Drama In The Classroom
An Afterthought
By: Nouamane ERRIFKI
A: Well?
B: Well what?
A: where is it?
B: where’s what?
A: You know.
B: I know?
A: Yes, you do.
B: No, I don’t.
A: You do!
B: I don’t!
A: Do!
B: Don’t!
A: Just tell me.
B: Tell you what?
A: WHERE IT IS?
B: I can’t.
A: You can’t?
B: No.
A: Well, why not?
B: Because I don’t know!
Well, if anyone of you were asked what is that text that has been written just above probably your first answer would have been: “It’s a dialog” And if you were a teacher and asked the most famous question that all teachers are obsessed with which is how to teach it your first and impromptu answer would have been something like, if I’m not mistaken, “I’ll use that dialog to introduce or teach WH-questions, short answers with ‘Do’, and the use of the modal ‘Can’ for inability. Or I’ll use it, thrice, to introduce one of the elements mentioned before at a time. Then, after introducing those language points, I would assign the dialog for rehearsal in the following way: students in twos try to perform the given dialog before their classmates.”
B: Well what?
A: where is it?
B: where’s what?
A: You know.
B: I know?
A: Yes, you do.
B: No, I don’t.
A: You do!
B: I don’t!
A: Do!
B: Don’t!
A: Just tell me.
B: Tell you what?
A: WHERE IT IS?
B: I can’t.
A: You can’t?
B: No.
A: Well, why not?
B: Because I don’t know!
Well, if anyone of you were asked what is that text that has been written just above probably your first answer would have been: “It’s a dialog” And if you were a teacher and asked the most famous question that all teachers are obsessed with which is how to teach it your first and impromptu answer would have been something like, if I’m not mistaken, “I’ll use that dialog to introduce or teach WH-questions, short answers with ‘Do’, and the use of the modal ‘Can’ for inability. Or I’ll use it, thrice, to introduce one of the elements mentioned before at a time. Then, after introducing those language points, I would assign the dialog for rehearsal in the following way: students in twos try to perform the given dialog before their classmates.”
For sure the one who would have answered in this way or any other similar ways has got no idea of Drama use in-class and Dramatization at all.
“Drama in the Classroom” is how Caroline Nugent, a teacher at the British Council, choose to entitle her one-workshop at MATE’s Middle School Seminar that took place in Ben Slimane. It was a workshop that raised all participants’ awareness over the importance of Drama use in our classrooms.
Drama is that elusive, missing link in our teens’ classes. If we just think for a moment about its benefits one would come to the inextricable conclusion that it should be designated the most important slot in our teaching sessions. Drama’s most immediate benefit is that it could teach and provide practice for new vocabulary and grammatical structures. The manner in which it serves to provide practice for newly taught language points is more important a feature than that of introducing or presenting. (This will of course be discovered later in this article.) Of equal importance is that trough Drama activities students get more and more self-confident as their pronunciation (especially, Intonation and stress) and fluency develops. Drama boosts self-esteem and that’s what is needed to develop students’ communicative competency. Another benefit is that it yields risk takers and a sense of group belonging that generates good language learners. And to top all of those benefits, Drama is a lot of fun and quite enjoyable for parties, teacher and students.
Drama makes use of the mind, voice and body. And, thus, fits in the “Active Learning” frame that was Joan Kang Shin’ subject of her Keynote speech. Active, both physically and cognitively, is how a student becomes through Drama.
Free your students minds, voices and bodies. let them speak out!
Nugent’s workshop focused our attention on the way drama can be used to practice pronunciation and grammatical structures. Her focus was much more on performance. I mean the ways dialogs, otherwise drama pieces, can be performed. She suggested different scenarios or ways of performance of which I cite here a few if not all.
The first dialog that has been named as an “Energizer” (see above) was performed in twos with the words in bold stressed. The performance was on stage and supplemented with a variation in which the participants (A and B) made it funnier by performing it in a western’s style or wearing different faces/ moods (sad/ happy/ sleepy/ angry).
The second type of dialogs, the grammar-loaded dialogs, was performed in groups. Example: the first group (A) performing the dialog in a whispering tone and the second (B) in a normal tone. Other variations were explored and others suggested like:
A: Confident.
B: Afraid or crying.
A: In an old’s tone/ voice.
B: In a baby’s tone/ voice.
A: In a western’s style.
B: In a western’s style.
And the examples went on and on.
There was another type of dialogs that has been discovered and which was named, the Missing Lines Dialogs, where the (A) part of the dialog was provided and the (B) part was missing.
On the whole, the workshop was quite practical and delightful, enjoyable and inspiring to the extent that I decided to explore it in my next class, right after the holidays finishes. It was not enough, but it was at least awareness raising and a lot of fun.
That’s all folks for the time being. Expect more in no time!
Reference: Drama In The Classroom. a workshop by: Caroline Nugent. MATE's Middle School Seminar. 2008
Nouamane ERRIFKI
