Using Different Forms of Drama in the EFL Classroom
Liubov Desiatova, Russian Federation
Kristina Mullamaa has been teaching English and Swedish at the at the Language Centre of Tartu University in Estonia since 1996. In 2006 she defended her doctoral thesis on the profession making of liaison interpreters. Her research interests include cross-cultural issues, motivation and ethics. E-mail: kristina.mullamaa@ut.ee
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Dramatic teaching, dramatic results
What ıs drama?
Two levels of language use
Dramatizing not drama
Why use drama in the EFL classroom?
Practical advice on using dramatization in the classroom
Practical drama activities and drama games
Mime a monster
Statues
Mirrors
10 words to scenario
Role play and improvisation with coursebooks: Bringing texts to life
Co-operative storytelling
Dubbed mimed dialogue
Before/After the dialogue/text
Key word to role play
Hot off the press: ‘Live’ interviews
To summarise...
Bibliography
Aims of the article are:
- To show the benefits of using different forms of drama in the EFL classroom
- To highlight the steps that need to be taken to effectively prepare learners for drama
- To give teachers hands-on experience of drama activities and to guide them towards implementation of drama with ELT Coursebooks
Language teachers have to face two difficulties in their classrooms. On the one hand they need to change the naturally exuberant imaginative energy of the children into activity which is not merely enjoyable but which also has a language pay-off. On the other, they need to develop a repertoire of concrete activities which appeal to children to do as well to avoid chaos and boredom.
“Drama is doing. Drama is being. Drama is such a normal thing. It is something that we engage in daily when faced with difficult situations. You get up in the morning with a bad headache or an attack of depression, yet you face the day and cope with other people, pretending that nothing is wrong [....] Getting on with our day-to-day lives requires a series of civilised masks if we are to maintain our dignity and live in harmony with others.”
Charlyn Wessels (1987)
Drama is actually an intrinsic part of everyone’s life - not something that demands special talent.
A. SURFACE REALITY
Situation
Problem
Setting
B. UNDERLYING REALITY/FOUNDATION
Background
Emotions
Planning
(Relationships, status, body language, other paralinguistic features)
Source: “Drama” Charlyn Wessels OUP 1987
There is the obvious, visible situation, problem and one or more solutions (E.g Your toilet is leaking and all the water is dripping down into your neighbour’s flat below. The solution is to call a plumber and fix it or to ignore it and hope it will go away by itself!)
The underlying reality is much more complicated (E,g You may have a long-standing history of arguments with your neighbour; you may not believe that it’s your toilet that’s dripping into his living room;you may not have enough money to pay for a plumber, plasterer, new toilet, etc; you may be feeling dog-tired or downright depressed; the neighbour may have a history of hysteria; you would be more likely to do it if he asked politely, rather than shouting and spitting at you; you think he’s a crook anyway and you suspect he avoids paying his taxes......and so on and so forth).
Drama is surface and underlying reality and we should help learners think about and express, as well as experience, both to make language learning a real and memorable experience.
We often present students with only A and then wonder why they forget!
In learning anything, all 6 of these elements have to be present for that which is learned to be fully acquired and retained.
The word drama may produce the image of an end-of – term play, staged by nervous children, organized by overwrought teacher and watcher by fond parents. But drama is not only about the product (the performance) it is also part of the process of language learning. It allows children to own the simple and mechanical language they use by involving their personalities. It gives those children, who are shy when speaking foreign language, another character to “hide behind “. “Dramatizing” is a better word for this than drama. Dramatizing means that the children become actively involved in a text. This personalization makes language more meaningful and memorable than drilling or mechanical repetition can.
Using drama end drama activities has clear advantages for language learning. It encourage children to speak gives them the chance to communicate, even with limited language, using non-verbal communication, such as body movements and facial expression. There are also a number of other factors which makes drama a very powerful tool in the language classroom. Some of the areas where drama is very useful to language learners and teachers are outlined below.
- To give learners an experience (dry-run) of using the language for genuine communication and real-life purposes; and by generating a need to speak
In the classrooms, we usually expose children to small bits of language such as individual words, rather than whole phrases or “chunks”. Drama is an ideal way to encourage learners to guess the meaning of unknown language in a context. Learners will need to use a mixture of language structures and functions (“chunks”) if they want to communicate successfully.
- To make language learning an active, motivating experience
Dramatizing a text is very motivating and it’s fun. In addition same activity can be done at different levels at the same time, which means that all the children can do it successfully.
