This document discusses how to use drama and movement activities to engage students in foreign language learning. It recommends dramatizing everyday situations through role plays, stories, jokes, and other group activities. Some benefits highlighted are that drama increases student motivation and attention, helps develop communication skills, and maintains classroom energy. Suggested teacher roles include organizer, prompter, and participant. Potential issues like noise and shy students are also addressed.

1. TOPIC 19. WAYS TO USE MOVEMENT AND
SPEECH TO LIVEN UP FOREIGN LANGUAGE
LEARNING. THE DRAMATIZATION OF
EVERYDAY SITUATIONS, AND THE USE OF
STORIES, CHARACTERS, JOKES, ETC.
CREATIVE GROUP- WORK ACTIVITIES.
THE TEACHER’S ROLE.

2. INTRODUCTION
This unit is about ways to enliven our foreign
language classrooms using elements of dramatic
performance. Drama has been used throughout
history to entertain and educate people, but really
began to take hold in classrooms as a
pedagogical tool in the 20th century with the
advent of new student –centred approaches.
The dramatic arts offer a wide range of
techniques for the primary school teacher in which
students can participate. These techniques are
essential to develop our students’ communicative
competence practicing the four language skills,
and to maintain classroom interest and energy.

3. Drama -based activities
• Body language reinforces oral messages.
• Facial expressions (sad, happy, etc.).
• Tone of voice e.g. to express surprise.
• Miming gestures e.g. different actions.
• Total physical response activities.
• Dialogues and role plays (with script or
improvised).
• And other paralinguistic cues provide
valuable contents for language learners.
Peter Slade (1954) recommended that teachers use drama to promote
the natural process of communication in the classroom:

4. Advantages of drama -based activities
• Dramatic performance increases student attention and
motivation since make the content of English lessons
more desirable.
• These techniques are essential to develop students’
communicative competence practicing the four language
skills, and to maintain classroom interest and energy.
• Drama is an important tool for the development of
different areas such as Art, Physical Education,
Language and Literature or Foreign Language among
others.
• It’s a powerful instrument for developing social skills and
education in ethical values due to its strong interpersonal
and relational character.
• They develop communicative strategies such as non-
verbal communication and other paralinguistic cues.

5. • They help in the creation of a positive learning
environment.
• Students tend to find acting a fun and welcome change
from other activities.
• It provides a nice segue from scripted role –play
activities to improvisation.
• It develops students’ imagination and spontaneity.
• Performance stresses the importance of prosodic
elements (Pronunciation: stress, rhythm and intonation).
• Such activities can close the distance between teachers
and students.
• Students learn new structures in an unconscious way
while reading, writing, rehearsing and acting the
dialogues.
Advantages of drama -based activities

6. Problems to be aware
• The classes can become quite noisy and chaotic.
• Shy and introverted students may find performing in front
of their classmates overwhelming.
• Such activities tend to take a lot of time to organize.
• A big space without tables, chairs, etc. is needed.
• The decoration has to be created and the costumes
found/ made.
• The students and the teacher have to find the music for
the different scenes.
• Keeping everyone involved can help avoid discipline
problems. Everybody has to have a role in the
performance (actors, direction, music, etc.)
But even all these things can become important
learning experiences if we work in a coordinative way
with other areas.

7. DRAMATIZATION OF
EVERYDAY SITUATIONS
Activities based on dramatization of everyday
situations are around scenarios (e.g. the supermarket)
and dialogues that we hear, see or read frequently in our
common life (e.g. the weather, family and friends, leisure
time activities, etc.).
We can also plan drama activities dealing with typical
classroom interactions since nothing is more “everyday”
for our students than going to the school.
We can also imaging that we are tourists asking for
the time or directions.
We should bear in mind our students’ interests such
as pets, music, sports, etc.

8. Dramatic art techniques
• Role plays can be guided ones and free ones. In the first
one the teacher provide the structures to use, the
vocabulary, etc. and in the second variety, when the
students feel confident can create the dialogue on their
own. In role plays the characters adopt a role, within a
wide range of topics, which they will perform. For example
a group of friends who go to the cinema and they have to
buy the tickets, pop corn, ask for the seat, etc.
• Stories and characters. Depending on student’s
individual tastes, we can adapt a story book into a script or
they may find creative fiction more motivating than daily
lives. Children also show interest in very imaginative
stories, characters and scenarios such as pirates, the
moon and so on. We can use the following characters
within a play: actors, flats characters, main and minor
characters, round or dynamic characters, scripter,
protagonists, antagonists, decoration, set director,
costume/ make up artists, music responsible, etc.

9. • Jokes provide lessons with a bit of humour. They can be
used to practice prosodic elements (stress, intonation
and rhythm) and also tend to carry significant cultural
information, but we should take into account that if the
joke is difficult for our students, it becomes humourless.
We should select jokes level appropriate for our
students, and tasteful. Visual aids and/ or mimic the
action can help to joke comprehension.
• Puppet plays. Usually children love puppets. They can
create own puppets in art class. This is a good technique
for shy students since they can speak without their faces
being seen.
• Play reading. The purpose of this technique is reading
aloud to practice pronunciation and interpretation e.g.
monologues, poems, charades, etc. We can select a
group of students to interpret the text in front of the
class.
Dramatic art techniques

10. CREATIVE GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES
Pairs and group work are ideal for drama activities in the
English class. Drama based activities include a wide range of
tasks we can work in group e.g. to write or select the dialogues,
practicing and rehearsing, to select the music, scenarios, etc.
Group work encourages fluency and helps to create a
positive classroom atmosphere. Pair works and group work
create the opportunity for each student to practice their roles
and dialogues many times in a single lesson. It gives them a
chance to use the target language in a meaningful exchange of
ideas and information, enhances student cooperation and
provides natural feedback and motivation to learn.
Group work creates a good opportunity for discussion. When
the students are working collaboratively on a group project it
requires them to communicate and cooperate, as well as to
elect and be involved in other creative roles: script writers,
costume design, direction, music, timekeeper, casting director,
etc. It is an ideal way for students to take responsibility for their
group’s performance.

11. TEACHER’S ROLE
• The teacher as organizer: Drama –based lessons will quickly
collapse into chaos if the activity is not well organized. Routines are
particularly important for classroom management. Confusion and
time wasting often result from inadequate planning. When
organizing a drama activity it is important to give very clear and
unambiguous instructions. It is a good idea to demonstrate or show
them an example of what is expected from them. We should take
into account the space, the script, the learners’ role, the music, the
costumes, etc. Every student has to have a role in the performance
to avoid behaviour problems.
• The teacher as a prompter facilitates the learning
experiences in a non –intrusive way. This involves giving
suggestions to the students towards the desired outcome. To
challenge those students who are most capable, as well as show
constant support to more introverted students.
• The teacher as participant. There is no reason why a
teacher should not participate in activities but obviously he or she
should avoid dominating the task.
• The teacher as a resource. Students have access to the
teacher as an assessor when required.

12. CONCLUSION
Nowadays, drama -based activities usually
form an integral part of our lessons.
Drama is a great teaching tool because the
many linguistic elements incorporated into a
dialogue (words, sentences, grammar rules,
vocabulary, prosodic elements, etc.) through
repetition will be memorized more easily.
Students will feel a sensation of progress from
more scripted plays to other based on
improvisation by way of these fun activities with
the motivation of making the play as good as
possible and without the awareness of language
items are being practiced.