戏剧教学法在高校英语课堂的应用

论文总字数：50770字

摘 要

戏剧教学法在二语教学中的运用历史悠久，近期，在中国教育改革的推动下，有关戏剧教学法的研究也越来越多。

本文通过对四所高校英语专业老师和同学的深度访谈，旨在了解分析戏剧教学法的运用现状、可行性以及改进方法。四所高校的访谈对象（包括学生和老师）都表示戏剧教学法已经得到广泛运用。他们认为，戏剧教学法可以激发学生的学习兴趣，提高学生的综合技能并且帮助学生培养团队合作精神。而这也带来了一些问题，例如难以合理时间分配、不同性格的学生有自己的学习风格和方法，甚至有时戏剧教学法的目的也会被曲解（比如分不清是为了学习还是娱乐）。关于如何改进，大家也建议教师可以提出更清晰的要求和指导，学生也应该做出更多相关的努力。

关键词：戏剧教学法；英语教学；可行性

Table of Contents

Acknowlegement i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iii

Table of Contents iv

List of Tables v

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Purpose and Significance 1

1.3 Structure 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

2.1 History of Drama in Education 3

2.2 Different Types of Dramatic Activities 3

2.3 Recent Research on Application of Drama in Second Language Learning 4

Chapter Three Methods 7

3.1 Participants 7

3.1 Data Collection 8

3.3 Data Analysis 9

Chapter Four Results and Discussions 11

4.1 Background Information 11

4.1 Application of Drama in English Teaching in Four Universities 11

4.3 Advantages of Applying Drama in English Teaching 13

4.3.1 Drama Motivates Students and Inspires Interest in English Learning 14

4.3.2 Drama Helps Students Improve English Integrated Skills 15

4.3.3 Drama Helps Students Develop Teamwork Spirit 16

4.3.4 Other advantages 17

4.4 Disadvantages of Current Application of Drama in English Teaching 18

4.4.1 Limitation of time 18

4.4.2 Misunderstanding of the initial purpose 19

4.4.3 Other Disadvantages 20

4.5 Suggestions for Improvement 20

4.6 Discussions 22

Chapter Five Summary 24

5.1 Implications 24

5.2 Limitation of the Research 25

References 26

Appendix: Interview Protocol 28

List of Tables

Table 1 Demographic features of teachers 7

Table 2 Demographic features of students 8

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background

As the role of arts is becoming more and more important in our life, drama has been applied in many areas of education now. For example, it’s applied in the teaching of subjects like economics, natural sciences, and social sciences. It’s also applied to the development of children’s literacy (Mages, 2008). In recent years, drama has been combined with ethnology and a branch called Ethnodrama (Ackroydamp;O’Toole, 2010) emerged. In some other cases, it was also combined with psychology, as is proved by Psychodramatic Action Methods (Carter, 2010) and Psychodrama (Blatner, 2000). When it comes to the relationship between drama and education, some universities in the west have even offered undergraduate and postgraduate programs related to drama in education, especially teaching second language.

‘Allow him to act out the idea and it becomes real to him’ (Dewey 1934). With the medium of dramatic activities, students can experience the English environment, know western culture and improve comprehensive skills more effectively. In addition, it’s a good chance for them to learn collaboration and cultivate some other abilities.

1.2 Purpose and Significance

Applying drama in class is a new pedagogy for Chinese teachers and students, so only a few of them know and understand it well. Dramatic activities are usually organized in classrooms, but different types like improvisation, role play, scene study, and theatrical performance usually address various purposes. Actually, the main purpose of drama playing in class is to give students a chance to experience the process of learning rather than prepare for a performance.

