Children’s development in early childhood is dynamic and holistic. Because of that the connection between different subject areas is crucial, as it enables children to learn holistically. Drama teaching is an approach that provides students with an interactive learning experience, with which students become an integral part of the learning content. As an educational approach, it can also be used in foreign language teaching, as it encourages students to speak and communicate during the lessons within their limited abilities. Drama holistically engages students in English lessons as it enables them to acquire language through a motor, cognitive, social, and emotional level. In our master’s thesis, we discussed how to teach English as a foreign language through drama. The positive effects of this type of teaching were verified by comparing the experimental and control groups within seven lessons. The positive effects were achieved by creating a model in which English as a foreign language was taught through drama.
The research was conducted in in October in the 2022/23 school year. In the research, 38 students from two classes of the 4th grade of the Slovenian primary school participated. The experimental group consisted of 19 students, 10 girls and 9 boys. The control group included 19 students as well, 10 girls and 9 boys, where the English lessons were taught in the traditional way. Based on the data obtained as part of the master's thesis research, we found that it is possible to successfully integrate drama activities into English lessons and that their inclusion has a very positive effect on the students' well-being and on the progress of speech development in the target language. The students of the experimental group achieved, on average, a higher number of points on the oral knowledge test after seven lessons of English, and on average they felt more positive during English lessons with a dramatic approach. The master’s thesis is especially helpful for English teachers at the primary level or in the second educational cycle as with the help of research they will be able to assess the positive effects of including drama in English lessons and they will be able to include drama in their English language teaching.
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