Importance of Drama in Primary Schools

Defining Drama

• Drama can be defined as a play to be performed or the production of a play. Students in upper grades may study theater arts as a genre and delve into production techniques and performance studies. However, in the primary classroom the focus is on learning through drama with dramatic activities. These activities can be informal and integrated into the curriculum.

Using Dramatic Activity to Promote Vocabulary

• One important function of drama in the primary grades is to enhance the students' vocabulary proficiency, which is crucial to literacy development. Teachers are encouraged to create a memorable event when presenting unfamiliar words. A vocabulary lesson might involve students acting out interesting stories that contain new vocabulary.

Dramatic Story Reenactments to Promote a Sense of Narrative

• When primary grade students act out stories, they learn to connect events in an organized narrative. This is the start of understanding the plot of a narrative, with a beginning, middle and an end along with conflict and resolution. Students also become interested in literature in preparation for independent reading that takes place in later grades. With repeated dramatic story re-enactment opportunities directed by the teacher, young students may eventually initiate such activities on their own.

Impact of Process Drama

• Primary grade students meet educational standards by identifying characters, situations and settings, and they learn the reasons for creating drama. One teaching method, process drama, invites students to become involved with imaginary, unscripted and spontaneous scenes. Process drama is an authentic learning experience because learners are actively involved in exploration and discovery through shared activity.

  In process drama, students are given a conflict to resolve. For example, a lesson may present the story of the Three Little Pigs to the point where they are threatened by the wolf and need to build a house to withstand the threat. Students can work in groups to come up with a solution to the problem and then act it out in an informal dramatic performance.

Process Drama and Writing Instruction

• Teachers may take process drama a step further and have students write about what they just dramatized. In the the Three Little Pigs example, each group might write a description of the house it designed, along with an explanation of why the house will withstand the threat posed by the wolf.