So far, drama education is a promising approach that has not been explored thoroughly in EFL literature. Through investigating the present application of drama in English major classes, this research aims at finding out the benefits of dramatic activities in classes and what problems are faced with during the process. However, instead of finding out how this pedagogy can help students learn drama, this thesis mainly focuses on how it works in improving the four key skills and some other abilities of English learners. What’s more, problems and suggestions of improvement are also discussed. It’s hoped that this research could help attract both teachers’ and students’ more attention of the application of drama in English teaching and learning. In addition to knowing deeper and better of the current application of drama, they can also be inspired and improve their teaching or learning methods appropriately.

1.3 Structure

This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction of the background, purpose, significance and overview of the research. In chapter two, history of Drama in Education, types of dramatic activities and recent research on application of drama in second language learning are reviewed. After that, chapter three explains methods of this research in detail and the results are analyzed and discussed in chapter four. The last chapter concludes the major findings of this thesis and discusses the limitation of the research.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 History of Drama in Education

The opinion that using drama as a medium of education was first put forward by Harriet Finlay-Johnson (1911) who wrote books like Dramatic Method of Teaching to explain the idea. She also practiced the method of making the texts dramatic for students in a country primary school. Then, the idea prevailed in Britain in the mid and late 20^th century because of the well-known educator Dorothy Heathcote. She, together with Gavin Bolton wrote many books to systematize and theorize their teaching practice and ideas. They also defined Drama in Education and advocated that teachers should transfer the initiative to students on the basis of providing them with necessary conditions, environment and guidance. In this way, students could be inspired to take advantage of knowledge that they have acquired and the efficiency of teaching could be improved. Heathcote believed that students would become the experts of learning through finding and dealing with problems themselves. She kept spreading the concept of Drama in Education by giving lectures and presenting her ideas all over the world. Gradually, this pedagogy was understood and recognized by more and more people. Professor Betty Jane Wagner published the book Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a Learning Medium (1976) in which the theory and practice of Heathcote were concluded.

2.2 Different Types of Dramatic Activities

Teachers apply drama in class for different purposes. As a result, there are various types of dramatic activities. Gavin Bolton defined three major types of dramatic activities in Towards a Theory of Drama in Education (1984): Exercise, Drama playing, and Theatre. Then, O’Neill and Lambert added supplementary explanations for the three types and another two formats: small-group work and whole-group work to illustrate the approaches to drama playing activities.

2.3 Recent Research on Application of Drama in Second Language Teaching

Drama in Education has been accepted in western countries for a long time and it has been wildly applied in language teaching. Maley and Duff (1982) suggested that second language teachers should experiment with dramatic techniques in class to see how powerful these language learning techniques could be. Stern (1980) found that a drama-based curriculum could lead to outcomes below, a) inspire students’ motivation and participation; b) increase confidence and improve fluency in spoken English; c) develop creativity and spontaneity; d) extend students’ emotional range of expression; e) provide chances for group and self-expression. Vitz(1983) agreed that Drama in Education is effective in second language teaching because it focuses on the acquisition of meaning by combining the cognitive and affective aspects of language learning. Rosen in 1974 replicated Smilansky’s research (1968) and found that learners could be motivated to use target language in drama playing. In 1986, Wagner conducted a research which proved that role play could improve the writing ability of fourth and eighth graders effectively and their oral language proficiency. In addition, Stinson’s Drama and Oral Language project (2008) in Singapore reflected not only the significant improvement of learners’ oral communication, but also learners’ more interest in lessons.

Recently, some second language teachers have realized that traditional pedagogy needs to be changed to meet the current requirement. It’s natural that they pay attention to the application of drama in teaching. These days, drama has been applied in teaching of English, Russian, French, and Chinese, etc. Joyce A. Wilkinson (2001) researched on how language functions occur in the brain and the research proved to support the efficiency of drama as pedagogy in language learning. Wilkinson’s research showed that the efficiency through drama meet the requirement of quality education. Drama involves both body and brain in learning in the fictional context so that it contains all of the multiple intelligences and matches the various learning styles of different children. In Second Language Learning through Drama---Practical techniques and application, Joe Winston (2012) concluded his experience of teaching French through drama in the north of England. In addition, he shared many other teachers’ class cases and strategies because these teachers are highly experienced in using drama for the purpose of teaching a second language. He emphasizes that to make second language learning accessible to more children and young people, it’s also essential for teachers to be patient, reflective and flexible when they organize dramatic activities. This book also mentions what Mike Buckby (1996) once pointed that language learning ought to be about communication first, accuracy second. He also believed that contextual significance couldn’t be ignored. Actually, drama is a great method to stimulate students’ desire to communicate and make the target language come alive to them.