- To help learners gain the confidence and self-esteem needed to use the language spontaneously
By taking a role, children can escape from their everyday identity and “hide behind “another character. When you give children special roles, it encourages them to be that character and abandon their shyness. The teacher can use roles to encourage children who would otherwise hold back, and control children who dominate the weaker ones.
- To bring the real world into the classroom (problem-solving, research, consulting dictionaries, real time & pace, cross-curricular content)
When using drama our aims can be more than linguistic. We can use topics from other subjects: the children can act out scenes from history, we can work on ideas and issues that run though the curriculum, such as respect for the environment. Drama can also be used to introduce the culture of the new language, through stories and customs, and with a context for working on different kinds of behavior.
- To emulate the way children naturally acquire language through play, make-believe and meaningful interaction
Dramatizing is part of children’s life from an early age. Children try out different roles in make-believe play, in day-to-day situations (shopping, visiting doctors). They rehearse the language and the “script” of the situation and experience the emotions involved, knowing that they can switch back to reality whenever they want to.
- To make what is learned memorable through direct experience and affect (emotions)for learners with different learning styles
Dramatizing appeals to all kinds of learners. When children dramatize they use all the channels (sight, hearing, and physical bodies) and each child will draw to on the one that suits them best. This means they will all be actively involved in the activity and the language will “enter” through the cannel most appropriate for them. Dramatizing allow learners to add emotion r personality to a text that they have read or listened to. This makes language memorable.
- To stimulate learners’ intellect and imagination
Make-believe play encourages children’s creativity and develops their imagination, and at the same time gives them the opportunity to use language that is outside their daily needs. Language teachers can use this natural desire to act out situations.
- To develop students’ ability to empathize with others and thus become better communicators
Children often work in a group or pairs when dramatizing. They have to make decisions as a group, listen to each other, and value each other’s suggestions. They have to co-operate to achieve their aims.
- Helps learners acquire language by focusing on the message they are conveying, not the form of their utterances
Important messages can be conveyed and explored.
Here are some important points in preparation for a drama lesson.
If we plan it carefully, students will take it seriously and perform better, therefore benefitting more and wanting to do more.
- Choose the right activity
When you plan a drama activity you need to know your aims. There can be activity for different purposes. The learners’ age affects the kind of activity you plan. The more dramatization the learners do, and the more they reflect on what they have done, the better they will become.
Not all children are good at acting, especially if drama isn’t part of their curriculum. Introduce drama into your classroom in small steps. Start with easy guided activities and move on to less controlled ones.
You are not training professional actors and actresses but giving learners an enjoyable way of practicing and using their English. you need to give feedback on what the children have done, not only the end product and language, but also the process that the went trough , the way they co-operated with each other and how they came to decisions. Find something positive to comment on. There will be areas of learners’ work that can be improved and this should be part of your feedback to them. While the children are doing the activities, watch and listen to them, try not to interfere, and take notes on what you are observing. The process is your main aim, but learners will see that “the performance” as the most important part of the lesson. You need to value their performance. When they have finished give them feedback. There are many ways of doing this in oral or written forms. If constructive feedback becomes a regular part of dramatization activities, the learners will gradually improve their dramatizing abilities and their language.
The activities allow teachers to introduce an element of dramatization in their day-to-day lessons and work on the skills necessary for longer activities. They are short, fun easy to set up, and can be used with different language content. Many of the activities focus on mime so that learners can on using their bodies to express meaning. This change in focus can be very powerful for language learning: children acquire language at more subconscious level because they are not thinking about what they are saying, but how to show the meaning.
Time: 15 minutes.
Language aims: vocabulary of parts of the body and listening for details.
Other aims: working in pairs; working on physical co-operation.
Descriptions: The children work in pairs or groups. The teacher describes a monster which the children make between them with their bodies.
Preparation: Prepare the descriptions of the monsters. For example: Make a monster with two heads, three arms, one leg, and a tail.
In class:
- Point at the various parts of the body which you are going to use and elicit the names to check that the children are familiar with them.
- Ask for two volunteers to come to the front of the class. Explain that they are going to work together to make a monster according your description
- Describe the monster and help the volunteers to make it with their arms, legs and other parts of their bodies. Ask for comments from the class. Give positive feedback that will help the other students when they are making the monsters.
- Repeat the activity with the whole class.
- Note the pairs who have made interesting monsters.
Follow-up: Get the children to draw pictures of the monsters and make a gallery or a “monster catalogue”.
Variation: The children work in groups of three or four to make a monster. One child in each group gives instructions which the other follow .the teacher looks around the class describes one of the monsters, and the other children identify it.
