DRAMA AS A FORM OF TEACHING. (UNIT 3)

 

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.