Teaching ESL Classroom: Bring Exciting and Fun Lesson Vibes Through Drama

Teachers are obliged to select and implement methods and strategies that really bring benefits to students.

As a language learner, I personally have tried many styles of learning, however, the most exciting is through literature. From fairy tales, poetry, songs, novel, movies to drama, literary products have helped me to achieve my language skills today. Something interesting and fun about learning through literature is besides being able to gain new words, phrases, idioms, even new beautiful sentences, we could also enjoy wonderful stories and moral values served by those literary texts. These days, I extracted to listen to radio drama on YouTube and Google Podcast, and it has handed me to enhance my listening and speaking skills, especially learn about pronunciation, intonation, and accent. However, unfortunately, I have not tried the role-play method to portray a character from a drama as a way of learning English. When I studied neither in Junior nor at Senior High School my teacher implemented this method in the class. However, from the perspective of students, I believe implementing drama as the way of teaching and learning in ESL Classroom will interesting and fun both for students and teachers, as well as bring a great impact on students’ participation and skills improvement.

In the development of student learning, apart from the student her/himself, the teacher is also responsible for the ability or failure of each student to develop. Therefore, teachers are obliged to select and implement methods and strategies that really bring benefits to students. One of the most significant aspects in choosing the way of teaching and materials is to find out whether those methods and sources will attract students’ attention and motivate them to study or not. As in some points that Maley and Kiss (2018) claimed about the essential role of the language teacher, which is: first, provide interesting, accurate, and appropriate input for learners. Next, to provide plenty of opportunities to practice for students without much boredom. Third, challenge learners to exceed their current level of ability. To develop students’ English skills, one entertaining strategy that can be applied in the ESL classroom is through drama. “The human conflicts, moral dilemmas, or political issues communicated in a play engage students intellectually and emotionally and can provide a valuable source for discussion. Student confidence improves, not least because students have a written text as a basis from which to develop their oral skills” (Lazar, 1993). Collie and Slater (1987, as cited from Picken, 2007) added in this context literature is arguably motivating for students because they should be able to relate the ‘fundamental human issues’ that literature deals with to their own lives and experiences. Besides that, drama activities help students to develop their empathy, sensitivity to others, anticipation and raise group solidarity among them (Maley and Kiss, 2018). Teaching through drama is believed could bring an exciting and fun atmosphere to the class, which raises students’ desire to learn. Seeing the benefits that teaching through drama provides for the development of students, teachers can try to apply this strategy to the classroom.

Here are several ways to use drama as a teaching English strategy based on the level of students either in offline or online classes, which the teacher can adopt.

For junior high schools:

1. Find Us (teaching grammar)

Grade: 7th graders

Activities: The teacher presents a PowerPoint that contained manuscript cuts of a play in front of the class or in an online class teacher can share screen. Then students are asked to identify the tenses used in the text and write those tenses along with the sentences.

2. Doing role plays

Grade: 8th or 9th graders

Activities:

1) The class is divided into 8 groups.

2) The teacher provided 4 dramatic texts and one backup text.

3) Every 2 groups get the same text. Each group member acted out a role from the drama.

4) Teacher give example on how to pronounce each word and phrase from the text and students are given time to practice.

5) Students display the results of their practice in front of the class, others may comment.

At this level students are not required to memorize all of the text, simply reading with proper pronunciation and expression.

Online:

1. Imitate me!

Activities: The teacher sent a short drama taken from YouTube with its script to students through Google classroom. This method combines drilling and role play, where students are given time to practice how to read the articulation, pronunciation, intonation of those sentences in the conversation. Then, students are asked to record themselves during imitating the conversation and submit the result to the teacher.

For high schoolers there are four ways that are offered:

In offline classes:

1. Turn your favorite song into a drama

Grade: the 10th classes

Activities: Students are divided into groups, and then the teacher tells each group to produce a short drama inspired by one of their favorite songs with the main theme about school/youth life. Students may also insert several pieces of song lyrics into the script.

2. Challenge: Make your own high school drama!

Grade: the 11th classes

Activities: Students are divided into four groups every group creates a drama based on the theme and genre provided by the teacher. The teacher can use school life as the big theme, and for the genre Representatives from each group stepped forward and chose a scroll that contains the genre of drama they will create. Several genres can be used: comedy, teenager romance, horror, and drama musical.

3. Turn that story into you want to be

Grade: the 12th classes

Activities: Each student is asked to reproduce a chapter of a film or novel into a short play with their imaginations. So that, things they felt were less satisfying either from the story could be corrected into what they want to be.

In online classes:

4. Radio drama: make your own version

Activities: The teacher gives one example of radio drama, then students may also look for other references independently. Then students who have been divided into groups of four or five are asked to create a simple radio drama in accordance with their creation.

Teachers can also make the classroom atmosphere more enjoyable by combining the methods of teaching through drama and games, for examples:

a) Guess what they do!

The teacher sets up a PowerPoint that contains script cuts from a drama or movie as the questions, and the answer choice plus the correct answers in the form of film scene cuts. Briefly, students are only asked to select possible answers between choices a, b, or c.

b) Guess what they say!

Next games, the teacher can also provide a silent video cut from a drama, and then students are asked to guess the sentence said by the character from the movement of the character’s lips.

All of the strategies aim to drill the students to the sounds of English: articulation, pronunciation, intonation. Besides speaking skills, through those activities other English skills such as listening, writing, and reading also being trained. The other purpose is to develop creativity, innovation, and critical thinking of students, also to expose literature to students. Most of the activities are also planned in the form of groups, so it is expected to build cooperation and solidarity among students.

In summary, it is important for teachers to select an appropriate method of teaching because he/she is also responsible for the ability or failure of students’ learning development. Every implemented approach must be able to attract students’ attention and motivate them to study. One interesting strategy that can be applied in the ESL classroom is teaching through drama. Activities based on drama will build an exciting and fun atmosphere in the class, which will raise students’ motivation to learn. The strategies above could be an option for teachers to apply learning through drama in class.

Sources:

Lazar, G. (1993). Literature and Language Teaching: A Guide for Teachers and Trainers (Cambridge Teacher Training and Development) (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Maley, A., & Kiss, T. (2017). Creativity and English Language Teaching: From Inspiration to Implementation (1st ed. 2018 ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.

Picken, J. (2007). Literature, Metaphor and the Foreign Language Learner (2007th ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.