Time: 15 minutes
Language aims: to revise vocabulary
Other aims: to encourage children to work in pairs, stimulate imagination and creativity, and work on physical co-operation.
Descriptions: The children work in pairs to mime a word from a “word family” they have worked on, for example: pencil, pen, and pencil case. They show it to the rest of the class who guess what it is.
- In class: Introduce the idea of word families. You could ask the children to tell you the topic they have been working on lately and get them to give the words for the topic.
- Choose a word from the family and tell the students you are going to become a statue of the word. Let them to guess which word it is.
- Divide the children into pairs. Tell them to select a word from the family.
- Give the children a few minutes to prepare their statues. Go around the class monitoring.
- Stop the preparation. Get the pairs to show their statue to the class and get them to guess what it is.
- Note the pairs who have made interesting statues.
Variation: The children could work in tree or four to make their statues.
Time: 5 minutes
Aims: introduce and warm up learners to drama
Descriptions: This drama game is played in pairs and can be done to music. One person is just herself, performing activities such as cleaning her teeth, applying make-up, brushing her hair, dressing etc. The other person is the ‘mirror image’, carefully copying everything done by the real person as in a mirror. E.g if Student A extends her left arm, Student B should extend her right. After a few minutes the roles are reversed.
In class: Play the game.
Variation: The game can be played with children in a group when a leader is performing activities and the group carefully copying everything done by the leader.
Time: 15 minutes
Aims: To practise showing emotions with body language, facial expressions, intonation and stress
Descriptions: Write up on a whiteboard or Flipchart the following most common words/phrases in the English language: YES, NO, PLEASE, THANK YOU, ONE, TWO, HELLO, BYE, THIS, THAT. Put Cps into small groups and ask them to prepare a short scenario in which they will all participate in the roles of their choice and use these words ONLY, as many times as they like. When they are ready, they will act out their scenarios for the other groups, who must guess who they are, where and what is happening. This is actually quite a demanding activity for good language speakers to be limited to 10 words, but it makes them use their body language, facial expressions,intonation and stress that much better.
A valuable and very effective way for learners to play an active role in bringing coursebook texts to life through the integration of various dramatical techniques.
In this activity, a dramatic coursebook text is used.Read the text dramatically and pause at certain places to ask questions or ask learners to describe a specific place, person or thing mentioned in the text (What do you see? What do you hear? What/How do you feel?). Whenever the teacher pauses and asks a question or asks learners to add VAK details to the text, they take it in turns with a partner to talk about the answers for about 1 minute. Then the teacher continues the story. Although there is no acting involved, the activity is very dramatic; it is a kind of simulation and is highly memorable. Also good for very boring or technical texts, to colour them with personal details added by the learners from their own feelings & lives.
Use any coursebook dialogue. Have as many learners as there are protagonists in the dialogue, mimimg the scene at the front of the class while counterpart students, sitting at their desks, ‘dub’ the dialogue, i.e read what the characters actually say aloud. The miming group should follow with actions to what is read/said, rather than the other way round. This is an excellent way to get students focussing on their ‘acting’ or on their ‘speaking/reading’ and not both at the same time. Doing both may be difficult for Ls at the outset of drama use in class. Also, it is a good activity for mixed ability classes, where some students are better at speaking or reading aloud, others are better at acting.
Getting students to predict & dramatise what they think happens before or after a coursebook text or dialogue
Giving learners key words from a coursebook dialogue and getting them to write their own scenarios from the key words & acting them out, before or after they read the originals.
Where a coursebook text reports an interview with someone, getting Ss to actually act it out with all the paralinguistic features.
To summarise my ideas I want to say children learn languages actively seeking to interpret meaning from context ,making creative use of language they know, using an instinct for talking and interacting and indirect learning e.g. through games and songs.a capacity to find fun ,an ability to use fantasy and imagination.
And also it is very important to keep in mind that learning and teaching is a very complicated process.
“…we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child. “
Dr. Maria Montessori
And so: ” Why use drama in the EFL classroom?”
We can create desirable conditions for learning and teaching in our EFL classes using drama activities and it is very enjoyable for both students and teachers!\
Charlyn Wessel , 1987, Drama ,Oxford; OUP, Resource Books for Teachers.
Jill Hadfield , 1992, Classroom Dynamics , Oxford; OUP Resource Books for Teachers.
Sarah Phillips, 2003,Drama with Chidren, Oxford; OUP, Resource Books for Teachers.
S. Halliwell, 1995, Teaching English in the Primary Classroom ,Oxford; OUP, Resource Books for Teachers.
Please check the Drama course at Pilgrims website.
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