Gradually, teachers in China began to pay attention to this unique pedagogy too. Xu Kuihua (2001) researched on the scientific basis of process-oriented role-play and proved that it’s an effective teaching form. Xu Jiewen (2008) explored the potential functions of drama in English teaching by explaining the theatrical basis of educational psychology, linguistics, and language teaching. Meanwhile, she also presented some teaching cases to introduce the procedure and effectiveness of this pedagogy. Professor Zhang Xiaohua said in her paper (2007) that creative drama could motivate language learners and greatly improve their learning efficiency by bringing natural context into classrooms. Professor Zuo Wenli’s research (2007) showed that the application of reader’s theatre, which means students were asked to read the lines and perform the drama instead of reciting them, could promote students’ motivation and learning ability effectively.

However, the research in China is about the application of drama in English teaching in primary schools and high schools. Instead, this study aims to focus on the application of drama in English major classes and the research questions are as follows:

1. How is drama applied in current classes for English majors?
2. How do teachers and students reflect on the application of drama in different classes? Specifically, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using drama as a medium of teaching English?
3. How to improve the effectiveness of the use of drama in English teaching?

Chapter Three Methods

3.1 Participants

The interview was intended for obtaining insight into students’ and teachers’ thoughts of the application of drama in English classes. The teachers and students I interviewed were from Nanjing University, Southeast University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Nanjing Normal University respectively. In the beginning, I asked some of my friends who are English majors to introduce teachers who had applied drama in their classes. Then my friends and these teachers helped me invite more students from different grades and classes to participate in the interview. The teachers I contacted were those who teach English major students and had keeping applying drama in their teaching for several years. They were experienced in teaching English and could offer valuable reflections and opinions (see Table 1 for details). Considering that freshmen and sophomore students haven’t taken some of the courses, I chose three junior students and three senior students in each university to interview. What’s more, these elder students could analyze the effectiveness of drama in English classes more clearly (see Table 2 for details).

Table 1 Demographic features of teachers

Table 2 Demographic features of students

3.2 Data Collection

Most of the interviews with students were conducted in the empty meeting rooms and I also interviewed some of them by phone. Each of the interviews lasted 30-40 minutes to get enough information of class details and students’ reflections. Interviews with teachers occurred in their offices, empty meeting rooms or the cafés which they chose. Every interview lasted 40-60 minutes so that they were able to share their experiences and opinions in detail. The interviews were in Chinese. During the entire interview, the permitted recording started from the first question to the end of the interview.

According to Patton (1980), there are four kinds of interviews. This time, I adopted the type of standardized open-ended interview. Before every interview, I sent the outline of the questions to the interviewees. This was not only to avoid misunderstanding of the theme, but also to help them memorize more details accurately in advance. However, changes could be made during the interview according to the interviewees’ reactions. When interviewing the students, I first asked some background information of their English learning and what problems they thought exist in traditional English teaching. Then, I asked them to describe the details of the experiences in which drama was applied and how they thought of it. In addition, they also pointed out some difficulties and suggestions related to application of drama in English teaching.

The interviews with teachers mostly followed the procedure of those with students, except that the first question for teachers is the background information of their experience of English teaching.

