NAKEM Centennial Conference

Drama is a portrayal of a slice of life. Creating drama in a language classroom can be an exciting and enjoyable “natural” experience for students, as it departs from the artificiality of the conventional approaches for teaching and learning language. It places the learners in real life situations that allow them to draw from their own knowledge of the world and personal experiences, and enables them to engage in real communicative events. It is a student-centered approach that shifts the responsibility for learning from teacher to student, providing students an opportunity to be truly in command of their own learning, while enjoying the benefits of creative and collaborative work. Drama gives them an opportunity to think creatively, explore ways to develop their acting skills necessary for a fine performance, and learn the requisite elements of theatre production.

This workshop will explore the steps and principles in mounting a mini-production through the process of conceptualizing a story, writing and rewriting the script, and all the way through the final staging of the play, employing a variety of writing and communicative activities and exercises.

Some teachers are intimidated by the amount of work involved in producing a play, and for some students, fear of acting discourages them from participating in the activity. Techniques to address these issues will be explored in the workshop. Eventually, students and teachers emerge from the process enriched and with confidence, a better understanding of themselves, and greater possibilities for language teaching and learning. It opens up a world of words and expressions to language learners, and an insight into the culture they had not known or been aware of before.

Precy Espiritu, was former Coordinator of the Ilokano Program of the University of Hawaii-Mano. She is also the Chair of the 2006 Nakem Centennial Conference Steering Committee.