Drama or dramatizing?
Whereas drama means the staging, the product; dramatizing means that children become actively involved in a text. This personalization makes language more meaningful and memorable than mechanical repetition can make. Therefore, we think dramatizing is a better word than drama in this context. That is to say, in class, pupils learn during the process (when they are reading the script) which is more important than the product (drama).
Advantages
General advantages:
Using dramatizing and drama activities has clear advantages for language learning:
- It allows students to learn a lot of subjects in a contextualized way, they feel personally the situation on their own. So, they will understand and remember the content better.
- It promotes the relationship with their partners and teachers. In this way, dramatizing works out the child formation as a social being in a better way.
- It allows to develop different ways to express the ideas, from verbal language to non-verbal language (body language).
- It encourages the pleasure to read.
- It helps the students to overcome the shyness due to they do not feel they are presenting a project. They feel they are playing the role of something or someone, so they are not the ones that they are representing because they will become another person.
- It is a good tool to show feelings and ideas.
- It develops empathy because it teaches children to walk a mile in classmates’ shoes.
- It develops their imagination because they can create their own theater set, own costume or own scene (students in fifth and sixth level of Primary Education who have a really good English level).
- It improves their memorization ability.
Using dramatizing and drama activities has clear advantages for language learning:
- Through this method, children can develop these four skills:
- Reading: they have to read the script in order to know the story.
- Listening: they have to listen to their partners in order to know what to answer; or, in the third or forth level when they tend to improvise instead of memorizing the script, they have to listen carefully to imagine the situation. In the fifth or sixth level, when they invent their own script and they must listen to their partners’ opinions.
- Speaking: this skill is developed to the third grade of Primary Education because they have acquired some grammatical structures. Therefore, they do not need to memorize the script, they can improvise it. In fifth and sixth grade, they have to share their opinions to invent their script.
- Writing: this skill is only developed in the fifth or sixth grade where they invent and write their own script.
- It is a good way to learn new vocabulary because they are learning in a contextualized way. So, thanks to that, they will remember it better than studying a list of words.
- It allows them to acquire grammar structures. They do not study the structures consciously, they learn them taking a role. So, they acquire the structure unconsciously.
- Teacher has to read the text aloud using a good pronunciation and intonation before they study the script. Thus, through theatre children can improve their pronunciation.
- It helps students to learn English in a contextualized way. They are learning by doing.
Learning through dramatizing
As you have read previously, theatre is a good tool to learn, it has many advantages. Therefore, this technic can be used not only in Arts or Theatre. We, as teachers, can use the performance to learn new vocabulary, History, Natural Science or even, Mathematics, etc.
In addition to this, through dramatizing students can learn culture and values as you can observe in the theatrical production “The Leprechaun” through which they learn Irish culture and values.
How can they learn this? Maybe, the most difficult to imagine is how they can learn Mathematics. We will answer this question. For instance, if they are studying additions in class, ten pupils could be numbers (from 0 to 9), another one could take the role of the sign plus (+) and the rest, could be the students and the teacher.
In this kind of performance which is for students who are in the first grade of Primary Education (due to these contents are studied in this level), the teacher’s role is to write an interesting and funny script in order to keep the students’ attention. He/she has to learn the correct pronunciation to teach it to their students.
I will give you another example related to Natural Science. If they are studying the human body, they could do a role play about a person who goes to the doctor because he/she has fallen, and the professional has to check-up his/her bones.
In these ways, students can acquire the concepts better because of they are taking the role of a specific main element of the subject. Thus, to do this, it requires they have to take the role and to understand how it works.
In addition to this, through dramatizing students can learn culture and values as you can observe in the theatrical production “The Leprechaun” through which they learn Irish culture and values.
How can they learn this? Maybe, the most difficult to imagine is how they can learn Mathematics. We will answer this question. For instance, if they are studying additions in class, ten pupils could be numbers (from 0 to 9), another one could take the role of the sign plus (+) and the rest, could be the students and the teacher.
In this kind of performance which is for students who are in the first grade of Primary Education (due to these contents are studied in this level), the teacher’s role is to write an interesting and funny script in order to keep the students’ attention. He/she has to learn the correct pronunciation to teach it to their students.
I will give you another example related to Natural Science. If they are studying the human body, they could do a role play about a person who goes to the doctor because he/she has fallen, and the professional has to check-up his/her bones.
In these ways, students can acquire the concepts better because of they are taking the role of a specific main element of the subject. Thus, to do this, it requires they have to take the role and to understand how it works.
Ways to practice dramatizing in class
They can take different roles by themselves or, at the beginning (in the first grade) they can use puppets to feel more comfortable. They can put a photo with their faces, it is funniest for them and attract their attention (as you can see in the video bellow).
Adapting it to the students' level
- First and second grade.
- Third and fourth grade.
- Fifth and sixth grade.
Finally, we think Arts and English teachers should be coordinated. Children could use Arts lessons, which are normally taught in English, to design their own costume and the theatre set.
References
- Rábano Llamas, M. and García Esteban, S. (2015). Inglés para el Grado en Magisterio de Educación Infantíl. 1st ed. Madrid: Universidad de Alcalá de Henares.
- Biblioteca.unirioja. (2013). Aprendizaje de Inglés en alumnos de Educación Primaria a través del teatro. [online] Available at: https://biblioteca.unirioja.es/tfe_e/TFE000740.pdf [Accessed 18 Nov. 2017].