Drama Lessons Research Articles

Characteristic features of the upbringing of modern actor

Characteristic features of the upbringing of modern actor

Drama as physical role-play: actions and outcomes for life science lessons in South Africa

Two volunteer BEd student teachers in their fourth year of a BEd degree at a metropolitan university in the Western Cape of South Africa designed and taught lessons to two classes of the same age and ability in grade 7 (ages 12–13), using drama role-plays (intervention) and more conventional non-drama methods (control). Lessons were observed and video-audio recorded to identify episodes critical to successful learning. Learners (pupils) in both sets of classes were tested in associated content using tests designed by the student teachers. In both cases test outcomes were in favour of drama lessons (F = .56 and .55) but were not necessarily linked to the number of positive teaching episodes. Lack of interaction between student teachers and their learners, insufficient structure to the role-plays or a tendency to over-contextualise scenarios did not seem to have hindered conceptual understanding. Findings suggest a more nuanced and progressive programme of training in using drama for teaching science would be beneficial and that subject knowledge for planning activities must be particularly sound.

“I think it fits in”: using process drama to promote agentic writing with primary school children

AbstractSet against the backdrop of children being ‘alienated’ from their writing, this paper is taken from a United Kingdom Literacy Association sponsored project where primary school teachers were trained to use process drama in order to give children more agency in their writing across the curriculum. Here, we use discourse analysis to think about the children's historical creative writing in relation to the drama lessons which are differently framed by the teachers. Building upon a theoretical model of process drama as involving ‘embodied experience’ and writing as problem‐solving, a case is made that process drama can lead to what we term ‘agentic writing’. Agentic writing, we demonstrate, involves children actively translating their embodied experience of process drama into writing by making a range of intertextual borrowings. These borrowings serve both to capture and transform their embodied experience as the children gain agency by standing outside language to achieve ‘double voicedness’ and in doing so write sophisticated texts. Seeing the relationship between process drama and writing in this light, we argue, provides a means of reconnecting children to the act of writing.

IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ABILITY IN SPEAKING BY USING ROLE PLAYING METHOD IN THE DRAMA LESSON OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AT 2015/2016 ACADEMIC YEARS

Abstract . The aim of this study was to describe the improvement of the students’ achievement in speaking by Role Playing at Drama lesson at English department at Faculty of Teacher Training and Education University of Muhammadiyah of North Sumatra. The specific aim was how using to apply role play in studying drama and how the role play method can improve the students’ achievement in speaking. This research was used an action research that used two cycles. The subject of the study was 42 students at Academic 2015 – 2016 from English Department. The instrument of research was speaking test, questioners and observation to collect the data. Technique for collecting data was descriptive qualitative and quantitative. Technique for analyzing data was used descriptive which describe the finding of research which used some tables, frequency which was benefit to describe the achievements of the students in speaking from pre-test, and cycle 1 up to cycle 2. The finding of research was the students’ achievement in speaking were good by using Role playing which conducted one semester. Based on the data, the students’ achievements got improvement in every cycle. The students got A was 23.8 %, B/A and B 76,1 % and there were not students got C/B and D and E. It meant the indicators of this research could achieve by using Role playing at drama lesson when we compared with conventional method. The study by using role playing is more interested than conventional method. Key words: Improvement, Speaking Achievement, Role Play

The construction and pilot application of a scoring rubric for creative drama lesson planning

ABSTRACTInstructional planning is an important part of successful teaching. Therefore, quality lesson planning is accepted as an important indicator of teacher knowledge and ability. This is no different for creative drama. Although drama is strongly rooted in the participating group's creativity and spontaneity, its success depends on a careful and thorough planning. The purpose of this study is to develop and pilot a scoring rubric for evaluating creative drama lesson plans. The rubric was tested on 75 lesson plans developed by English Language Teaching pre-service teachers. The researcher concludes that using the rubric resulted in valid and efficient evaluation of the lesson plans.

