This document discusses using drama techniques to teach and learn language. It outlines various drama activities like role playing, storytelling, improvisation and freeze games that develop skills like speaking, listening, creativity and collaboration. Drama allows for active, experiential learning that enhances language acquisition. The techniques aim to eliminate inhibitions and create a supportive environment for free expression. Examples are given of specific drama activities used to practice vocabulary, pronunciation and public speaking.

1. Language Through Drama
Frank Tang, Yusi Gao, Joy Zhu
DCLT Workshop
April, 2018

2. Drama techniques
vs.
Creative drama

3. Communication
Self-expression
Imagination
Creativity
Concentration
motivation
Organization
Discipline
Collaboration

4. ž Drama is part of natural play
ž Active and interactive
ž Develop speaking and listening
ž Learning through experience
ž Emotional involvement
ž Socialization
ž Promote teamwork
ž Knowledge of self
ž Various learning modes
ž Multisensory

5. What drama technique do you use?
ž Drama game
ž Role play
ž Storytelling
ž pantomime
ž Freeze game
ž Thought tracking
ž Play reading
ž Play/script performance
ž Improvisation

8. Before play,
there is no imagination.
- Vygotsky

11. This is accomplished through a
specific series of teaching
procedures and dramatic
techniques which seek to eliminate
inhibitions and create an
atmosphere of free expression from
the very first day of class.

12. The emphasis throughout is spoken
language and familiarity with the
culture of the country whose
language is being studied.

13. The classroom techniques involved
are rapid-paced, theatrical, highly
creative, imaginative, and
necessitate great quantities of
enthusiasm. Positive reinforcement
is immediate.

14. ž Acting and life are inseparable from
effective teaching.
ž Nothing is real unless it touches
something in me and I’m aware of it.

15. You know it’s all a part of being alive, and
making others feel alive….We are all into
this together.

16. You know, the student has got to be made
to stretch his powers, his capacities. Isn’t
that what teaching’s all about?

17. If I hear something, I
forget it; if you show
me something, I
remember it; but if you
make me do
something, I will never
forget it because I will
understand it.

18. ž Pronunciation & intonation
ž Clarity and audibility
ž Imitation
ž Recitation
ž Show and tell
ž Public speaking
ž Storytelling
ž Speech habits
ž Non-verbal speech

19. Types of drama techniques:
ž Warm ups
ž ice breaker
ž Mime and movement
ž Speech and poetry reading
ž Acting out
ž Puppetry
ž Role-play
ž Improvisation
ž group dynamics

20. žA potlatch party
žHi, how are you?

21. Count to 20
I know what I like
Vocabulary acting

22. •Vocabulary acting is a fun and
effective way to memorize words.
•“Nothing is real unless it touches
something in me and I’m aware of
it.”
-John Rassias

23. ž Playmaking
ž Process drama
ž Improvisation

24. Playmaking:
ž Make use of a story
ž Develop ideas and feelings
through dramatic enactment
ž Dialogue created by the students
themselves
ž Lines are NOT written down
memorized—impromptu

25. Process drama:
ž Build a background
ž What leads to the situation
ž Language development
ž Character creation
ž Learning through drama

26. žDramatize stories
žDramatize fables
žDramatize legends
žCreate your own plays

27. žThree monks
ž Six blind men and the elephant
ž Love story
ž The gift of Magi
ž Homecoming
ž An Anansi story from West India