Drama

Making a drama out of a lesson

David Phin, Dumfries and Galloway, is an MLPS staff tutor, training primary teachers and supporting them in their schools. He is passionate about teaching languages through drama and his energy, efforts and boundless enthusiasm for it have met with great success in the classroom, and at the 'Rencontres théâtrales' competition at the Institut Français.

Drama and languages have much in common. As curricular areas, both need their learners to be active, expressive and communicative participants. Using our strategies to teach the four skills of language helps learners to learn the mechanics, but using drama helps them to experience the language.

How can I use drama?

If you are new to the concept of using a play to teach a foreign language, then East Ayrshire’s product from a recent Lingua-funded project is a good starting point. One of the educationalists involved in the project says: 'This is a short sketch that is very visual and easy for an audience to follow. Pupils imitate animals who have sore heads, legs etc. They meet each other on the way to the doctor’s. The final animal is a wolf in disguise who eats them all up and ends up with a sore stomach. He too now has to go to the doctor! This makes for a fun performance.'

Lesson pack to download

The lesson pack contains everything you need to get started, including language-teaching resources and guidance on staging the play. (The document is quite large so may take a minute or two to download.)

Word file: Lesson pack for producing drama, based on German play Kranke Tiere (498KB)

Who?

Drama is for everyone, whatever their talents. The concept of synergy finds clear expression here. Artists, musicians, dancers, craftsmen and linguists all have a part to play in the success of a performance. No one need feel left out.

What?

Plays can be of any length or complexity. Traditional fairy stories are ripe for translation and exploitation. Add songs and games to the story of 'The Emperor’s New Clothes,' and wait for the applause; or try mounting an 'Animated Dictionary' with a skit, a song or a play for each letter of the alphabet.

Where?

You can present the play to non-foreign-language speakers if the language is really simple or if there is enough body language or slapstick to get the point across. You might consider using PowerPoint and a data projector to give the audience some 'supertitles', just like an opera show.

If possible, present the play to an audience whose native language is that of the play. When children move from presenting the play to English speakers to presenting to native speakers, the change in the performance is electric. Suddenly, the feedback is more instantaneous and everything moves up a gear.

When?

At every available opportunity! Remember that any topic familiar to modern languages in the primary school can find an outlet on the stage: number, colour, clothes, health, weather – the list is as infinite as your, and the children’s, imagination.

Why?

Children can be liberated by hiding behind the double mask of drama and the foreign language and it has been known for sophisticated, streetwise children to enjoy being kids again in a production of 'The Enormous Turnip' in French.

Drama provides the ultimate multi-sensory learning experience, it is inclusive and it supports the learning of a foreign language.

Whether they are auditory, visual or kinaesthetic learners, the staging of a play in a foreign language offers a variety of opportunities for language acquisition. Songs are integral to this kind of theatre, as are games and dance. The association of words with their visual representation clearly helps those who see to learn.

Whatever their linguistic competence, a useful contribution can be made and even if a child has two words to say, synergy demands that their contribution is valued. In any case, they have the chance to listen.

Repetition is a valuable learning tool and this is repetition with a purpose. Whether the production is for their own school or a wider audience, the children must practise and accent may be corrected 'sideways on' – 'No, remember you are angry. Say it like this.'

Contributions from David Phin, MLPS tutor, Dumfries and Galloway, and Alison Hurrell, University of Aberdeen.

• Email this page
• Print friendly format
• Digg this
• Save to del.icio.us