Classroom Observation

This reluctance to contribute arose from a lack of confidence and interest. The drama activities supported the children in becoming significantly more self-assured, and so pupils such as Sam and Ella who were initially more withdrawn were much willing and enthusiastic to share their thoughts, ‘Ella: I think he would look scared’ (refer to Figure 6). Drama allowed these students to safely experiment with varying identities. They were confident in switching roles and truly engaged with the characters they were enacting. It was evident that the roles they inhabited performed a similar freeing function to a mask, permitting the pupils to feel adequately safe so that they could take risks [5]. Additionally, drama built on the ability that the

The atmosphere in the group was far more positive. All children were quicker to respond and did so with less prompting (refer to Figure 1 and 2). Their suggestions were longer, delivered with greater zest and received with a higher level of interest (refer to Figure 6). Behaviour management shifted from me attempting to get the children on task to me attempting to manage their excitement. Body language was a further indicator, within the first lesson the children quickly became disinterested in the conversation, twice I had to prompt them to show me they were listening. Ed highlights this point, in the first lesson he demonstrated his lack of interest by laying his head down and drumming the table. It was evident from the children’s utterances and body language that drama provided an engaging and motivating scaffold for speech. I hypothesise that this elevated interest stemmed from the fact that drama brought speaking and listening back to the pupils’ level, children do not speak with the aim of producing grammatically correct well-structured complex sentences, but rather they speak in order to be understood. The focus of drama is to portray a story to the audience, to be understood. Therefore drama gave literacy a more child-centered objective that had real significance. To be able to communicate and to be understood is an innate need, so the