Using creative drama to improve pronunciation for young learners

Research Article

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse the effect of using creative drama with young learners to pronunciation development. Exercises focused on recognizing or repeating have been used to teach pronunciation for years. Because these sorts of exercises are regarded as uncommunicative and form-focused, pronunciation has been ignored in the ESL class since the emergence of the communicative method. Educators and course books, on the other hand, have been unable to substitute interactive tasks for these. The need of finding new techniques to teach pronunciation that would interest students in meaningful ways while also integrating other capabilities is emphasized. The participants in this project are given a meaningful context through dramatic events, which provides them a verbal reason for always prioritizing correctness. This allows them to participate in conversational activities while also benefiting from repetition and an emphasis on structure when improving pronunciation. The researcher created 5 hours of creative drama lessons aimed at a range of segmental and supra segmental level issues that English learners may face. These classes were then undertaken a 5-day period with a group of 10 fourth-grade volunteer students. A read-aloud test was provided to the participants as a pre-test and post-test to assess the impact of the creative drama lessons. In the post-test, it was observed that all of the volunteers performed much better. It was concluded that using creative drama with young learners helped them to improve their pronunciation.