Using Drama in The Efl Teaching

What is Drama?

There are a few definitions of drama but the most common is that drama is to revive a word, a concept, an experience, an event by developing games or games. It is a kind of literature which is written in poetic, narrative or dialogues and consists of the writing of the genealogical text. It should be considered as a term which shows common feature of all kinds of theater products, not only the common feature of the self-proclaimed works in theater writing, It is the use of Greek word “dromenon” as the action. In the Greeks, drama was directly used to mean “living”. In the Oxford dictionary, the word drama refers to ‘’a stage play and dramatic art”. Another meaning in Greek is to “play”. Since the development of the ancient theater, this word is not “anybody doing anything” but that “a certain person doing something that is meaningful to the participants”. It's a way for people to turn their designs into action. Drama is a set of situations that exist in every action and acquisition of man.

The History of Drama

Named In the USA as “Creative Drama’’, in the UK as ‘‘Drama in Education’’, in the Federal Republic of Germany as ‘‘School Game’’ and ‘‘Game and Interaction’’, In the field of ‘‘Creative Drama in Education’’, it is quite likely to see the first practices of drama lesson in the classroom was performed by Harriet - Finloy Johnson, a village teacher. This practice as the first drama lesson is a kind of ‘‘make believe play’’. In 1921, John Dewey's child-centered understanding of education and behavior development by playing, saving the individual from passivity cause an active playground that allowed the individual to express himself. In this approach, which has been given more importance to process rather than the product or the result, it was started from child’s games. In the 1970s, Dorothy Heathcote reconstructed and described drama. He did not immediately give the children and young people the opportunity and freedom to express themselves, unlike the others. Heathcote may seem authoritarian with these thoughts, but the aim was to teach the students how to use their powers gradually.

The Importance of Drama

In drama, there is an interaction between the real world and the fictional world. Drama by the participant, it feels like it is real and real feelings are experienced. From this point of view, fiction is intertwined with reality. Individuals who participate in drama studies learn situations, events and relationships in drama process. Participants use their knowledge and experience in the real world to create an imaginary world in drama and learn to study events and relationships in defining situations and roles they design in drama. Drama is a learning tool that has emerged in children's spontaneous plays, enhancing participants' artistic sensitivity, awareness of people and the world, and developing their imagination. Drama is an area used in education to power the game. The playful feature of drama is noteworthy that it is suitable for creative actions and creativity processes. Because of these characteristics, it is possible to use drama in education.

The Benefits of Drama

The benefits of drama enable the individual to recognize the limits of the body and to develop the body in a multi-faceted way. It allows the emotions to be noticed and expressed. It develops the four basic language skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing) and improves the quality and use of language. It enables the development and creativity of creativity. It increases decision-making power and ability to communicate positively with individuals. Drama brings experience with different events and situations. It develops the ability to express feelings and thoughts verbally and physically. Since drama is done by playing games, it helps to understand and concretize abstract and theoretical events and concepts.

Drama for Languge Teaching

Through creative drama activities, individuals gain the skills of thinking, speaking, listening and understanding. Drama enriches the repertoire of his communication and linguistic behavior, which is similar to the play, in which the individual in the real life, plays a particular role, and acts verbally and non-verbally against the role. It is argued that drama develops not only verbal but also non-verbal communication skills. It is seen that individuals use verbal and non-verbal language very effectively in drama studies. Individuals acquire the skills of thinking, speaking, listening, telling and communicating with each other while taking part in these activities. In language development; developing self-confidence while speaking, increasing the vocabulary, expressing ideas, gaining the ability to interact with people, using different languages in different situations, defining, discussing and evaluating skills.

Benefits of Using Drama

In this article, it is stated that the use of drama benefits from EFL / ESL class. The benefits were collected as follows; Gaining meaningful, fluent interaction in the target language, a whole contextualized and interactive approach, assimilating all pronunciations and a series of prosodics, a student who learns the target language in the context of a completely new concept and structure. This also suggests that the teacher will be a supporter of the learning process and will allow the student to explore the language activities.

Using Drama in Teaching Language

In this essay it was claimed that using drama in teaching language raises the student’s awareness towards the target language and culture. The advices about using drama for learners are that; gaining life experience, making their extra linguistic world meaningful in an effective way. The benefits of using drama is sorted as following; stimulates the imagination and promotes creative thinking, develops critical thinking skills, promotes language development, heightens effective listening skills, strengthens comprehension and By including senses as an integral part of the learning process, the learning attitude increases the empathy and awareness of others, encourages peer respect and group cooperation, strengthens the concept of positive self, and gives teachers a fresh perspective on teaching.

