Drama Technique: An Effective Way to Facilitate Students’ Language Acquisition

Abstract

Educators need to be creative in finding a new approach to motivate students to learn language. The process of teaching and learning needs to be compatible with students’ interest in order to encourage them to acquire language effectively. It is quite challenging for educators to find an appropriate method or teaching strategy that would alleviate students’ motivation to participate actively in teaching and learning process due to the nature of learner-centered approach that is widely adapted in education nowadays. This study mainly intends to explore the promising outcome of strengthening students’ speaking skills by integrating drama as part of the learning activities. Drama technique is undoubtedly one of the most convincing ways which is believed to build students’ confidence in the language thus improve their speaking ability. For this particular study, a group of international students from Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University (NPRU) are selected to give their feedback on the drama activity that was conducted in class during the Communicative English Course organized by UniMAP. The group of students were given an opportunity to share their thoughts and views throughout the implementation of drama activity held in class. Based on the students’ response, the answers have been analyzed thoroughly and it was found that students have positive and optimistic point of view about incorporating drama to increase their level of confidence in acquiring language which consequently contribute to improving their capability in language skills such as speaking, listening, reading and writing more confidently in English.