DRAMA IN THE Primary

ESLCLASSROOM
It is NOT about

▪ performance on stage
▪ performance in the classroom
▪ competing with one another
▪ being an actor or an actress
DRAMA IN THE CLASSROOM IS ABOUT

▪ an activity in which students invent and enact

dramatic situations for themselves, rather
than an outside audience.

▪ the activity is most widely known as creative

drama which is spontaneously generated by
the students who perform dual tasks of
composing and enacting their parts as the
drama progresses.
WHY TEACH DRAMA TO YOUNG LEARNERS?
▪ Motivating
▪ Fun and familiar
▪ Creates a positive environment for learning
and growing
▪ Stimulates both critical and creative thinking
▪ Helps build positive self-image
▪ Has the potential to develop language
 MOTIVATION

▪ Dramatizing a text can be motivating.

▪ The same activity can be done at different levels at
the same time, which means that all children can do it
successfully.
▪ The end product of the activity makes the children
feel safe and they have a goal to work towards.
▪ Watching their other friends in the class what they
have done.
▪ If the teacher decides to put up as a public
performance.
 FAMILIAR ACTIVITIES

▪ Part of children’s lives from an early age.

▪ Children try out different roles in make-believe play.
▪ Make-believe encourages their creativity and develops their
imaginations.
▪ Provides children an opportunity to use the language that is
outside their daily needs. (*)
▪ 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.
▪ Pretend plays prepares children for the real-life situations.
▪ Stimulate creativity in problem solving.
▪ Challenge children’s (students) perceptions about their world
and about themselves.
 GROUP DYNAMICS

▪ Can in be pairs or groups.

▪ Group work may be structured, where children
reproduce a model, or it may mean children taking
responsibility for their own work.
▪ Learn to make decision, self-control, discipline,
cooperate, listen to each other and value each other’s
views and suggestions, find ways of settling their
differences and use the strengths of each member of
the group.
 CONFIDENCE

▪ By taking a role, children can temporally escape from

their everyday identity and lose their inhibitions.
▪ Useful especially for children who are shy about
speaking English and those who don’t like doing group
activities.
▪ The teacher can use and assign roles to encourage
children who would otherwise hold back and control
children who dominate the weaker ones.
 DIFFERENT LEARNING STYLES

▪ Appeals to all kinds of learners.

▪ Children receive and process information in different
ways, the main ones through sight, hearing and their
physical bodies.
▪ One of these channels tends to be dominant in each
child.
▪ When children are in involved in a drama activity,
they will use all the channels, and each child will draw
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
channel most appropriate for them.
 LANGUAGE PERSONALISATION

▪ Dramatic exploration allows children with an outlet

for emotions, thoughts and dreams that they might
not otherwise have means to express.
▪ For a few moments, children BECOME ANOTHER,
explore a new role, try out and experiment with
various choices and solutions to very real problems–
problems from their own their life, or problems faced
by characters in literature or historical figures.(*)
▪ By interpreting the words, the children make them
their own.
 LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT

▪ Drama is about COMMUNICATION. This allows

students to communicate with and understand others
in new ways and also provides training in the very
PRACTICAL aspects of communication so necessary in
today’s increasingly information-centered world.
▪ Drama is an ideal way to encourage students to guess
the meaning of unknown language in a context which
often makes meaning clear. Similarly, they will need
to use a mixture of language structures and functions
if they are to communicate succesfully.
 CROSS-CURRICULAR CONTENT

▪ When using drama, as a teacher, your aims can be more than

linguistic.
▪ You can use topics from other subjects – the children can act
out scenes from history, or the life cycle of a frog, etc.
▪ You can work on ideas and issues that run through the
curriculum, such as respect for the environment and road
safety.
▪ Important messages can be conveyed and explored through the
many types of drama activities.
▪ 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 behaviour.
 THE PACE OF A LESSON

▪ Drama can add a change of pace or mood to the

classroom.
▪ It is learner-centred which allows you to use it in
contrast with more teacher-centred parts of a lesson.
▪ It is active and so it can be used to make a class more
lively after quieter or individual work.
 FUN

▪ Learning through fun is always the best for a child.

▪ Children crave for fun and enjoyment all the time.
▪ If they can learn and also have fun at the same time,
then DRAMA IS the solution!
REMEMBER!

USE DRAMA IN THE CLASSROOM AS A

TOOL TO TEACH THE LANGUAGE
IN A FUN BUT MEANINGFUL WAY.
 DRAMA AND THE MALAYSIAN PRIMARY
SCHOOL CURRICULUM

In the curriculum specifications for English in the

primary schools, the suggested context for teaching
are as the following:

1. WORLD OF SELF/PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS-

about happy times and sad times, about solving problems in
everyday life (e.g. forgetting to bring a book to school,
forgetting to take pocket money to school)
2. WORLD OF STORIES- stories about other lands, stories
about growing up
3. WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE- buildings and places of
interest, celebrations in Malaysia, nature
Scaffolding thru story and drama
(Read, 2012)
 Tutorial task
• In groups, choose one of the articles
given.
• Prepare a ppt presentation of the article.
• Share your info with the class.