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Theatre as a Means for Teaching a Second Language

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Theatre as a Means for Teaching a Second Language

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The article argues that using theatre in language classrooms helps students learn more effectively by making language feel real and meaningful. Drama activities allow students to practice speaking in safe, creative environments, which reduces anxiety and builds confidence. Theatre also boosts motivation and makes learning more fun through storytelling and role-play. Overall, incorporating drama helps students develop both language skills and personal confidence.

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Intro to Readers Theatre for EFL Classrooms

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Intro to Readers Theatre for EFL Classrooms

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Readers Theater is a fun and effective way for English language learners to build reading fluency and confidence through repeated oral practice. Students turn texts into scripts and perform them for a real or virtual audience, which helps with pronunciation, expression, and comprehension. RT activities support all levels and can be adapted for short lessons or full productions. It also creates a positive, low-pressure learning environment that encourages teamwork and meaningful language use.

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Intro to Readers Theatre for EFL Classrooms

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Reader’s Theater is a teaching strategy where students read scripts aloud, acting out stories together. This method helps English Language Learners (ELLs) improve reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension through repeated practice. It also enhances speaking skills like pronunciation and expression without the pressure of memorization. By visualizing and performing stories, students become more engaged and confident in their language abilities.

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Reader's Theater: Oral Language Enrichment and Literacy Development for ELLs

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ELLs can benefit from Reader's Theater activities in a number of ways, including fluency practice, comprehension, engaging in a story, and focusing on vocal and physical expression. Kristina Robertson offers a number of approaches to Reader's Theater with ELLs in this article.

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This article presents ten creative ways to use drama activities to enhance English language learning. It includes methods like acting out textbook dialogues, performing Reader's Theater, and improvising scenes to boost speaking, listening, and writing skills. Advanced activities involve creating original characters, writing monologues, and miming scenes for classmates to interpret. Overall, drama fosters student engagement, builds confidence, and makes language practice more interactive and enjoyable.​

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Drama is about dialogue, about language, and interacting with others in specific "scenes" with appropriate language--all activities we as teachers try to get our students to engage in.

Reasons for Incorporating Drama in the ESL Classroom

Drama can be a valuable teaching tool. It gets students up and moving around and interacting with each other. It's particularly appealing to kinesthetic learners but can be used successfully for all learners. It also contextualizes language, making real and three-dimensional that which is on the printed page.

Students will improve the speaking and listening skills in performing scenes and also their writing skills through such activities as dialogue writing. Drama also teaches the " pragmatics " of language, how we appropriately use language to get something done, like make a request. Finally, drama promotes class bonding: in drama classes, there is usually a great deal of comradery.

Methods for Incorporating Drama in the ESL Class

1. Act out the Dialogue
One of the easiest ways to incorporate drama in the classroom is to have students act out the dialogue from their textbooks. Simply pair them up, have them choose roles, then work together to act out the dialogue, figuring out for themselves the "blocking," or stage movements. This is effective for a beginning activity of incorporating drama in the classroom.

2. Perform Reader's Theater
Another good beginning exercise is to do Reader's Theater. Hand out copies of a short or one-act play, have students choose roles, and then read the play from their seats without acting it out. However, do encourage them to read dramatically, modeling as necessary.

3. Act out the Story
If students are reading a short story such as " The Chaser," about the man who buys a " love potion " for his unrequited love, have students act out the story or part of the story, working in groups and assigning roles and determining the blocking. This is particularly effective with "short-shorts": brief, one-scene stories with limited characters.

4. Write the Dialogue for a Scene
Watch a brief clip of a movie without the sound on. Have students write the dialogue for it and act it out.

More Advanced Activities

1. Once students have had some experience with the basics of character, dialogue, and stage movement, they can move on to some more advanced dramatics, involving more of students' own creativity and critical thinking skills.