Evaluation of preschool teacher candidates’ attitudes towards history teaching

The aim of this research is the identification of preschool teacher candidates’ attitudes relating to history teaching. The sample of the research consists of 120 students from the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades, which are going on to the undergraduate program of Near East University, Preschool Teaching in Fall 2016–2017. Within the scope of this research, the questionnaire “Attitude Survey Related to History Teaching of Preschool Teacher Candidates” was applied to teacher candidates. In the study using the descriptive statistical screening method included in the quantitative research model, the results were obtained by the percentage calculation, t test, Anova test, Mann–Whitney U test using the SPSS statistical program 23.0 version during the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it was revealed that there is no difference in the history teaching attitudes of the preschool teachers according to different variables such as gender, age, class, whether or not taking drama lessons and whether or not interning. It has been determined that the lack of history teaching of undergraduate students in Preschool Teaching has taken place and this area has not been sufficiently focused. Therefore, in terms of eliminating the deficiencies in this area, it is possible to express the necessity of making positive changes and regulations regarding history teaching in the undergraduate program.

AN EXAMPLE OF PREPARED-PLANNED CREATIVE DRAMA IN SECOND GRADE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

The aim of this research is teaching addition with natural numbers and the concept of large and small natural numbers in the second grade mathematics course, through creative drama method. The study has been applied to 31 elementary school second grade students studying at a public school in the province of Aydin. In this research, case study based on observation method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, has been employed. The data have been collected through drama lesson plans, observation, and interview methods. The activities involving the acquisitions of ''adding two-digit natural numbers'' and ''absorbing large-small concepts'' prepared by the researcher, have been applied in the classroom. The drawings of students, literary notes, and observation reports kept by researchers have been used in the evaluation of the activity. As a result of this application, students' views towards the questions covering the whole application have been gathered. The results of the study suggest that prepared-planned creative drama activities are an entertaining and enjoyable way for students to learn. The notes taken by the participative observers and findings obtained from the interviews indicate that drama activities increase sharing among students and that the students could associate what they have learned with some of the situations they encounter in their every day-life. It is observed that the students learn by having more fun while playing games, which involves a high amount of physical movements. Drawing the attention of students through instructions in the warm-up phase of the activity increased students' curiosity in learning. In the animation phase of the activity, it was observed that the students' interest in the mathematics increased, they had fun while making the mathematical operations, their participation to the lesson was high throughout the activity, the energy they received from the lesson was at the maximum level, they learned by doing and living, and they obtained an experience they could use in their every day-life. In the evaluation phase of the activity, the students were asked to describe how they felt by drawing a picture or writing a story as a summary of the creative drama activity they experiences by doing. According to the stories they have written and the pictures they have drawn, it is apparent that they were entertained and happy throughout the activity. The results of this study indicate that the students relieve their mental exhaustion and a relaxed classroom setting is achieved through the relaxation activities. Article visualizations:

The opinions of preschool teacher candidates on vocational and personal achievements from the drama lesson

The purpose of this study is to determine the opinion and attitudes of the preschool teacher candidates about the contribution of the drama lesson for their vocational and personal developments. The research sample consists of 62 students who take drama lessons in 2nd class in Department of Preschool Teaching of Teachers College of Sakarya University in 2014-2015. This study is actualized by descriptive research method that is one of the qualitative research techniques. Semi-structured interview form is used as the data collection tool. The content analysis is made by being interpreted the data collected. According to the results obtained, the teachers like the drama lessons when they took in university, and this lesson makes major contributions to their personal life and careers. It is confirmed at the end of this research that the attendees and the preschool teacher candidates notice the importance of the drama lesson at the right time and afterward as well. It is seen that the personal and vocational gains such as communication skills, verbal ability, empathy and social ability, body language, self-reliance, problem-solving, creativity, cognitive skills, awareness, learning by experience, psychomotor skills, taking responsibility skill are the qualifications that wanted to be gained by the students.

