Drama in the ELT Classroom

Author: Nick Dawson Page 1 of 33

r: Katie J ones.
Pearson PHOTOCOPIABLE
INTRODUCTION
If we define drama in Shakespeares terms as
holding a mirror up to nature, then nearly
everything we, and the learners do in the ELT
classroom is drama. Nearly every interaction
and activity is pretend. We interact in English,
although this may not be the natural language
for interaction. Everything we do has an
aspect of performance, of theatricality and
therefore of drama.
Suspension of disbelief
When we watch a film or a play on television
or in the theatre, we ignore the fact that the
actors are not actually, detectives, doctors or
murderers. We engage in the drama because
we are able to suspend our disbelief, we are
able to pretend that the actors are the
characters they portray that the locations are
not stage sets or studios and the words spoken
by the actors are a prepared script, not the
spontaneous thoughts of the characters.

Students in an ELT classroom also need to
suspend disbelief, otherwise they would be
endlessly frustrated by the fact that the
teacher does not speak in the mother tongue
she shares with her students.
Drama and Games
Pretend games are a central part of a childs
education. When they dress up as a princess,
they become a princess. Their toys are not
painted pieces of metal, wood or plastic, they
are cars, guns, space rockets. Their toys get
sick, recover, get angry and feel emotions.
The ELT classroom is a pretend game in
exactly the same way.
Preparation for real life
Few of your students will become princesses
or astronauts, but all of them will become
English language users. The classroom game of
pretending to interact in English is a rehearsal
for future interactions in English.

Most actors would agree that rehearsals are a
time for hard work, careful listening and
intense performance but they are also an
enjoyable experience. They are a time for
experimenting and having fun before the real
audience arrives.

Students and teachers need to adopt the same
attitude to their language classes.
DRAMA TECHNIQUES
Mime and gesture
All foreign language users would say that they
have sometimes used mime to communicate
an idea when they did not have the
appropriate words. For language learning
purposes, mime can be an entertaining way to
learn and remember meanings. Can you mime
the difference between self-confident and
timid? Can you mime the difference between
delicate and heavy? By miming these words,
does it help you to remember them?

Drama in the ELT Classroom
Author: Nick Dawson Page 2 of 33
r: Katie J ones.
Pearson PHOTOCOPIABLE
Voice skills
Speaking English may use different muscles
from those used in your mother tongue. Like
a good athlete, you need to train and exercise
these muscles to produce the correct sounds.
Treat pronunciation activities in the same
way as an athletic work out. Get those muscles
working powerfully and precisely.

In many languages communication is made
possible by using the first part of a word. In
English, endings are very important. When
you speak, can we hear those ending clearly?
English is not a sing-song language, but
intonation is still very important. When you
speak, does the changing tone of your voice
help to communicate meaning?
Choral speaking
Choral speaking is not a communicative
activity because students will not need to do
this in everyday life, but choral speaking is a
valuable learning activity. It offers
opportunities to focus on the pronunciation
of single words, the slide between words and
the intonation patterns of sentences. We
frequently use rhymes and poems for choral
speaking. Choral speaking is also useful
because no single student is exposed.
Therefore choral speaking is good for classes
of shy students.
Stress timing
In English sentences we place the major stress
on words which carry the most meaning. In a
phrase like in the park, the major stress will be
on the word park. During choral speaking, we
can show how students can find the stressed
words in each sentence and practice putting
the major stress on those words.
Singing
Singing is an enjoyable and communal activity
combining music with sung speech. In good
songs, the utterances are correctly stressed and
so they are a useful for practising language.
Rapping is a newer form of song in which
rhythm is more important than melody. Raps
are a useful form of choral speech.

Poems, rhymes, songs and raps are easily
memorised. In speech, learners are frequently
hesitant because they are thinking about what
to say not only thinking of what to say but
thinking of how to phrase their ideas.
Part speaking
If students have studied a dialogue, we can
sometimes use the dialogues for part choral
speaking. The teachers divides the class into
groups and assigns a part to teach group. Then
the class re-enact the dialogue using choral
speech.

Natural intonation is more evident in
dialogues and re-enacting dialogues is a very
good way to practise both intonation and
stress timing within utterances.
Pair or small group part speaking
Since students can listen to recordings of
dialogues, we can ask small groups of students

Drama in the ELT Classroom
Author: Nick Dawson Page 3 of 33
r: Katie J ones.
Pearson PHOTOCOPIABLE
to divide up the parts and re-enact the
dialogue copying the pronunciation, stress
and intonation of the original recording. This
is a valuable exercise because students can
copy a recording, they have access to the
written script and because they are pretending
to be a different person. This is not a
communicative activity, but students can
develop confidence by re-enacting dialogues.
Pretending to be a different person
Your student, Maria Ferrari, cannot speak
English, but when you ask her to re-enact the
part of Susan Green in a dialogue, Maria can
speak English. When learning a foreign
language, we are all slightly inhibited from
using that language by our own personal
identity. Pretending to be a different person is
a good way to overcome this inhibition.

With young children learning English, we
overcome this inhibition by using glove
puppets. Whilst the child may be too shy to
speak in English, the puppet is not. The
children learn fluency and confidence by
giving their voices to the puppets.
Play acting
There are a few books which contain short
plays in simple English which students can
stage in the classroom. Students can also
create plays by adapting fables and graded
readers into plays. Many students have
portable devices which can record video
images and sounds. They will enjoy creating
short horror, adventure or detective videos in
English. These videos can be shared with
other students or with other classes.

Students can have great fun creating these
short videos. Groups of students will use a lot
of English in creating the story out lines and
scripts. The format of these short videos
encourages extreme expressions of emotion
which can be very liberating for less confident
learners.
Role play
Most role plays are used to practice
procedures in which the interaction is
predictable. From the skeleton supplied by the
role play students create a script. Role plays
can be repeated, developed, and prepared for
public performance. Students may also turn
their role play into a recorded video.
Improvisation
Improvisation is the most challenging form of
role play. Although the location and roles may
be pre-planned, the actual interaction is not.
Participants need to interact spontaneously,
creating responses to the utterances of the
other partner.
Conclusions
Learning a foreign language is not easy.
Drama activities help students to treat their
learning as a game. Rehearsal leads to great
fluency and, perhaps, to public performance.
Drama activities are not communicative but
they are an enjoyable preparation for
communication.