Needs for the Implementation of a Drama Curriculum: A Focus on the Korean Context

Needs for the Implementation of a Drama Curriculum: A Focus on the Korean Context

In recent years, the need for a fluent mastery of the English language has become more pronounced than ever in Korea. Korean university students, however, still tend to be unable to produce substantial verbal output in English. This sobering reality has been pointed out as the result of sorely inefficient and ineffective teaching approaches, and thereby is a rising demand for a highly innovative and effective English curriculum in the higher educational sector in Korea. A drama curriculum provides a feasible solution to this situation. The values of drama, both as teaching methodology and teaching material, can be enumerated as follows: drama is a flexible and syncretic approach that encompasses numerous and diverse major language learning approaches; drama facilitates learning by encouraging students to feel, think and do as the characters do; drama offers a realistic and faithful portrayal of culture together with its audio-visual aids of setting, costume, lighting and sound effects; drama is an abundant resource of practical modem language usage; drama provides opportunity for the individual study of the separate components of a language; drama functions to reinforce certain psychological factors such as motivation for learning, a sense of belonging and a sense of achievement in the participant. A careful observation of the unique English teaching context in Korea defines several factors which dictate the need for the implementation of a drama curriculum: an immense hierarchical gap between the teacher and the student; discomfortable with learner-centered classroom environment; and the role of Korean students as passive recipients of input. With a drama curriculum, which combines the study of dramatic texts as literary genre with the actual staging of plays, it will be feasible for English classrooms in Korea to be transformed into an embodiment of Horace's counsel that learning be both "utile ct dulce,"