Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By
Lee, Seoyeon
Department of TESOL
The Graduate School of TESOL
Sookmyung Women’s University
LIST OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………,………i
LIST OF CONTENTS....................................................................................ii
LIST OF TABLES...........................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................vi
LIST OF APPENDICES...............................................................................vii
ABSTRACT..................................................................................................viii
References ................................................................................................................
Appendices................................................................................................................
2.1.2.2 Motivation
Good motivation is one of the factors necessary for efficient learning. Harmer (2001) defines
motivation as “some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to dothings in order to
achieve something” (p. 51). Drama gives students thechance to learn by doing “where
students are involved in experimentation in order toarrive at knowledge” (Harmer, 2007,
p.20), which is much more engaging than justlearning by rote.
When concerning the student’s motivation, it is often referred to two types:extrinsic, which
“may be influenced by a number of external factors such as attitude ofsociety, family and
peers to the subject in question (...), and intrinsic motivation that isgenerated by what
happens inside the classroom; this could be teacher’s methods oractivities that students take
part in” (Harmer, 2007, p. 20). Harmer also proposes that if we“involve the students or excite
their curiosity and provoke participation, we will helpthem to stay interested in the subject”
(Harmer, 2007, p. 20).
The use of drama undoubtedly represents one of the methods of work used byteachers to
provoke intrinsic motivation. Not only does it help to build a good teacherstudentrelationship,
but it also actively engages all the students and all the time, so “ina sense, motivation is not
needed when working through drama, because the enjoymentcomes from imaginative
personal involvement” (Maley and Duff, 1982, p.13). As Maley and Duff further (1982)
explain “drama activities also help to get rid of the diffidence and boredom that come from
being forced to stay passive most of the time”(p. 13).
MacIntyre and Gardner (1991, p. 87-92) identified three approachesto the study of anxiety,
which are: trait anxiety, state anxiety, and situation-specific anxiety.
2.4 Summary
This chapter outlines the theoretical framework of this study. The first, theoretical part
concerns the concept of Drama in Education and examines the impact in English language
teaching. Evidence has demonstrated that drama helps to facilitate real communication and
language skill development. It is also found that drama motivates students to participate in
classroom activities and boosts self-confidence. The next part deals with literature of foreign
language anxiety in terms of concept, construct, effects, and impact on foreign language learning. It is
obvious that foreign language anxiety affects foreign language learning. Although the majority of
scholars tend to support the use of drama activities to lower anxiety about speaking a second
language, it seems that studies on anxiety about speaking in the context of Korea are few.
Sources of anxiety about speaking English may be different in a drama-oriented second
language classroom since students tend to have more chances to perform in the class. The
next chapter will state the research questions and outline the research design of this study.
1) How do the drama activities affect students’ anxiety level in speaking in English?
2) What are the factors that affect students' anxiety in speaking in English during the drama
activities?
3.3 Participants
The participants in this study were 27 female undergraduate students enrolled in the Drama
in English Language Teaching (ELT) class instructed by Dr. Kang at S. women’s university
in Seoul, Korea, from March 5 through June 20, 2014. Twenty-six of these participants
identified as native Korean speakers and one identified as a native Chinese speaker. They
attend credited Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) classes three hours per week
over a 16-week semester. The classes consisted of one hour lecture every Wednesdays and
two hours drama activity every Fridays, and were taught in English.
A total of 27 students, twenty students (70%) were English majors and seven students (30%)
were non-English majors (Education, Economics, Multimedia Science, Business
Management, Physical Education, and Child Welfare), participated in the study (See Figure
3.1). A first-year student (4%, n=1), sophomores (30%, n=8), juniors (26%, n=7), and seniors
(41%, n=11) participated in the current study (See Table 3.1). Their proficiency level ranged
from mid-intermediated to high-advanced.
The participants ranged in age from 19 to 25, whose mean age was 22 years. The general
information about these participants is summarized in Table 3.2. The participants varied
substantially with regard to their prior exposure to English. In terms of the period of English
study, the majority of the participants (63%, n=17) had had experiences of living abroad from
1 month to 9 years (see Table 3.3).
Table 3.1
Participants’ school year
School year Number %
Freshman 1 4
Sophomore 8 30
Junior 7 26
Senior 11 41
Table 3.2
General information about survey respondents
Total participants Age range Average age Starting age to Starting age to
learn English learn spoken
English
27 19-25 22 3-11 4-20
Table 3.3
Experience of studying or living aboard
Answer Number %
Yes 17 63
No 10 37
In order to better explore the issue of students’ anxiety in different drama activities, the
participants with one from each anxiety level one who also answered the survey were
selected for a more focused study which continued for a full term (16 weeks). Among them,
four students (one high-anxious, one moderate-anxious, and two low-anxious) participated in
unstructured interviews.
Prior to the study, all the participants agreed with the teacher’s announce which indicated that
the study involved experiences of students’ anxiety in speaking in English. To preserve their
privacy, pseudonyms were used when presenting the results
3.4 Instruments
To investigate the effect of drama on students’ anxiety of speaking English, a triangulation of
methods were used: survey, observations, reflective journals and interviews, as detailed
below.