Dramatic Performance in Teaching Drama in EFL Contexts

This work argues that with dramatic performance in English theater, the teacher can improve the drama knowledge of English literature students. The research was conducted during an academic semester for 60 semesters. Students enrolled in English drama II courses. There were two groups as experimental and control groups. The researchers taught the experimental group how to accomplish the games with their role-playing strategy. Participants in the control group normally examined the contents of the same games without any performance. A final success test was applied to both groups and the results showed a significant difference between the two groups in favor of the experimental group. As a result, it was claimed that literature students did not only perform traditional comprehension activities, but also analyze the characters and the story as well as play games.

Facilitating English Language Teaching (ELT) through Drama

In this research, it was shown that students in their oral communication studies had the potential to engage students kinesthetically, emotionally, and cognitively – activities that could facilitate them when interacting in English. Drama activities helps learners to transform a number of unpleasant feelings and sensations like tension, resistance, embarrassment, and shyness into positive ones such as ease and confidence. Through the repetition and pacing of drama activities, students learns how to gauge their comfort level as they became more acquainted with the extroverted side of language learning.

Using Local Drama in Writing and Speaking: EFL Learners’ Creative Expression

This study which is aimed at describing the students activities in writing script of local drama and act out the drama were done through observation. It applies qualitative approach. It is intended to figure out the students’ activities in conducting the steps of writing the script and conducting local drama. The findings of this study show on how to teach writing script in English by encouraging the students’ employment of genre and steps of writing and perform their creative expression by conducting drama.

Nine drama activities for foreign language classrooms: Benefits and challenges

This article aims to illustrate nine types of drama activities that can be used in foreign language classes. Drama can be effectively integrated into all foreign language classes in order to achieve communicative goals by integrating four basic language skills, lexis and grammar structures. In this presentation, English teachers presented nine types of drama activities compiled from various sources, while the benefits of implementing drama activities were emphasized. With regard to the criteria to be used in the implementation of drama activities, the difficulties of applying drama activities in foreign language courses will be shared.

Drama in the Mixed-Ability EFL Classroom

This study is the result of trying to use drama skills to teach English as a foreign language with special caution in a mixed class classroom environment. It starts with a comprehensive examination of research on the use of drama for teaching English as a foreign language. She then examines my experience in the classroom through personal observation and unstructured interviews. The discussion focuses on the main benefits of the use of drama in the EFL class, including increasing the students' motivation and self-confidence, as well as achieving the aims of communicative language teaching.

The Effectiveness of Drama Techniques on Foreign Language Classroom

The study aimed to explore the types of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety that Thai FLA students have, to study the effect of drama techniques on the levels of FLCA of Thai EFL students, to examine drama activities that effect English language learning of Thia EFL students with FLCA, and improve drama techniques for reducing FLCA. Participants are 44 non-English university students selected by non-random sampling method.The research instruments were eight drama techniques-based lesson plans, FLCA questionnaire and guided questions for focus group discussion. The quantitate data were analyzed by mean, standard deviation, and t-test while the qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis technique.

Drama and CLIL: The Power of Connection

This article deals with both Drama and CLIL as English motivating forces and analyzes the relationship between the two approaches. The five dimensions of CLIL are analyzed not only by the subject of content but also by Drama as an appropriate CLIL technique. It has been shown that the practical activities required for drama fit a number of dimensions of CLIL and are actually embedded in the drama experience, which leads to a more effective language acquisition. Not only do both approaches motivate students through participation and connection, but both approaches are connected to the learning experience by integrating the whole learner into the learning experience.

Effects of Teaching of Modern Drama As a Method for Speaking Fluency

The use of modern dramas (Vendor's Death by Arthur Miller) in ELT classes can enable students to participate actively in conversation and improve speech fluency and speech accuracy. This study was designed in the form of experimental research and the data of this study was collected in 25 languages by English and Jumbo Department of Payam Noor University, I.R.Iran literature students. There are some aspects of fluent speech for this research. Vocabulary and expression, structures, smooth conversation, interaction and intonation. The data are analyzed speech texts to see progress after being treated four times. The result shows that students are encouraged in some areas indicated by excellence in speaking skills, vocabulary and clarity.