Drama pedagogy in foreign language learning: investigating the impact of theatre texts and theatre performance on L2 speaking accuracy and complexity

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the pedagogical use of authentic plays for developing learners’ L2 oral skills, measured as global accuracy pronunciation accuracy, syntactic complexity and mean length of AS-units (MLAS). The study was conducted with final year high-school students (N = 10) in an Italian compulsory curriculum. A text-based approach (TBA) followed by a performance-based approach (PBA) were implemented. Quantitative data were collected by means of an oral pre-test, mid-test and a post-test. The results regarding accuracy and complexity along with the pedagogical implications will be discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Authentic contemporary plays
• text-based approach
• performance-based approach
• accuracy
• complexity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The play extracts used were taken from well-known published plays such as The Hollow by Agatha Christie, Skirmishes by Catherin Hayes, Little Brother, Little Sister and Us and Them by David Campton, Educating Rita by Willy Russell, The Green Eye of the Little Yellow Dog by Harry Austen. For an example of a play extract please see Appendix in Bora (2020b).

2 For more examples of various games used please see Appendix in Bora (2019).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Simona Floare Bora

Simona Floare Bora is an in-sessional EAP lecturer at the University of Essex (UK) where she completed her PhD in teaching English through drama, taught Italian and lectured on TEFL courses. Her research interests include literature-based pedagogy, drama and theatre in foreign language learning and second language acquisition among others.