An Action Research On The Application Of Drama Activities To Primary School Oral English Teaching

As people pay more and more attention to communicative competence,the study of spoken language teaching has attracted considerable attention from teachers and researchers at home and abroad.Drama in education,used as a teaching method in language teaching classroom to create real communication environment,has a wide influence in foreign countries.Its role is to stimulate students' collaborative learning and creative thinking,facilitate their enthusiastic involvement in language activities and aesthetic appreciation of literary works.This study introduces drama activities into oral English teaching to enhance students' interest in English learning and improve their oral English ability.Inspired by previous studies on oral English teaching and guided by cooperative learning theory,multiple intelligences theory and anchored instruction,this four-month action research,having as participants a total of 48 students from grade 4of a primary school in Nantou town,Zhongshan city,used English drama activities to enhance primary school students' English learning interest and improve their oral English ability.The study followed the four-step procedure: plan,act,observe,reflect proposed by Kemmis.In the two rounds of the action research,a total of 4 textbook plays based on the fusion of themes and 2 classic pantomime plays were carried out.The forms of activities were group cooperation,role playing,storytelling,drama performance,dubbing,musicals,etc.The first round of action research was carried out from September 2018 to October,focusing on the development of drama activities in oral English classes,aiming to enhance students' interest in autonomous English learning and oral expression.The second round started in November 2018 and ended in December,emphasizing on how to carry out diversified drama activities to maintain students' interest in English learning and improve their oral English ability.In this study,data were collected through questionnaire,interview,classroom observation and oral English test,and then paired samples T-test was used for statistical data.The scores of post-test of the oral test are higher than those of the pre-test of the oral test,and there is a significant difference between them.The resultsfrom questionnaires,interviews and classroom observations indicated that students' interest in learning has increased with the help of a variety of drama activities,good cooperative atmosphere and the achievement of drama activities.After two rounds of action,the accuracy and fluency of students' oral English were also improved.This study tentatively confirms the effectiveness of drama activities in oral English teaching in primary schools.As the research process is accompanied by teachers' observation and reflection,the following suggestions may provide some inspirations for other oral English teachers.First,English drama activities should cater to students' language level and interest,as roles and tasks beyond students' level are likely to discourage students from learning.Second,the role of imitation should not be over-emphasized,instead students should be encouraged to compose their own plays or add their own language into their performances to cultivate their creativity and pragmatic ability.