Learning Through Drama

'Learning Through Drama' contains drama strategies and lesson plans for use with primary school children across the curriculum. The book provides guidance to teachers who have never taught drama before but are considering using it in a subject area such as science or history and offers new approaches to those familiar with common drama techniques (such as hot-seating and teacher in role). The book includes 36 drama strategies and over 250 cross-curricular activities, including practical ideas for inspiring speaking, listening and writing. 'This book is a beautifully laid-out, easy to use resource, full of imaginative and practical ideas to help learning become much more memorable and inspirational.' - Hilary Lewis (Drama Consultant). 'Even the well-practiced and creative drama teacher will find something in this book that serves as a refresher, reminder or quite simply a new idea... a must-have publication for those serious about the teaching of drama in primary school settings.' - Teaching Drama magazine.

Grade level: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, e, i, s, t.

Drama and Education provides a practical, comprehensive guide to drama as a tool for teaching and learning. It is among the first practical drama and performance textbooks that address brain-based, neuroscientific research, making the argument that creativity is necessary in our lives, that embodied learning is natural and essential, and that contextual learning helps us find our place in society in relationship to other peoples and cultures. As well as a historical and theoretical overview of the field, it provides rationale and techniques for several specific methodologies: linear drama, process-oriented drama, drama for social justice, and performance art. Each approach is supplemented with sample lesson plans, activities, ideas for differentiation, and extensive bibliographies. The topics are discussed from five key angles: • Historical and theoretical foundations • Curricular applications • Practical toolkits for a range of classrooms and learning environments • Different strategies for lesson plans • Extension options for longer workshops. Alongside these core methods, the integration of other innovative forms—from performance art to Theatre of the Oppressed—into drama-based learning is explored, as well as the pragmatic concerns such as assessment, planning, and advocacy for arts learning and arts education partnerships. Drama and Education is the comprehensive textbook for teachers and students on Applied Theatre and Theatre and Education courses.

Drawing on current theories of additional & foreign language learning this text illustrates through practical case studies how drama can be used to support the four key skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

This book provides teachers of children at Key Stages 1 and 2 with a much-needed source of exciting and creative drama-based activities, designed to improve literacy. As useful for the drama novice as for the busy literacy co-ordinator, these flexible activities are designed to help teachers meet National Curriculum and National Literacy Strategy (NLS) requirements, particularly through speaking and listening. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1 looks at literacy and the power of drama as a 'brain-friendly' medium for teaching and learning. Part 2 contains ten structured, practical units of work, each based on a different story, poem, play or traditional tale or rhyme and each linked directly to the requirements and objectives of the NLS and the QCA objectives for speaking and listening. Part 3 contains photocopiable Literacy Support Sheets for teachers to use and adapt for their own classroom needs. All units of work have been tried and tested by the authors, giving teachers a springboard from which to enhance and extend their literacy lessons, and engage the imagination of their pupils. The book is also the ideal resource for student teachers.

Drama is increasingly being recognised as a valuable pedagogy for language learning as it can harness children‘s imaginations and stimulate their desire to communicate. Second Learning Language through Drama draws on current theories of additional and foreign language learning and illustrates through practical case studies how drama can be used to support the four key skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Drawing on the work of an international group of practitioners who are all highly experienced in using drama for the purpose of second language learning, the book clearly explains key drama conventions and strategies and outlines the innovative ways they have been used to create enjoyable and stimulating classroom activities that allow for multiple ways of learning. Throughout the book the emphasis is on making language learning accessible and relevant to children and young people through creative, physically active and playful approaches. The strategies described are all highly flexible and readily adaptable to different teaching contexts. Specific themes include: Using stories and drama to motivate learners at all levels Drama, language learning and identity Assessment opportunities through process drama Issues of language learning and cultural empowerment Digital storytelling Film & drama aesthetics Second Language Learning through Drama will be of great interest to those studying on undergraduate and postgraduate courses and will serve as a highly valuable text to practitioners looking to incorporate the approaches described into their lessons and classroom activities.

Highlights the bridging character of drama-based foreign and second language teaching for intercultural learning. Drama here is not limited to theater-related work, but means the interplay between body and language in general, to include, for example, sports, dancing, singing, and storytelling. The major techniques and curricular structures of educational drama and its application in the foreign and second language classroom are introduced. What are the techniques, methods, strategies, and curricular structures that engage language learners in continuing dialogue between one's own culture and the one yet to be discovered? What comprises the language we speak in order to understand and be understood? Which body is it we communicate through and to? This volume answers these and other questions of the pedagogy of drama-based teaching across the foreign/second language curriculum and on all levels of the educational pyramid. There are two major issues currently discussed in drama-based foreign and second language methodology. The first is goal-oriented, asking whether the acquisition of accuracy or fluency is more important, and whether a controlled (learning through imitation) or an open (through improvisation) learning environment is more efficient. The second issue concerns using drama in language teaching: either its use is process-oriented, where drama becomes an immediate medium for language learning, or product-oriented, where it becomes primarily the reason for language learning. The book outlines the theoretical frameworks of both issues and introduces personal narrative, comparative observation, and analytical reflection, illuminating opportunities for learning at both ends of the seemingly contradictory poles of both issues.

Drama-based Pedagogy examines the mutually beneficial relationship between drama and education, championing the versatility of drama-based teaching and learning designed in conjunction with classroom curricula. Written by seasoned educators and based upon their own extensive experience in diverse learning contexts, this book bridges the gap between theories of drama in education and classroom practice. Kathryn Dawson and Bridget Kiger Lee provide an extensive range of tried and tested strategies, planning processes, and learning experiences, in order to create a uniquely accessible manual for those who work, think, train, and learn in educational and/or artistic settings. It is the perfect companion for professional development and university courses, as well as for already established educators who wish to increase student engagement and ownership of learning.