Importance Of Drama In Language Teaching

Poetry can pave the way for the learning and teaching of basic language skills. Poetry generally is distinguished from prose by evidence of some effort on the part of the writer to use figures, imagery, meter, or sound. (G. Shivel, 2003: 483-493) Cubukcu says, most poetry consciously or unconsciously makes use of metaphor as one of its primary methods, poetry offers a significant learning process. There are at least two learning benefits that can be derived from studying poetry:
-The appreciation of the writer’s composition process, which students gain by studying poems by components.
-Developing sensitivity for words and discoveries that may later grow into a deeper interest and greater analytical ability.
Saraç (2003:17-20) also explains

It is through the use of drama that learners become familiar with grammatical structures in contexts and also learn about how to use the language to express, control and inform. The use of drama raises the students’ awareness towards the target language and culture. Yet, there is one obvious danger: cultural imposition should be severely avoided since it results in the loss of language ego and native language identity in many cases . To put it differently, language learning should be culture-free but entirely not culture-biased. For this reason, the new language and the context of the drama should fuse into a language learning process with high interest, relevance and enjoyment. Learners should make use of drama to promote their comprehension of life experiences, reflect on particular circumstances and make sense of their extralinguistic world in a deeper way (Sarıçoban 2004:15). The educational benefits of drama, according to (Lenore 1993), are as

However, there are some problems encountered by language teachers within the area of teaching English through literature. Many instructors try to include literature in their classroom, but lack the background and training in that field. The teacher has an important role in teaching English through literature. First, he should determine the aim of language teaching in relation to the needs and expectations of the students. Giving a questionnaire or interviewing with the students orally, the teacher can set up the aim and the objectives of the language teaching. Second, he should select the appropriate language teaching method, teaching techniques, and classroom activities. Then, the teacher should select the literary texts relevant to the aim and the objectives of his teaching. While selecting literary texts to be used in language classroom, the students’ language proficiency, interests, age, sex, etc should be taken into acount in order not to bore students with inappropriate materials. At elementary levels, for example, students should be given simplified or specially written stories. At advanced levels, however, students are given literature in its original form so that they can develop their literary competence in the target language. To put it another way, students learn practically the figurative and daily use of the target language in the literary texts and encounter different genres of literature