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Ｙａｎｇ　Ｘｕｅｌａｎ

Abstract:Drama as a new concept to be a teaching strategy has the power magic to improve students' language learning, it can create the students' imagination, it can develop the students' cooperation and creative ability, it can show their empathize about others, it's a dramatic arts approach. The students are not only inside Drama, but also inside the language of Drama.

Key words:Drama confident creative cooperation imagination enthusiasm

As an English teacher in China, we are always puzzled in arousing the students' learning interest. Even though I once studied the teaching skills in my class, I always felt it was neither completely satisfied the students nor myself, sometimes I even felt bored about my own job. I find that some of my students have already "shut down" by the time that they enter the classroom and have come to look upon school as a place of personal failure. How to make my class dynamic and how to help students to be successful are the always questions around me. But when I walked into Kathy's Drama class, it made me surprised, just like a person who walked in the desert suddenly found the spring water. I feel I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to touch the new concept.

What is Drama?

"If children can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn."——Ignacio Estrada.

What is Drama? Maybe" to teach the way the children learn" can show the definition of Drama. Definitely, it is the way to help students to be confident, to be interested in the language learning, to be creative, to develop their imagination, to understand the contents of the learning materials and to leap into literacy by lots of drama strategies, such as Choral Reading, Role-playing, Teachers in Role, Story Theatre, Write in Role, Story Making, etc. Students can create their abilities through their bodies, gestures, voices, and attitudes.

How to make drama?

When I walked into Kathy's class, I was so shocked that the classroom is really a stage, a theatre. I felt relaxed and interested at once, To face Kathy's kindness and friendliness, I realized that classroom management is so important for the teaching process, I know how to begin to turn fear of failure and disappointment around is partially dependent on our willingness to try new thingsto rethink how and what we are teaching and to honestly look at what techniques are working and what are not. I still remember Kathy's first class, when we, this group of English teachers from Jiangsu get together in the first Drama Class, she played a game with all of us, the group of teachers and our other instructors, she just asked us to make a big circle and tell out our names loudly, then she asked each person to say the names that he or she can call out, again she asked us to tell out our names loudly, but this time with a gesture, when we watched the funny actions, we could know more names, it is a very easy and funny way to get us to know each other quickly and easily. Of course from then on, we began to look forward to having Drama Class.

Drama is made in groups, in another word, drama is a cooperation work. In Kathy's class, we are often divided into duets, into trios, or as a large group, we accomplished the task that she assigned with partners, she often worked from her strengths, monitored the process, and walked around the classroom to support her help for us, sometimes she just wanted to make sure everyone of us were involved. Also she often made us to be aware of group roles and responsibilities by having us reflect on how we worked in groups. Of course, the roles in the groups that we acted were chosen by ourselves as we liked, so the group work was enjoyable and a good cooperation. Recall the class that we had, we still remember exact plots of it, that was about an interview, the class was formed six groups, and Kathy asked each group to have a volunteer to be a famous successful person, the others would be the staff of a company, and the company would recruit a famous successful person, then all the volunteers walked out of the classroom, they prepared to face the interview, the groups discussed the roles and each role would interview the famous man, everyone of us imagined the scene of the interview, and thought what would say. Through the group work, we were so confident to express our ideas.

What magic is Drama ?

Drama can make students confident. As we have known, Drama is a group work, students can express their ideas before their partners first and share their ideas to make sure their ideas are right, then they can be confident to tell out their ideas in front of the whole class. For teachers, they often encourage the students to speak out their ideas, Kathy once told us she never compete the class, and she never blame the class, her favourite words are " good job" "excellent" "I appreciate it" "good question". In her class, we were all good students, I really remember that when we came to Toronto, we were all modest and timid., but at the final presentation, all of us are outgoing, we could open our minds to express our inner thoughts, and make each role vivid, I had the memory of our story about a man who could call down the owls, there were two owls in the story, Ms Yang and Ms Hu, two over forty-year women acted them, they did as the owls flew, appeared in our eyes, there were real two owls, that was too amazing.

Drama can make words sing. "The best words in the best order" that's true. Sometimes our Chinese students are so scared to face the English words, even the English letters. They just don't know how to read the words, how to use the words to express themselves, the English words are just the dead literacy for them, so they can't understand the beauty of the words. But return to the class of Choral Reading, I was recalled that Kathy gave out a poem to us, and asked us to read it while walking around the classroom, the voice filled in the classroom, sounds like chorus. Then she asked us to find our favourite lines and try to explain why we love those lines, depend on the different favourite lines, we formed different groups, and had a Choral reading in the whole class, I was astonished by the language with a melody and the cadences. Words turned into a song sung by the students, and also students are helped to become interested in the reading.

Drama can develop students' creative imagination. I have a vivid memory of watching Kathy with Grade 4 class in Firgrove Public School. That's an amazing class. Students never knew Kathy before, and Kathy never knew the students, but when they are mixed in the class, they were just like old friends, Kathy used her strength to attract the students, and her emotion promoted the students. They quickly came into the roles. The class was about story telling and story making. Kathy told a story about a king who wanted to build a palace in a village, the site was chosen near a well which the source of villagers' life water came from , so the king decided to cover the well. Kathy stopped here and asked students to make a tableaux with their bodies and gestures to describe how the village would be like if the well was covered, and then asked them to try to find a good way to persuade the king to give up his decision.

The students were so active that they quickly chose a role to play and a good tableaux was created, and also everyone of them desired to give out their suggestion to the king in language. I was really subdued by the Drama's magic to make students have such a great creative imagination. The students were not only inside the story, but also inside the language of the story.

The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.—Carl Jung. Why Drama has so much power? The answer exits in Drama itself and the teachers who teach Drama. Drama digs deeply into students' enthusiasm in learning and also teachers' enthusiasm in teaching. Enthusiastic people can turn a boring drive into an adventure, extra work into opportunity and strangers into friends, enthusiasm takes you further.