Drama Techniques in Foreign Language Acquisition
TOPIC 19: Drama Expression Techniques as a Resource to Learn a Foreign Language
Drama in Everyday Life Situations and Representation of Tales, Characters, Jokes, etc.
Group Work in Creative Activities. Teacher’s Role.
1. Introduction
Have you ever heard about Albert Mehrabian’s 55-38-7 rule? This rule comes from his research in the 1970s and suggests that when we interpret someone’s feelings, attitudes, and beliefs during communication, we rely heavily on non-verbal cues. Specifically, Mehrabian’s rule breaks down communication into three components: words, tone of voice, and body language respectively account for 7%, 38%, and 55% of personal communication.
Knowing this information, an excellent way to incorporate this non-verbal communication is through body language in drama projects.
Drama has been introduced as a technique where both verbal and non-verbal communication are practiced, as we do in real life.
Thus, the drama technique fits perfectly to work under our current educational law since LOMLOE 3/2020, December 29th, which modified LOE 2/2006, has developed Royal Decree 157/2022, March 1st, and Decree 61/22, July 13th, where the basic curriculum concretions for Primary Education in Madrid are settled. Within them is the Plurilingual Competence, which is related to communication and must be developed throughout the Primary Education Stage.
Through this topic, we will see the importance drama has when teaching a language and how we can use different drama techniques to improve our students’ communicative skills, without forgetting the teacher’s role within it.
2. Drama and Expression Techniques as a Resource in the Learning of a Foreign Language
2.a. Definition of Drama
As I have said in the introduction, drama can be defined as a useful technique that can be used to develop some specific language skills, such as speaking. Therefore, students learn to use language in a real context and can apply what they have learned.
2.b. Elements in Drama Techniques
Taking into account its importance, WESSELS established the elements that any drama lesson should contain to be effective:
- Positive relationships in the classroom to create a friendly atmosphere
- A good physical environment
- The use of warm-ups (such as games, songs, and chants related to the main activity)
- A goal orientation (the activity must have an objective to be reached in a limited period)
- A background role for the teachers (the teacher has a minor role), which allows students to work for themselves
- Pupil’s leadership (a leader is required to encourage the rest of the group) to create the right atmosphere
2.c. The Benefits of Drama
Furthermore, what are the benefits of using drama techniques? To answer this question, I am going to name some of the advantages of using these kinds of activities:
Psychological benefits: Drama develops children’s imagination, creativity, sense of achievement, and spontaneity. In addition to this, it removes inhibitions.
Social benefits: Drama encourages social integration, the learning of values, attitudes, and social conventions. At the same time, it improves teacher and student relationships.
Linguistic benefits: Language provides practice of contextualized vocabulary and structures, pronunciation, fluency, and it also helps with memorization and unconscious learning.
Pedagogical benefits: Drama techniques are a resource to provide positive attitudes, high motivation, unconscious learning, and a pleasant atmosphere.
2.d. Planning of the Lessons
However, WESSELS states that when we plan a drama lesson, we must consider the following aspects:
- Mental and physical preparation using warm-up activities during no more than 5 minutes.
- Supply background to the situation to develop perceptions and interests.
- Questions on the characters to get empathy between students and the characters. In this task, around 10 minutes will be necessary.
- Improvisation and mime, where we will take into account students’ previous knowledge and how they get involved in the activity using their body language.
- Feedback: to make students aware of how to improve their performance.
Once we know the advantages of drama and the aspects to bear in mind when considering it as an educative activity, I will move on to explain the next block.
3. Drama in Everyday Life Situations, Representation of Tales, Characters, Jokes, etc.
When using drama techniques in class, we may first consider the difference that exists between representation and dramatization according to Brecht. Basically, representation means “performance” of a few phrases or ideas to an audience. Dramatization, on the contrary, usually entails using gestures, mimicry, and body language to make the audience believe you are really in the role of that character.
These two terms will help us understand how to use different drama techniques with communicative purposes.
3.a. Drama Techniques
An aspect that all drama activities have in common is that students have to put themselves in an imaginary situation, and language is used creatively. Besides, some of the ones we can use are: miming, drama games, role plays, play reading, jokes, and puppet shows.
a. MIMING doesn’t develop oral ability directly, but it helps to learn nonverbal communication in foreign language situations, and students develop their strategic competence to avoid breakdowns in conversations.
b. DRAMA GAMES develop students’ imagination because they have to create new situations and use their previous knowledge in different ways, as well as promoting the use of paralinguistic features and non-verbal communication. Some examples of drama games are: ‘Handshakes’ to work on introducing yourself, ‘Statues,’ where one is the sculptor and the other is obedient, or ‘What’s the time, Mr. Wolf?’ to work on time.
c. ROLE PLAYS involve acting, thus students pretend they are someone else in a particular situation. Role-playing makes students get used to performing in front of others, which is what they have to do outside the classroom. This technique helps them to overcome the nervousness that this situation produces.