3.4.5 Interviews
To get a more comprehensive insider view of students’ anxiety of speaking English in Drama
in ELT classroom, 1 high-anxious, 1 moderate-anxious, and 2 low-anxious students invited
for an unstructured interview.“Unstructured interview is the mode of choice when the
interviewer does not know what he or she doesn’t know and must therefore rely on the
respondent to tell him or her” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 269). That explains why the
researcher has chosen unstructured interviews to collect data.
Since unstructured interview allows the respondents to answer freely and the researcher to
probe and explore the exact and related problem(s) as they come up during the interview,
interview questions followed the students’ answers that covered such aspects as educational
experience, personal experience, participation and level of anxiety in University drama
lessons, and reasons for feeling anxious as well as how the students perceive the effectiveness
of the drama activities as related to their English Fluency. In case the interviewees may have
difficulty understanding the questions in English or do not like speaking English, all the
interviews were carried out in Korean.
3.5 Procedure
3.5.1 General procedure
The study were conducted during one semester (16 weeks for undergraduate students, the last
of which was for final exams) of the academic year 2014 (see table 3. ). The survey was
administered twice for pre- and post-test until the end of the class. For the pre-test, students
were asked to complete the questionnaires included a background questionnaire at home and
then submitted them to the researcher in the first week. Also, students were complete the
same survey for the post-test on the last day of 16 weeks. The students started journal writing
in the second week and made one entry every lesson for eight weeks. The researcher started
to keep a record of the students’ participation and level of anxiety in the various drama
activities on a weekly basis from the second week on till the penultimate week (14 weeks in
all).
In the last four months of the study, the researcher observed and video-recorded the two
classes two times a week. Each class lasted for 50 and 100 min each time. Each time before
video-recording, the students were required to check their attendances so that the researcher
could be sure of the seating in the classroom. In case the students might feel nervous when
video-recorded for the first time, only one video-recording were used for analyses in the
study.
The unstructured interviews were held when the final-term exam was over and conducted in
Korean. At the beginning of the interviews, the researcher informed the students about the
purpose of the study and assured them that the information provided would be kept
confidential. Nevertheless, the results would be shared with them. After some small talk, the
researcher started the interviews by asking the students to talk about their anxiety and what
they thought are factors that affect their anxiety in speaking in English during the drama
activities. Each student interview lasted for 45-50 min, which were audio-recorded. Four
students were interviewed individually, and the study was ended.
3.7 Summary
This chapter outlined the research design of this study. It first stated the two research
questions of this study. It then gave an account of the research design. A questionnaire,
observations, interviews and reflective journals from participants were the methods used to
collect data. This chapter also described how the research instruments were developed. The
results and discussion will be illustrated in the next chapter.
Chapter 5. Discussion
5.1 Research question 1
5.2 Research question 2
Chapter 6. Conclusion
The result in this study demonstrate that drama can be successfully implemented in EFL
classrooms and coordinated to reinforce the regular curriculum. The findings support results
from other studies showing drama to have a positive effect on English language learners’
anxiety, confidence and motivation towards speaking English (Coleman, 2005; Stern, 1980;
Stinson &Freebody, 2006). While the sample size of literature review section and the
analyses of written responses from 27 participants’reflectivejournals are too small to draw
any generalizable conclusions, the results are likely to indicate that drama significantly lower
the affective filter for students, and begin to reduce the affective filter for students in EFL.
Drama activities will help develop community and foster group cohesiveness, which
helplower students’ anxiety aboutspeaking English in front of the group. And drama activities
will provide the students small successes that built confidence in their abilities
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Appendix 1.
Background Questionnaire
The questions below are for research purposes only, and your individualanswers will not be made
available to anyone. Please answer the followingquestions or check the proper answers.
Name:___________________________ Date:_______________
13. If Yes, please give details below. If more than three, list others on the bottom of this page.
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
14. In the boxes below, Self-rate your language ability in each of the languages that you know. Use
the following rating: 1) Poor, 2) Good, 3) Very good, 4) Native/Nativelike.
How many years (if any) have you studied this language in a formal school setting?
15. If you have taken TOEFL before, please write your TOEFL scores below:
Reading Listening Writhing/TWE Struture/Grammar Speaking/TSE
Other:____________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
16. Why are you taking Drama class? Please explain your specific reasons.
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
Appendix 2
DIRECTIONS :Read the following statements and place a check in the box under the column
which fits your opinion ofyourself. Work quickly, but be sure to consider each item individually.
There are no right or wrong answers.
Please share with me what you experience in the drama course. I wouldlike to
listen to you. (Write down at least 2 pages.)
Overall lesson
Drama activity
3 How did you think (feel) about the drama activity we did today? And why?
-Was what we did too easy or too difficult?
-What are the advantages and disadvantages of the activity?
4 How did you participate in the drama activity? And why?
-Were there any problems with you or your group?
-What went well? What went not so well?
-How did you resolve them?
-If you were faced with the same problem again, would you do anything differently?
Students’ anxiety
5 Did you personally have anxiety in the drama activity?
Appendix 4
The findings of Student’s anxiety from the Drama Reflective
Journal