Improving active vocabulary and developing speaking through drama in ELT classes

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to show an alternative approach to practising speaking and improving vocabulary. In this approach, certain techniques and activities are recommended which can be applied to different steps of learning. Most techniques for teaching any item of language cover three major phases-presentation, practice and production. In. the first phase, one attempts to find a way of presenting the item so that it is clearly understood; in the second, one practises it under controlled conditions; and in the third, one tries to create conditions in which it can be used more or less freely by students. While speaking activities can clearly play a part in the first two phases, it is really in the third phase they come into their own. A judicious selection of such activities can certainly be used to produce particular items of Vocabulary and Structure, but their main advantage is in offering students the chance to move from controlled to free expression, and to say something they really want to say. It would be difficult, and probably unwise, to try to base all our language work on activities such as those described here. It would be equally unwise, however, to base all our language work on a text-book. Any well-balanced course should be flexible enough to include various approaches to learning. The activities used here could be modified to suit the requirements of another intermediate-level foreign language course taught at the University level. -in-