2. Act out and Put Words to an Emotion
Give students an emotion, such as " anger" or " fear ". Have students, either singly or in groups, first act out that emotion then put words to the emotion.

3. Give "Voice" to an Inanimate Object
What would a stapler say if it could talk? Or an apple? Have students write monologues with inanimate objects as the character. A monologue is a short scene with just one character talking, either addressing the audience, God, or himself or herself. Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy might also be termed a monologue, for example.

After writing them, students can read the monologues aloud.

4. Create a Character
Have students develop a character, writing a one-page profile on the character's background, appearance, personality, etc. Have them introduce the character to the class, explaining what interests them about their character.

5. Write a Monologue
Using the character they've already developed, have students write a monologue for that character then perform it.

6. Mime and Dubbing
Have students act out short scenes without dialogue. The rest of the class then supplies the dialogue, developing the "script."

7. Improvise
Put students in groups of two or three, and assign the characters and the situation to the groups, perhaps using 3x5 index cards. Give a time limit of two to three minutes per scene. Students go from there, extemporaneously creating the dialogue and movement themselves.

Drama is an effective tool that can be used to promote interaction and language skills in the ESL classroom as well as create a class bonding experience.

With careful planning, use of drama can enhance your English classroom curriculum.

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Drama is about dialogue, about language, and interacting with others in specific "scenes" with appropriate language--all activities we as teachers try to get our students to engage in. Drama can be a valuable teaching tool. It gets students up and moving around and interacting with each other.

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Theatre for All: Implementing ESL Pedagogy for Ontario's Drama Classrooms

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Theatre for All: Implementing ESL Pedagogy for Ontario's Drama Classrooms

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This article explores how drama classrooms in Ontario can better support students who are learning English as a second language (ESL). The authors tested a voice-training-based drama pedagogy with both ESL and native English speakers to see if it improved performance skills like rhythm and pause. Results showed some improvement in rhythm for ESL students but limited impact on pausing, suggesting mixed effectiveness. The study calls for more inclusive drama teaching methods and further research to create strategies that meet the needs of all learners, regardless of language background.

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At Thomas A. Edison Elementary School in Port Chester, New York, teacher Kelly Budde introduced a theater program to help English language learners (ELLs) improve their literacy and meet Common Core standards. Through acting, students practice vocabulary, speaking, and critical thinking in an engaging, real-world context. The program has been especially beneficial for ELLs, who make up 40% of the student body. However, while theater boosts language skills and confidence, it alone may not be sufficient to close the broader achievement gap without additional support and resources.

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PORT CHESTER, N.Y. - Inside Kelly Budde's language arts class at Thomas A. Edison Elementary School, 11-year-old Carlos Vazquez was starring in the lead role of the Hairy Frog in the original production, "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow."

Vazquez jumped to center stage, strummed his air guitar and sang out: "I can't get noooooo satisfaction!"

From the other side of the classroom, a group of students in the role of the "bald generals" tried to arrest the Hairy Frog. Vazquez, as the frog, jumped into an imaginary pond before they could get him.

"You Go Frog! You're the Man!" shouted the other students as the townspeople.

In this riotous classroom filled with budding thespians and English language learners, the goal of this lively theater exercise was to teach literacy, boost vocabulary and help students master the new Common Core language arts curriculum. It has proved popular with most of Edison's more than 430 students, but principal Ivan Tolentino says it is particularly beneficial to the 40 percent of the student body who are English learners (as many as 95 percent of Edison pupils speak another language at home).

Over the past decade, the number of English learners in New York State has swelled to more than 214,000 students, speaking more than 160 different languages. And their academic achievement continues to lag behind native English speakers.

Historically, English language learners, or ELLs, have been low-income, immigrant students who struggle with statewide assessment exams. Given the tougher requirement of Common Core-aligned tests, Tolentino hopes the new theater instruction will improve their proficiency in written and spoken English.

