Teaching English Phonics Through Creative Drama in a Korean Primary School

Teaching English Phonics Through Creative Drama in a Korean Primary School

  In the language class combined with "creative drama", one of the approaches in educational theatre, the stories told by a teacher are organically developed into an original drama with several drama techniques. Even though there are some research studies on using creative drama in the ESL context, there are few in the EFL situation. Therefore, this study presents the result of a study investigating how creative drama affects young language learners" English learning in a Korean primary school. An English drama class, at after-school program in Seoul, combined with creative drama had been observed once a week for a semester. Seven first graders in the class were presented with 6 different stories, which contain certain phonemes each and dramatized the stories in a creative way. They were assessed through pre-and post- tests and surveys in terms of their linguistic improvements and affective changes and analyzed quantitatively. In addition, participants were individually analyzed according to their characteristics in linguistic and affective aspects by using field notes from classroom observation and interviews. The results show that participants made progress in linguistic aspects including phonics and vocabulary skills and that their affective factors including language anxiety level had shown a positive development throughout the semester. Moreover, each participant showed particular characteristics respectively in terms of linguistic and affective perspectives.