3.3 Data Analysis

After finishing the interviews, I transcribed all the recordings and categorized them for data collection of the qualitative study. Then, I used Nvivo to code the transcribed data of teachers and students respectively. First, I read these data again and again to compare and contrast the features of application of drama in classes of English major in the four universities. Then the data were read together because I tried to conclude the opinions of teachers and students to see deeper of the theme. The similarities, differences, and associations between the data supported the coming out of the conclusions and suggestions.

Chapter 4 Results

4.1 Background Information

The first part of each interview with teachers was about the experience of English teaching and their opinions on traditional teaching mode. Besides, they also talked about why they started to apply drama in their classes.

Most of the teachers have the experience of teaching English major students for more than ten years. In these years, they are keeping exploring and making adjustments to improve the effectiveness of their classes. Some of them mentioned that the traditional teaching mode only allowed students to listen to teachers and read texts silently. Thus, students were hard to be motivated or had chance to indeed practice their English language skills. ‘The ineffectiveness of my former classes also made me tired’, said Professor Jiang in NUAA.

At the same time, students introduced their experiences and shared their feelings of English learning. Almost every one of these students pointed out that what they learned in English class before entering university was all about grammar and vocabulary. The knowledge they remembered through the repetition of teachers and endless exercises could be forgotten soon after exams. What’s worse was that they seldom had chance to practice and apply what they learned. As English major students, they gradually realized the importance of communicative skills and looked forward to more interaction with teachers in class. ‘When teachers assign tasks related to the texts to us, we need to think deeper and be creative’, said Gu in SEU. They also found that frequent interaction could help them be involved in the class better.

4.2 Application of Drama in English Teaching in Four Universities

In these four universities, drama is applied in different courses for various purposes. Teachers who teach Spoken English adopt this method with the purpose of providing more chances for students to speak English and express themselves so that their communication skills can be improved (Professor Zhu, SEU; Professor Zhu, NJU; Professor Lu, NNU). Basic courses like Fundamental English, Advanced English and Intensive Reading aim at cultivating comprehensive skills of English major students. It means that dramatic activities are a good choice to help students understand the text better and practice more (Professor Lu, NNU; Professor Zhang, NNU; Professor Zhang, NJU; Professor Huang, SEU ). There are different forms of the application of dram, but it’s the same that students are divided in several groups when they are assigned with dramatic tasks. Sometimes, students are asked to write a short play themselves and act it out. For example,

The key word I gave them was “lose weight” and they had a week to prepare for it. They were required to write the scripts themselves. (Professor Lu, Spoken English, NNU)

Some of them are related to the texts, while some of them had requirement for students’ imagination. Students usually prepare for the play in a short time and then act out in class. Every performance takes about 3-5 minutes. (Professor Zhang, Intensive Reading, NJU)

Sometimes, they also need to do imitation or adapt the texts and then act out. For instance,

I could ask them to adapt the novel into a drama and act it out. (Professor Fan, NJU)

My requirement is that they have to make adaptation on the basis of the original text. It means that they should add their own understanding and ideas into the script creatively. (Professor Jiang, NUAA)

Teachers who organized dramatic activities frequently in classes for English major students believed that students are the centre of class and they are supposed to express their ideas and find their potentials. For example, Professor Zhang in NNU always asks her students to write a play that contains all the new words and phrases they have learned and act it out. Professor Lu likes to give students a topic and ask them to improvise a story in limited time. They also reflect that this kind of frequent exercise inspires students’ creativity and improves their spoken English at the same time.

In Southeast University, what’s special is that Professor Huang divides the text into several parts so that one group only needs to prepare for one part. Finally, students combine the videos they were asked to make and show it in class.

Recent years, Professor Jiang in NUAA kept asking his students to perform the texts in literature classes every year. Instead of performing the play directly, he asks students to adapt the play. He believes that students will be interested in the activity when they realize that they could add their ideas into the play.

Professor Fan and Professor Zhu in NJU are experts of drama, which explains why they prefer this teaching method. Professor Fan is also the advisor of the English Drama Club and she found from club activities that drama is a great medium of improving students’ integrated skills.

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