Developing Student’s Oral and Reading Skills Through Reader’s Theatre

Abstract

The ability to speak well in English has always been a challenging task among students
 from the rural areas. There are various types of materials that have been developed to
 improve student’s fluency to speak English, and Reader’s Theatre (RT) is one of them.
 A study was conducted using Readers Theatre to help students improve their oral and
 reading skills in English in a stress free workshop. The workshop was a combination of
 language and arts activities that combined language skills of speaking and reading to
 improve students’ performance. The workshop was conducted among students over a
 period of three weeks. A survey was carried out on the student’s perceived learning
 experience to speak and read English whilst taking part in Reader’s Theatre. The
 findings of the study show that Reader’s Theatre was a good tool to boost high school
 students’ motivation to speak clearly and confidently in English when they collaborated
 and interacted with their peers. However, it was not the aim of the present study to
 check if students spoke or read more English materials outside classroom as a result
 of Reader’s Theatre workshop.

Beyond Classroom English Activities to Generate Interest in English Among Tertiary Students

“…It is recommended that learning English language needs to be encouraged and developed in and out of the classroom through appropriate language activities such as those used in this study. In fact, studies have shown that exposure to language plays such as Readers Theatre play an essential role in improving students' language proficiency (Shanthi et al 2019;Orhan, 2018) because they enable students to learn language effortlessly and effectively (Maroz & Noor Saazai, 2016). When students were allowed to choose language learning activities that were suitable to their needs and interests, learners learned independently and they showed passion and dedication to show better progress in their ability to use English.…”

“…Beyond-the-classroom learning are language activities that encourage language learning outside the classroom (Maros & Mat Saad, 2016). It is said that language activities beyond the classroom promote independent learning (Shanthi et al, 2019) and students can learn a language independently when it becomes crucial for them to use the language to accomplish a set task (Ismail & Shafie, 2019), where learners set goals based on the target to achieve which is the endproduct. In the case of this study the end-product is the ability of students to complete the five activities in English for an audience.…”

“…It is believed that when cooperation and interaction are combined with engaging and fun activities, successful learning becomes more possible (Le, Janseen & Wubbles, 2018;Shanthi, et al, 2018Shanthi, et al, , 2019. Hence, activities which can be fun and engaging like Readers Theatre, the more likely it is to encourage teamwork and motivate learners to learn English.…”

“…Students develop fluency and comprehension when they become familiar with the text and the plot structure. They also improve their pronunciation and presentation skills by much practice reading and listening to the stories (Shanthi et al, 2019).…”

“…At the end of the month-long program students were asked to complete a questionnaire describing their experience in taking part in the different competitions organised. Most of the activities carried out were group activities because studies have shown that students learn language better when they work in groups (Shanthi, Thayalan, Zainon, & De Mello, 2019). Group work also promotes student collaboration whereby each member taps and optimises each other's abilities and capabilities in language learning.…”