The teacher as co-creator of drama: a phenomenological study of the experiences and reflections of Irish primary school teachers

Classroom drama in the Irish primary school context remains a relatively new endeavour and is largely under-researched. The knowledge base for all aspects of teacher education should be informed by rigorous reflection on teachers’ experiences in the classroom. This paper reports on a phenomenological study conducted with seven Irish primary school teachers which focused on their experiences of co-creating drama with their students. Co-creating drama is held in this work to be the coming together of teacher and students in a collective creative enterprise during the drama lesson. The term proposes a partnership whereby they operate as co-participants and co-artists in the drama experience. The ‘creating’ aspect of co-creating can be considered the artistic enterprise of making drama in a way that is new and unique to the group. In considering the teacher as a potential co-creator of drama, the paper probes the emergent and changing ontological attitudes of the participants throughout the process: the values, attitudes and perspectives that informed their teaching. The paper illuminates the phenomenon of teachers co-creating drama in all its complexity, and seeks to reflect on the meaning of this for the teachers.

PENDIDIKAN BUDAYA DAN KARAKTER BANGSA PADA PROSES PEMBELAJARAN SENI TARI & DRAMA

Facing the nation issue which is considered associated with the failure of the government in the education sector, on the new Nation Curriculum concept (Kurikulum 2013), there are so many highly thigs containing the character building concept. It became the new challenge for the teachers to quickly change the old mindset that teaching is just to make people smart, but they should give priority to build the students’ characters. The fact from the field is that to change the minset of the teacher is not easy. There are so many researches has been done, that teachers still teaching with old habits or inconventional ways.This is a Research and Development ( R&D ) to character building concept and cultural arts education, especially on dance and drama studies. His research is done towards teachers and elementary students. Through the steps of R&D’s research methods which have olready resulted a Model of Learning Dance and Drama that could be used by the teachers to teach Dance and Drama lesson in school that could help them to build the student’s character.

Developing Attitude Scale, Reliability and Validity for Pre-Service Teachers towards Drama Lesson

The purpose of this study is to develop an attitude scale for pre-service teachers towards drama lesson. Survey model was used in study. The sample of study consisted of 258 pre-service teachers. “Attitude scale towards drama lesson for pre-service teachers” was developed and used as data collection tool. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to provide evidence for construct validity of scale. For factor analysis, SPSS 19.0 statistical package software was used and Kaiser Meyer Olkin test (KMO) and Bartlett Sphericity test methods were used to determine suitability of data to principal component analysis. In confirmatory factor analysis, suitability of model which came out in exploratory factor analysis was checked out. Lisrel 8.7 package software was used in this process and it was benefited from the values of chi-square (χ 2 ), Degrees of Freedom (df), and Root-Mean-Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). Drama experts’ opinions were taken in order to ensure content validity. In conclusion, the final form of scale which consisted of 31 items was obtained and Cronbach alpha (Crα) value was calculated to get internal consistency coefficient. This calculated value was determined as .965.

Children’s creative understanding of drama education: A Bakhtinian perspective

Drawing on Bakhtin’s notion of creative understanding, this paper aims to investigate children’s creative learning of drama education in a group of preschoolers aged 4–5 in a Hong Kong kindergarten. The research was designed originally to offer a case study to identify the emergence of creative learning during and after drama lessons, and investigate its relation to teaching. The field observations, however, noticed the contrary effect brought by a product-oriented and a teacher-centred approach of teaching. These approaches had strongly undermined the stimulus to imaginative and playful participation that drama education is able to generate purportedly. Not only had they restricted dialogic encounters in the lessons but also the feasibility of identifying children’s creative response emerging from within. These observations led to a shift of the study focus to the method and data of draw-and-tell, which was used to enable children to creatively re-imagine and retell their drama experiences as a concluding reflection. The findings were analysed in three categories, namely Characterization, Re-conceptualization and Transformation to illustrate children’s capacity and techniques of restorying drama experiences with their interest, knowledge, language and culture. The research process as well as the results of the study reveal a complex interplay between teaching, learning and researching affirming that a particular type of creative learning of drama education is not only shaped by a particular form of teaching, but also the research method.

