations, scenarios to the more challenging activities.