To download the lesson plans, please visit the page at BogglesworldESL’s Movie Lesson Plan.

You may also browse through their other lesson plans.

So what exactly is TESL?

As obvious as it may seem, some TESL students are still asking this question. TESL (or short for Teaching English as a Second Language) is dealing with the knowledge of how to teach English primarily as a second language. In Malaysia, the English language is considered as a second language though in most cases it’s Malaysian’s third or fourth language. There is a thin line separating TESL (or some consider them the same) from TEFL (as a Foreign Language) and TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) as within these domains, essential knowledge on English language teaching is similar. What differentiate TESL is the fact that it is used in a region/country where natural English language immersion situations are apt to be plentiful as in the case of Malaysia.

TESL programme is not merely a platform for learning English

Some students think TESL is a programme to improve their English, especially when they are not proficient users of the language to begin with. Though you will have the opportunity to improve during your course of study, chances are, you will struggle to cope. You’ll notice in the TESL programme, there are a lot of critical writing and reading to be done. If you’re not proficient enough, you might end up doing things like “copying”, “plagiarising” or “cheating”. A good grasp of the language is essential before you decide to take up a TESL programme.

TESL is not about measuring your proficiency in English

Perhaps, your friends would “salute” you when you tell them you’re studying TESL as they thought you must be really excellent in the language in order to study the programme. The truth is, you don’t necessary have to. TESL is not about measuring how good your English is, but it’s a matter of how good your English language teaching skills are.

Teaching ESL itself takes a lot of efforts. Thus, studying TESL requires more than just knowledge about the language. You’ll need to have a huge passion to teach, the passion to make sure your students learn the language.

So, you think you can teach ESL?

Teaching through Drama is NOT Teaching Drama

There is a misconception among teachers on this. Like other literary texts, stop teaching them the technical aspects of each genre. In this case, don’t teach your students “What is drama?” but use it to teach the language aspects. That’s the whole purpose of the literary component. Treat it as a pedagogy with the language as the main content, not the other way round.

Why drama?

Why spend time and huge efforts on drama? Why give up lesson periods meant for grammar drills for drama? Why drama indeed! First of all, the benefits and advantages on using drama in the ESL context have been well studied and documented for decades (Do read this article by Zafeiriadou, 2009). I am not going to explain each research, as you can check out the whole list of research studies on this topic via Google Scholar. What is more important is to bear in mind that unlike most other methods, using drama in language teaching involves all four skills and provides a solid context for language learning. Plus, it provides a touch of motivation and element of fun to the classroom. It also helps to develop your students’ creativity and imagination. Well, talk about killing many birds with one stone!

“Tell me and I will forget.
Show me and I will remember.
Involve me and I will understand.”
Chinese Proverb

Teaching through Drama: The Basics

Unlike a play or a theatre that emphasises more on stage performances, drama refers to shared elements used to explore our emotions, our thinking, and to teach. When we talk about using drama in traditional classroom setting, we are not talking about creating a play for a performance, the focus is not on the final product (i.e. getting students to stage it, and evaluate!). What should be prioritised is the process! Now, if you have never taught using drama before, here are the some basic rules that you need to consider:

Before you start teaching your students using a specific drama, you need to read and understand it first. In other words, do necessary preparation.

It would be good to “dissect” each drama into parts and plans the language focus on each part. Do it like a TV series, change the one whole drama text into “episodes” according to your available time for each lesson. For each part, you can include related activities or games (i.e. miming or facial expression exercises)

As you move from part to part, emphasise on the sub-themes of each part apart from highlighting the language aspects. By the way, if your students can’t memorise the lines, allow them to use scripts cards or the scripts itself

Don’t be scared to improvise the drama or scripts. Don’t be too rigid in following the drama word by word. As much as you want your students to be imaginative and creative, allow some rooms for creativity.

Involve everyone. You know your students well, so do not let a specific group of students to rule the whole drama sessions. For each part or “episode”, rotate your students to hold different roles. For the weaker students, give them short sentences to begin. Once they are more and more confident, give them more.

Classroom drama is still part of your class, and management is just as important as your other lessons. Like a director handling a movie, you should let your students know the procedures for work. If you can’t find a place for your drama sessions, let your students work from their desks or seats.

Enjoy! Yes, create an enjoyable environment. Do not go into the classroom and start lecturing about the drama, telling them which question is going to come out in the exam or not. Make it a light moment that allows your students to learning English the fun way.

In the next article, I will share more specific activities related to the dramas selected for the new KBSM literature component.

By the way, even if you don’t know which text is included, you can always consider using the dramas available on the internet as part of your lessons. Using drama to teach grammar is probably a very good idea, as it fits the notion of “teaching grammar in context”. We’ll talk about that as well in future.

Note: If you have ideas to share, do email to us and we’ll acknowledge your contribution here. This is a platform for all teachers to share and contribute.

Do read this:

Fleming, M. (2001). Teaching drama in primary and secondary schools : an integrated approach. London: David Fulton

Fleming, M. (2003) Starting Drama Teaching. London:David Fulton Publishers

Useful Web Resources

Drama in ELT
http://www.dramainelt.org/

Creating Drama with Poetry: Teaching English as a Second Language Through Dramatization and Improvisation
http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/gaspar01.html

Script Formatting
http://www.humboldt.edu/~jmf2/floss/323rt.script.example.htm

The Drama Teacher’s Resource Room
http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/erachi/

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