Using Drama in the Class

By using creative drama in the classroom you will allow more direct involvement in the learning process on the part of your students. You will offer them discovery of self and a positive social, emotional and intellectual stimulation which is necessary for your students’ growth and development. Classroom barriers will be broken down and higher levels of oral communicative competence will be “magically” achieved.

Creative dramatics e.g. plays, songs, music, puppetry, pantomime, improvisation or any activity that involves the imagination, raise students’ self-esteem, encourage spontaneity and allow students to get in touch not only with their own feelings but those of others. Creative dramatics are a source of motivation, interest and enjoyment for both students and teachers and should become an essential part of the curriculum – not just a time filler.

Don’t expect your young actors and actresses to perform a Shakespearean play in their first year of English. You have to guide them slowly. You are the director and have to allow them to discover or rediscover their creative nature. Here are some warm-up creative drama techniques that can help you start.

Statues

Ask your students for a list of different animals e.g. snake, kangaroo, dog, cat, monkey. Write the list on the board and then YOU choose one and ask your students to guess which animal your body is representing. The student who guesses correctly will select another animal from the list and transform his/her body into the chosen animal. This activity not only reinforces vocabulary but allows your students to get in touch with their bodies.

Clay

Ask your students to name some common everyday actions e.g. driving a car, eating pasta, reading a book, etc. Write the actions on the board. Then ask a student to come to the front of the classroom and gently model his/her body to represent one of the actions from the list. Ask students to guess what you are doing. The student who guesses correctly will then choose another student and select an action from the list and model the other student’s body to represent the action. The remaining students have to guess which action was performed. This exercise develops a positive inter-group relationship and allows the students to understand and relate to their peers.

Oh, Mary

Ask your students for adjectives that describe different emotional states e.g. happy, sad, angry, worried, surprised, bored, loving, confused, nasty, etc. Write the adjectives on the board. Tell them that you are going to use your voice to communicate an emotion by saying only two words “Oh, Mary”. The student who guesses the right emotion will then choose a different emotion and by using his/her voice will get the others to guess which emotion he/she is expressing. This activity helps students reduce their anxieties about communicating in the second language.

Some other activities which are productive and fun are:

• Take your students to the theatre, arrange for them to go backstage and meet and talk not only to the actors but also to members of the lighting crew, to the make-up artists, to the scenery director, to the script writers, etc.
• Have them study and “build” the famous theatres of the world.
• Mime when you read stories.
• Get students to mime when you read stories.
• Watch films without the audio and let them create the dialogues.
• Listen to music and let students mime the lyrics.
• Write ballads and set them to music.
• Have a puppet show.
• Let students write the scripts, make the scenery and costumes and perform scenes about historic events.
• Have them create their own versions of well-known fairy tales.

Creative drama activities work well in the English language classroom for they create not only a bonding, a sense of trust in the teacher and in the students but increase the students’ sense of personal commitment to learning the English language. And that is worth an Academy Award!!!