DRAMA AS A FORM OF TEACHING.
EYTOMOLOGY
The term "drama" comes
from a Greek word "draō" meaning "to do / to
act"
“Tell me and I will forget.
Show me and I will remember.
Involve me and I will
understand."
(Confucius)
As teachers, we are constantly searching for effective strategies to motivate and enhance our students’ learning experiences.
The use of drama as an effective and valuable teaching strategy is becoming increasingly common in educational contexts.
The use of drama promotes meaningful, active and reflective thinking processes as well as enhancing communication skills development.
One of the reasons drama is able to enhance
students’ learning experience is because of its unique ability to accommodate
many different learning styles and thus able to motivate the learners.
Drama as teaching
methodology facilitates teaching and learning process a lot.
1.
STIMULATING CREATIVITY
& PROBLEM SOLVING
Dramatic Arts education is an
important means of stimulating creativity in problem solving. It can challenge
students' perceptions about their world and about themselves.
2. Give scope to express different
emotions &thoughts
Dramatic exploration can
provide students with an outlet for emotions, thoughts, and dreams that they
might not otherwise have means to express.
3. Provides scope to understand
essence/value of different role
A student can play the
role of father, mother, and sister, friend’s manymore, which prepare the
students to understand what is role of a father, mother, sister and others in society
that helps him/her to understand he society better.
4. Offers personal choice in role play
in teaching learning situation
Drama
offers students their personal space/interest in playing the role in play,
through which student enthusiasm develops.
This
can happen in a SAFE ATMOSPHERE, where actions and consequences can be examined,
discussed, and in a very real sense EXPERIENCED without the dangers and
pitfalls that such experimentation would obviously lead to in the
"real" world. This is perhaps the most important reason for Dramatic
Arts in schools.
5.
DRAMA
PREPARES CHILDREN TO DEAL WITH LIFE’S PROBLEMS.
Drama gives children the opportunity to rehearse roles,
characters and a broad spectrum of life situations, helping them to explore and
address some of the individual and personal ideas and feelings they are
naturally experiencing. Overall, this allows children to make sense out of
their ‘real’ life problems and helps them to learn about themselves and
important coping mechanisms.
6.
DRAMA
Builds
CONFIDENCE.
Even the shyest of children who join drama build up their confidence and
self-esteem until before long they are confident enough to take a full and
active part in the workshop. As their personal journey continues that
confidence can be seen in how they interact with the group, speak independently,
express opinions and ideas and present them in a show or play.
7.
DRAMA
Develops speech communication and
presentation SKILLS.
Learning new
songs and lines for a show, playing communication games, through to writing and
presenting monologues and scripts and participating in scenes and shows, all
contribute to a child’s developing vocabulary. They are encouraged to express
themselves both verbally using different voices and tones, and through facial
expressions and body language, both of which are key to making them better and
more effective communicators in life.
8.
DRAMA
Encourages and develops creativity.
Creative
people are able to view problems and opportunities in a different way and from
different perspectives, to think on their feet and generate new ideas – this is
a vital life skill and is often the driver for innovation and entrepreneurship.
At drama our children use their imaginations in everything they do and take the
lead in story development and coming up with solutions to problems and pretend
scenarios.
9.
DRAMA
DEVELOPS critical
thinking, engaging our children in creative problem solving and decision making.
Drama guides
and supports children’s problem-solving skills, while at the same time, works
to encourage an increasing awareness of how to solve issues. Instead of being
taught and told what to think and feel in different situations, drama turns
this into a deeper experience in thinking, motivating children to question,
respond, and explain what they are feeling and thinking and present solutions.
10.
DRAMA
HELPS concentration AND COMPREHENSION.
In every
session children are encouraged to listen to each other’s ideas and thoughts,
and to take turns. When children are strongly focused and concentrating, their
overall understanding increases. Many of the games are designed specifically to
develop concentration, a skill that is vital in the world outside their home.
11.
DRAMA
ENCOURAGES teamwork
and cooperation.
Every child is
on a personal journey and the team is taught to respect, support and encourage
each other. Group activity, from mime and movement and playing drama games and
singing together, to preparing for shows or developing scripts, requires
co-operation and teamwork. It is essential that each of our students feels
accepted and works well with others, in order to create and build a safe
environment for all to develop.
12.
DRAMA
Broadens minds and helps children to
understand the world around them.
Learning how
to express themselves in different ways through character and role development,
helps build a strong character and personality. Exploring characters from all
backgrounds and in wide ranging historical and cultural situations builds
understanding and perspective of all aspects of life, sparking their interest
in the world in which they live and making them more inquisitive.
13.
DRAMA
Develops emotional intelligence and
empathy.
Acting out a
range of emotions in the safe and supportive environment of workshop, gives student
the opportunity to better understand their own emotions and develop empathy
with others. Through drama, children will explore conflict and challenging
characters, and also learn how to express themselves through dialogue,
improvisation and debate.
14.
DRAMA
Supports healthy minds and wellbeing.
Under
different characters, children can express their true feelings or sense of
personality without fear of being judged or criticized. They can work on
personal issues or solve personal problems while in character, which can simply
help their overall well being.
15.
DRAMA
AssistS physical DEVELOPMENT.
Each week we
create simple movement sequences and play often very active drama games – all
designed to help children gain strength and control over their own growing
bodies.
16.
DRAMA
DEVELOPS EMPATHY AND NEW
PERSPECTIVES.
Taking on
various roles in character allows students to use senses and characteristics in
order to understand the character as well as the scenario or story at hand.
17.
Drama is ENTERTAINING.
Fun is
learning, and learning is fun. By doing, and by playing, children will take far
greater learning from the activity. Drama is often built around games or acting
our scenarios, an active and fun way to learn about ourselves and explore
complex issues.
18.
Drama
developS TOLERANCE and EMPATHY.
In
order to play a role competently, an actor must be able to fully inhabit
another's soul. An actor must be able to really understand how the world looks
through another person's eyes. the
ability to understand others' motives and choices is critical. Drama can help
build responsible global citizens.
19.
Drama
promoteS ACTIVE LEARNING in any subject.
To
give students a kinesthetic and empathetic understanding as well as an intellectual
understanding of a topic. Studies have shown again and again that this approach
results greater depth of understanding and a
marked improvement in retention.
20.
Knowledge
conceptualization of subject area
Drama helps to
improve students’ knowledge in the subject matters. It helps students to
understand rational patterns, cause and effect relationship and interpreting
concepts and contexts and also to learn through the use of reading and
vocabulary.
21.
DRAMA
HELPS IN PRACTICAL CLASSROOM APPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING CURRICULAR MATERIAL
Drama has many practical classroom applications for teaching
curricular material. Important concepts, ideas, events, and people
can be dramatized through improvisation, pantomime, and play writing to
stimulate interest, convey knowledge, gain comprehension, and improve
retention.
Drama
can be the vehicle for the following applications:
·
Role plays situations to
model/observe
·
New skills or behaviors.
·
Develop scenarios to introduce new concepts.
·
Dramatize a meeting between
characters or historical figures.
·
Reenact a real event.
·
Dramatize a scene that might have
happened in a story.
·
Improvise a scene that expresses the
topic or theme.
·
Act out scenarios as a way to
approach writing dialogue.
·
Create literary sketches.
·
Stimulate ideas for composing
essays, poetry, or fiction.
·
Portray famous people.
