The Role of Drama in Task-based Learning: Agency, Identity and Autonomy

Abstract

Drama is a genre which connects the public and private, the rehearsed and the spontaneous, the self and the other. These intriguing relationships may be examined, from an applied linguistic perspective, through the concepts of agency, autonomy and identity. This paper discusses the role of drama in university language learning within a task-based framework, and draws from an example of a collaborative drama task designed for postgraduate students in an English for Academic Purposes programme. It explores how the ideas of agency, autonomy and identity can help conceptualise this type of curricular activity, and presents the design and implementation of a dramatic task, and reviews learner evaluation of the task’s perceived impact as an alternative learning approach which lowers affective barriers, the benefits and challenges of a collaborative task, and perceived growth in language proficiency.

The Implementation and Challenges of using Role-Play to Improve Chinese University Students’ English Communicative Competence

“…The students practised workplace communication in role-play (Table 2, item 1 and 2). Carson (2012) suggests that role-play enables students to rehearse for real-life situations. The students likely have to use English to communicate in the workplace in their future life.…”

“…The authenticity of their role-play was decreased. Carson (2012) compares the advantages of improvised and prepared role-play. Improvised role-play introduces the unpredictable language use in the real world to learners while prepared role-play helps students to focus on accuracy (Carson, 2012).…”

“…Carson (2012) compares the advantages of improvised and prepared role-play. Improvised role-play introduces the unpredictable language use in the real world to learners while prepared role-play helps students to focus on accuracy (Carson, 2012). It is hard to get all the benefits at the same time so the teacher needs to balance the uncertainty of natural communication and linguistic accuracy.…”

“…Improvisational role-play with error correction after it could be employed to the students who already have some English linguistic knowledge and can communicate to some degree. By doing so, they have access to unexpected real-life communication (Carson, 2012). The linguistic accuracy could be addressed after role-play so the fluency of communication is retained (Tran, 2016).…”

“…Role-play is proposed to have a significant impact on second language acquisition in the following ways. For one thing, students have the opportunities to practise their comprehensive language skills in the roleplay if the script preparation stage is added (Carson, 2012;Edstrom, 2013;Lin, 2009;Tran, 2016). Students need to read and write the scripts when preparing for the role-play and then listen and speak during the performance, which trains their overall language skills (Tran, 2016).…”