A Study On The Application Of Drama Teaching Method In Spoken English Teaching Of Primary School

Spoken English ability is an important skill in English learning.However,due to the influence of traditional teaching methods,especially in elementary school,many teachers will inadvertently deprive students of their initiative position and right to speak,resulting in students’ limitation to acquire oral English ability well.The 2011 Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standards suggests that teachers should design various forms of classroom interaction,and encourage students to learn and use English through observation,imitation,experience,exploration,and display.Creating more opportunities for students to practice language and guide them to learn autonomously and cooperatively.Teachers strive to create a harmonious classroom atmosphere,especially for the pupils.Teachers need to pay special attention to cultivating students’ strong interest in English learning,a positive learning attitude,and a good awareness of learning habits and creative use of language.So,in response to this phenomenon and combined with curriculum standards,this study applies drama teaching method to spoken English teaching.Drama teaching method is a teaching method with the ultimate goal of education and the characteristics of drama.Generally,through drama games,role-playing,improvisational creation etc.,it creates an experiential,participatory and interactive class for students.During the learning process,students can give full play to imagination and creativity to perform oral ability in specific situations.With the basis of Constructive Learning Theory and Cooperative Learning Theory,this study combined the domestic and foreign research on drama teaching method with English picture books as the experimental material to carry out the application experiment of drama teaching method in the teaching of English picture book in primary school.It aims to answer the following two questions:1.What effects does the application of drama teaching method have on primary school students’ spoken English ability ?2.What effects does the application of drama teaching method have on primary school students’ classroom participation in spoken English teaching?The subjects of this study are students from two parallel classes of Grade 4 in Da ma Road Primary School Xuzhou City,and one class was selected as experimental class.During the three-month experiment,the oral pre-test and post test were implemented in both classes to indicate the changes of spoken English ability.Random interviews and questionnaires were used to get students’ classroom participation and evaluation of drama teaching method from the perspective of students.Teaching journals were designed for reflection and improvement during the experiments and recorded the changes of students’ classroom participation as well.With a comparative analysis of the experimental data through the EXCEL software,the author draws the following conclusion:The application of drama teaching method in spoken English teaching has good effect on the spoken English ability of primary school students,the average scores of pre-test and post test in experimental class are 80.22 and 86.18,while in the control class,the average scores of pre-test and post test are 80.51 and 82.In contrast to the average scores from the two classes,the experimental class has an obvious improvement in the oral test.Besides,students have more appropriate expression and gestures when they do the oral expression.Students have been more willing to show themselves and the middle-level students have an obvious improvement.At the same time,most students have been more interested in English learning with the application of drama teaching method,therefore students’ participation in the class has been significantly increased.