USING DRAMA AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

Drama is seen as an effective way to improve
young learners communication skills while
enabling them a creative and authentic
atmosphere. Teachers may help children by
setting up a classroom in which many students
enjoy creative activities such as drama. With
the help of drama activities, students of young
age can find it easy to produce the target
language and participate in the activity
willingly. The main aim of the study is to
indicate the usefulness of drama activities for
young learners of ESL in speaking classes. The
study was conducted on 48 participants from
7th grade students at a private secondary
school in Ankara. A qualitative study was
conducted to find out whether dramatic
activities are helpful for young learners of EFL
in speaking classrooms through teacher's
diaries, video tapes and interviews. To achieve
3 lesson plans were designed in a 6 week
period, and each of the dramatic activities and
the attitudes of students were observed. The
results of this study aimed to prove that
dramatic activities are helpful for young
learners in speaking classrooms.