Drama in the ELT Classroom
Drama in the ELT Classroom
What is Drama in education?
Drama is about taking roles in the classroom, it is for everybody, it is a learning medium lived in the moment, it has rules and it is about attitudes not characters.
What are the objectives in Drama?
- Create a living, moving picture of life
- Aims at discovery and surprise for the participants
- Working in groups
- How to use their body
- Develops thinking skills
- Develops imagination into the classroom
- Brings out emotions
What I love about Drama is that it is centred on the student. It is directed by the group, it is improvised and related to life itself. The teacher gets out of the action. The teacher sets up and facilitates the learning situation. Students go out of the classroom feeling fulfilled and feeling that they have learnt something while at the same time they had lots of fun.
Special thanks to Susan Hillyard.
Susan Hillyard, B.Ed.(Hons) Warwick University U.K. I’ve had experience in seventeen countries as a teacher, HOD, director, speaker, workshop facilitator, consultant, researcher, on-line tutor. I was Prof. Language IV in Lenguas Vivas and UTN Teacher Training Colleges, Bs As., Argentina. I’ve co-authored a Resource Book for Teachers “Global Issues” for OUP, “English through Drama” for Helbling Languages and TDI-TKT On-line Course for Pearson, New York. I was a tutor for the on-line Masters in ELT for World Englishes at The New School, New York and for “Language and Globalisation” at La Sabana University, Colombia. I am a former SEN Network coordinator and committee member on the YLTSIG for IATEFL.
From 2000 to 2016 I was the coordinator of English in Action, training 20 teachers to teach English through Drama in Special Education Schools, Ministry of Education, City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am the Founder and Director of SHELTA, Susan Hillyard’s English Language Teachers’ Academy, offering inspiring professional development opportunities F2F and online to teachers worldwide.
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