"Our number-one issue is use of language because they're not exposed to it at home in their native language or in English. The academic language isn't there," Tolentino said. "So with this, they build vocabulary. They get to use the language in a real setting. They use critical thinking skills to design their own plays and come up with their own storylines," Tolentino said.
Related: Do the arts go hand in hand with Common Core?
Over the past decade, the number of English learners in New York State has swelled to more than 214,000 students, speaking more than 160 different languages. And their academic achievement continues to lag behind native English speakers. With the new Common Core standards requiring more rigorous math and language arts skills at each grade level, schools with large populations of English learners, like Edison, are searching for innovative strategies to help those students succeed.

Last year, only 2.6 percent of English learners in New York State reached proficiency levels on the ELA test, compared to 31.4 percent of all students, according to the New York State Education Department. Ultimately, the fact that you have a 3 percent pass rate on the exams, it's forcing schools to look at their curriculums, and forcing schools to look at their ELL populations more closely," Tolentino said.

In September 2013, Tolentino tapped Kelly Budde - an English as a second language (ESL) teacher with a theater background - to create scripts and lessons aligned with the Common Core-EngageNY ELA curriculum. Budde later received assistance from a teaching artist - a theater specialist with educational skills - who visited the school from The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College.

Budde said she has seen significant improvement in the literacy skills of the fifth-grade students, many of whom are recent arrivals from Mexico and Central America.
Related: Learning more outside of the classroom than in
"Some of them wouldn't get up or didn't want to talk. Now, even the students who were the struggling readers, they seem to be the ones that like to get up the most and speak. There is no fear anymore," Budde said.

For years, teachers have used "Readers' Theater" to supplement the traditional teaching of required texts, Tolentino said. But, Common Core has pushed ELA educators that use theater to adapt. When Budde began her new job, she decided to customize the concept for Common Core standards by writing her own scripts and lessons for each grade level so they would align with the EngageNY ELA curriculum.

Last year, only 2.6 percent of English learners in New York State reached proficiency levels on the ELA test, compared to 31.4 percent for all students.

In September 2014, Tolentino discovered that the Neighborhood Bridges program, managed by The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, was placing teaching artists in underserved schools for a 10-week residency to bring theater and storytelling arts into ELA classrooms. Soon after, Tolentino arranged a meeting with Ian Driver, education manager at The Performing Arts Center, to discuss how the program could help meet Edison's ELL objectives. After funding was secured from two private foundations, the program began.

"When Neighborhood Bridges heard of what we were doing, it was a natural fit to partner with us," Tolentino said.

Starting in October 2014, teaching artist Stephanie Kovacs Cohen began working with Budde to assist with Edison's fifth-grade ELA classes. Through the collaboration, Budde expanded on her Common Core lessons and learned new techniques for other grades. The program culminated in January with Edison's fifth-grade students taking the main stage at The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College.
Related: Will 'creative' and 'hands on' summer school foster a love of learning?
Driver, who oversees several education initiatives at The Performing Arts Center, said the new Common Core standards have prompted changes in the Neighborhood Bridges program.

"We began the program with the specific aim of impacting narrative and descriptive writing in the ELA classroom alongside the theater and critical literacy components of the program," Driver said. "However, the arrival of the Common Core has impacted the time and importance of focusing on these fictional writing skills. To that end, we have adapted the program to focus on real-life stories, and a natural evolution towards research and social studies curriculum has grown."

For English learners, Driver said the theater offers an innovative way to teach complex stories with difficult text structures.

"Oral stories told and shared with many visual aids and props allow for increased cultural literacy; that in turn offers a safe and informal environment for students new to the English language to speak in comfortable and bold ways that may not be possible during the more familiar curricula," Driver said.

Budde, who has taught at Edison Elementary for 13 years, said English learners require more creative strategies to master language and literacy. So far, Budde said, the use of theater has proved effective in helping students tackle more rigorous reading passages and texts.