Navigating the boundaries of cultural difference through participatory drama

This article presents a summary of a research project conducted in the UK and Taiwan, examining how two groups of primary aged children responded to the same set of drama lessons designed around a traditional Chinese story, The Water Ghost (in Chinese, 水鬼). The authors summarise both the story and their research methodology before outlining the theoretical perspectives that frame a selective analysis of their findings. These relate to literature on globalisation, in particular to ideas of ‘glocalisation’, the navigation of boundaries and the ethics of cosmopolitanism. The pull between forces of universalisation and localisation is of particular significance in the subsequent analysis, which includes a selection of visual representational material provided by both groups and a critique of the ideas of friendship that were expressed as part of the drama work. Here, although many similarities are noted between the two groups of children, the authors point to some significant differences that they tentatively speculate can be traced to deeply rooted cultural traditions. The article also illustrates drama's capacity to spatialise stories and ideas as a potential methodology to aid cross-cultural research of this kind.

Pupils as active participants: Diamond ranking as a tool to investigate pupils’ experiences of classroom practices

This article is based on a pedagogical action research initiative carried out in a Finnish primary school. Twenty-four 5th grade pupils and their teacher participated in the study. The research initiative was guided by two questions: (1) How do pupils experience their classroom practices? (2) How can pupils participate in the process of developing classroom practices through diamond ranking? Photographs, diamond ranking and written narratives functioned as mediating tools between the pupils’ experiences and the narratives of their classroom experiences. Drama lessons were the experiences that were most appreciated by the pupils. The pupils ranked experiential learning, learning games and group work activities as medium-level experiences in the learning projects. They ranked activities that were strictly structured, such as tasks from a book or notebook exercises, at the bottom of the diamond. In sum, the study reveals that diamond ranking, together with written narratives, worked well as a tool to capture the pupils’ experiences of classroom pedagogy. The activity gave each pupil the opportunity to participate in the process of gathering and analysing data, and to acquire agency in evaluating and developing classroom practices.

The Classroom Climate in Drama Lessons Taught by Teacher Trainees

This study is a part of a large research project developing drama teacher education at Helsinki University's Department of Teacher Education. The purpose of this study is to examine the classroom climate in drama lessons taught by teacher trainees. Verbal and nonverbal interactions are studied with The Classroom Assessment Scoring System, which is a well known and proven observation instrument developed to assess classroom quality. The other objective of this study is to explore how suitable the CLASS-instrument is for studying drama lessons that differ from normal classroom teaching. Previous studies have proved that good classroom climate affects pupils’ school success and self-esteem. Thus, the climate that prevails in a classroom is not insignificant. The results of this case study (N=6) indicate that even though drama teaching is sometimes challenging the pupils can still experience several positive sensations in those lessons, which can improve classroom climate and interaction skills.

Investigating pupils’ group creativity in drama - Teacher trainees fostering a creative classroom environment

The use of drama in education can be seen as a method to support pupils’ creativity. Drama work offers possibilities for creative group processes and aims for deeper conceptual understanding by preparing students to create new knowledge. Having said this, it is difficult to determine whether this is true, and in what way if it is true. This article seeks to answer the following research questions: Can the principles of theatrical improvisation be used as an analytic tool to examine the collaboration and emergence of creative ideas between pupils during drama work? To what degree do teacher trainees succeed in supporting pupils’ group creativity in drama lessons? The potential complexity and diversity of creative group processes in drama education is challenging for teacher trainees and novice teachers at the beginning of their careers. In this study teacher trainees specializing in drama were observed. Eight lessons were recorded and analyzed using the core principles of improvisation as an analytic tool. The scenes were then interpreted to recognize the characteristics of group creativity (improvisation, collaboration and emergence) defined by Sawyer (2003, 2006, 2012). Both authors analyzed and made their interpretations separately. The findings were compared and the few situations where the authors’ opinions differed were reconciled by discussion. The research results show that the analysis method based on the principles of improvisation was moderately usable for both exact and more general analysis. Within the restrictions of the case studies, our conclusion is that drama teaching supports pupils’ group creativity.