At early stages, guided role-play can be introduced. Students are given the lines of the dialogue, and they have to read aloud and act it out. For example, we can practice personal questions by pretending to be a famous actor or journalist interviewing.
On the other hand, for older students, freer role-play can be used. Students are given their roles in detail and the structures, but they are free to elaborate the dialogues in groups or pairs. In this case, we can simulate an Instagram Direct in class. To do this, we can prepare cards with different famous characters where the character’s personal information is missing. Students have to choose one card, and they have to answer some personal questions about their character by looking for them on the Internet.
d. PLAY READING has as its main aim not just to read a text aloud but also to interpret it, which makes it an excellent pronunciation practice. Students firstly read the text on their own and work on it with the teacher, then they read it out loud in groups, and finally, the groups play it in front of the class.
e. JOKES are difficult to tell in any language, but they bring fun to the English class and can be used to work on linguistic and cultural purposes.
f. PUPPET SHOWS can be a starting point for those students who don’t feel comfortable acting in front of others.
4. Pair and Group Work in Creative Activities
Now, we have got our pockets full of techniques, activities, or ideas that work in class. However, when we plan an activity, we must consider Slavin’s guidelines when dealing with groupings:
- Working in small groups avoids teacher and student pressure. Thus, oral practice is activated.
- Quality of the language used over quantity. We have to enhance the richness of social relationships among students derived from the interactions in small groups.
- Class distribution and organization: we have to consider the size, furniture, and arrangements (classical distribution for exams or lessons; circle with the teacher outside for games with no teacher intervention; horseshoe arrangement).
After having explained the aspects we must consider when grouping, I will deal with one of the most useful drama techniques to be carried out in groups: the drama project.
4.a. Drama Project
A drama project is an activity that can only be carried out in groups and that provides a particularly satisfying experience for students. Its main aim is to increase students’ communicative competence by solving a problem or task proposed, following the guidelines of Project Based Approach. Nevertheless, as our students’ level of proficiency is low, a fifteen-minute activity will be adequate.
The advantages of using drama projects are the following:
- It is an enjoyable group activity.
- It helps students to acquire new vocabulary, structures, and sociocultural conventions within a context.
- As the language is adapted to students’ level, it increases students’ ability to learn English.
Nevertheless, some disadvantages of its use can also be highlighted:
- They are only effective with small groups of volunteer students.
- Not all students find it useful and motivating, and these aspects are the key to succeeding when using a drama project.
- A drama project requires careful planning and organization from the teacher. It also requires dedication and loyalty from students.
Bearing all these aspects in mind, let’s deal with the last part of the topic, where I will briefly deal with the teacher and students’ roles in drama activities.
5. Teacher and Learner’s Role in Drama Activities
As far as the teacher’s role is concerned, we can adapt it depending on the type of activity we want to carry out. Harmer classifies them into: advisor, analyst, prompter, controller, resource, and model.
Furthermore, within drama activities, teachers adopt the advisor role, deciding the aspects that best suit each. Teachers can give this kind of advice because, throughout the year, they analyze each of their students to check their previous knowledge, know their interests, and adapt the lessons to them, thus taking on the role of an analyst. Sometimes, in the development of the project, things do not work out as expected, and some students lose their motivation, which is when the teacher has to give them positive feedback, acting as a prompter.
Also, one of the things that generally happens when students work in groups is that the class can be a little messy. There will be more noise and even more conflicts among the members of a group; and here is where the teacher acts as a class manager and negotiator, trying to keep the class calm and organized. Now, in the development of an expression activity, many doubts can appear, and children need someone to solve them; here, teachers become informants, trying to help students as much as possible.
And finally, at every moment, our students are watching us, so the most essential role we carry out in the classroom is when we act as models because, as the famous quote says: “Children are great imitators, so let us give them something great to imitate.”
6. Conclusion
As a conclusion, I would like to point out that acting out situations and drama are effective procedures to give students the opportunity to speak and practice their target language and develop social skills in the foreign language classroom. As we have seen throughout this topic, English lessons have some special characteristics.
Activities that foster social interactions among students and the teacher, such as drama games and exercises with audio-visual aids, are key elements in the learning process. Careful planning and timing are also important features on the part of the teacher.
7. Bibliography
The main bibliography I have used to develop this topic is the following:
- Crystal, O. L. D. (2018). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (3rd Revised ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Hymes, D. (1972). On Communicative Competence (in Sociolinguistics). Penguin.
- Jakobson, R., & Halle, M. (2017). Fundamentals of Language. Andesite Press.