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Abstract
Educational Drama as a teaching and learning methodology is already widely in use and well accepted by Australian teachers and students. This paper reports on a study in which the author investigated Japanese primary school students' and teachers' responses to educational drama as a pedagogical tool in their English language classes. The participants had no prior experience of drama in education. Along with the participants' responses, the applicability of educational drama as a teaching method for the Japanese teachers is also discussed. The author, as a teacher-researcher, used action research methods for this study. It became evident that educational drama tended to motivate the Japanese students' foreign language learning of English, by providing them with an opportunity for a higher level of engagement and participation in learning. In the study, the students showed enhancement of the skills necessary for learning, including social, communication, linguistic, non-linguistic and problem-solving skills.
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Naoko Araki-Metcalfe
Naoko Araki-Metcalfe, a native of Japan, lived and studied in Melbourne Australia for ten years. During that time, she taught in schools throughout Victoria and developed a curriculum for LOTE (Language Other Than English) Japanese using educational drama as a teaching method. This was documented in her Masters Thesis. She obtained her PhD at The University of Melbourne and now lectures at Fukuoka Jo Gakuin University. Dr. Araki-Metcalfe is currently in the process of establishing an organisation called JADEA (Japan Drama/Theatre and Education Association), which will be dedicated to spreading Drama Education throughout Japan.