Talking drama into being: types of talk in drama classrooms

This paper explores the structure of talk in drama classrooms, particularly the ways students and teachers use different kinds of talk to achieve their classroom work and construct shared moral reasoning as the basis of their practical educational activities. The data and discussion presented here bring together the curricular setting of educational drama and the methodological setting of Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorisation Analysis. The transcripts and analyses emerged from a larger study that sought to explore the particular ways students interacted within process drama lessons dealing with future life prospects and pathways. The identification of three distinct kinds of talk has significance for education scholars, teacher-educators and teacher-practitioners as it has the potential to enable a more detailed awareness of the structure of classroom practice and the particular ways students engage with significant ideas in classroom settings.

Critical Episodes in Student Teachers' Science Lessons using Drama in Grades 6 and 7

Using drama to teach science has been promoted as a fruitful teaching method yet there has been almost no theorisation and little research. This paper reports a South African study analysing lessons of four student teachers, all General Education and Training (GET) drama majors. Student teachers each used drama simulations and non-drama lessons to teach the same science concepts to similar classes of learners in grades 6 and 7. Data were collected from video transcripts of lessons using drama, researchers' field notes and student teachers' documentation supplemented by post-lesson interviews with student teachers, class teachers and groups of learners. Critical teaching episodes, identified for the four drama lessons, showed positive impact of student teachers' organisation of simulated drama but that they often failed to link scientific phenomena, concepts and processes with learners' simulated actions. Student teachers often over-directed the drama and restricted greater learner autonomy and space for open dialogic classroom discourse that might have helped embed knowledge. Implications for initial and in-service training of science teachers and future research are discussed.

Creative Drama in the General Music Classroom

The following article provides strategies and suggestions for integrating creative drama into the general music classroom. Various learning theories and basic theatre concepts will be discussed. Integrating music and drama can be an engaging tool for various types of learners. The author provides a sample process drama lesson on Civil Rights through the book When Marian Sang by Pam Muñoz Ryan.

Taking the 'hard' out of hearing on the job: Working with hearing loss

Living with a severe and permanent hearing loss has affected every corner of my life, including my working life. You can’t make out the name of the client on the phone. The boss yells out instructions as he’s walking away. There are 15 people sitting around the boardroom table and you can’t follow the conversation. PA announcements are unintelligible. The office is a mass of cubicles, poor sightlines and constant noise, creating a roar in your hearing aids. This is the often-nightmare world of working with a sensory disability. Yet, this scenario is easily transformed from nightmare to dream world thanks to the explosion in communication technology and new accessibility laws that have improved workplace access and eliminated barriers for hard of hearing people. Diagnosed at age two, my congenital hearing loss is now severe-to-profound which means that without my hearing aids I hear only slamming doors and explosions – if they’re close enough. I didn’t have a hearing aid until I was 20, courtesy of the prevailing hearing health wisdom of the time, but as my hearing loss was relatively mild as a child, my speech developed well, assisted by drama lessons in my early teens. My parents taught me to let people know that I needed them to speak up or face me. If I didn’t self-identify, mymother would do it for me, “You need to face Gael when you speak to her.” I hated that, and to this day I prefer to disclose my own needs. My family had a collective sense of humour about my hearing loss, although they foundmy “mis-hears” much funnier than I did. But this positive family attitude instilled the knowledge that my hearing loss was simply a part of me, not the sum total. Apart from my family’s support, I grew up without the resources considered mandatory for hard of hearing children today. There was no aural rehabilitation, hearing resource teachers, or role models. Accommodation meant sitting at the front of the class (the very front – for over 10 years I looked up the noses of every elementary and high school teacher). Without professional guidance, I developed my own communication strategies, often without realizing it. I became an expert speechreader, although this is an imperfect tool because less than 50% of speech movements are visible on the lips. Because I depended so much on visual cues, I’m sure that my speechreading improved immensely when I got glasses in Grade 6.