"It's not just 'practice reading comprehension and answer the question.' They're not getting enough out of that," Budde said. "In our class, we have to tell the story and then they have to answer the questions based on the story. Then, they have to put up the story. They have to get up and do it, and they internalize it."

Budde said some of the material for her plays emerged from books such as "Esperanza Rising," by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Other scripts came from collaboration with social studies teachers on historical topics. For second-graders, for example, Budde wrote and directed plays inspired by Greek mythology. For fifth-graders, the basis for "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" emerged from lessons on the civil rights movement.
Related: With Common Core tests, a lot at stake for first-year principal
Tolentino said the difficulty that many English learners face in mastering complex academic language stems partly from their low socio-economic background and limited exposure to more sophisticated conversation and dialogue.

Before coming to Edison, Tolentino was founding principal of The Active Learning Elementary School in Queens, a public school with a majority of low-income immigrant families whose first language was Chinese.

To help those students become more familiar with English, Tolentino started a Saturday Academy, which took students on field trips to sites across New York City. There was no academic work involved. The only assignment was to converse in English about the trip. Tolentino said he hopes to start a similar program at Edison.

Located in a working-class suburban neighborhood 30 miles northeast of New York City, Edison Elementary is a full-service community school that receives Title 1 federal funding. To meet the needs of their families, the school serves breakfast and lunch, operates a free pantry, offers medical and mental health services and provides adult education classes for parents.

"We do so much. We work on acting skills. We work on scripts. We play parts. It helps my English and it does it in a fun and educational way at the same time. "

"Our building is open from 7:50 a.m. when kids come in for breakfast, and then the building is active until 9 p.m., and practically every room is being used," Tolentino said.

When asked whether he was concerned about how his English learners would perform on statewide assessments, Tolentino shook his head and said he had other priorities.
Related: In Mississippi, summer program attempts to fill gap in civil rights education
"Test scores?" he asked. "The first thing that I worry about is living conditions. We have 50 to 60 families that depend on us for their groceries. So, my main priority is that my kids have a safe home environment and are getting enough to eat."

Even so, Budde is convinced that theater class is making a difference in helping English learners tackle concepts they will encounter on assessments.

Budde explained how fourth-graders reacted when she introduced a script based on the Native American version of "Cinderella" called "The Rough-Face Girl." Students smiled and let out sighs of amazement when they realized the story was similar to a passage from "Yeh Shen," the Asian version of "Cinderella" they had reviewed on a mock exam.

"So they were able to make the connection ... that's great because all these similar themes run through, and if they're able to do that, then hopefully, that will transfer when they are actually taking those tests," she said.

Due to the popularity of the new ELA-theater class at Edison, Budde has quickly become one of the school's most popular teachers. Edison's fifth-grade students, like Carlos Vazquez who played the Hairy Frog, said the class has changed the way he views learning.

"Test scores? The first thing that I worry about is living conditions. We have 50 to 60 families that depend on us for their groceries. So, my main priority is that my kids have a safe home environment and are getting enough to eat."

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about Common Core.
"We do so much. We work on acting skills. We work on scripts. We play parts. It helps my English and it does it in a fun and educational way at the same time," Vazquez said.

Joendi Espinal, 10, who played one of the bald generals in the play, offered a more critical view of Budde.

"She's a teacher, but she's funny," he said.

Echoing sentiments of ELA teachers across the nation, Budde said she is aware that state assessments will likely not reflect how much her students have advanced this year. Yet, she measures advancement in other ways.

"When I see them grow from someone who couldn't talk, couldn't read, struggled on every word they had to say, for that student to get up and start performing, it's a huge impact," she said.

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PORT CHESTER, N.Y. - Inside Kelly Budde's language arts class at Thomas A. Edison Elementary School, 11-year-old Carlos Vazquez was starring in the lead role of the Hairy Frog in the original production, "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow." Vazquez jumped to center stage, strummed his air guitar and sang out: "I can't get noooooo satisfaction!"

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