Drama involves the use of the voice and/or body to act out a character or to simulate an object, in order to express a viewpoint, emotion or to put across information. It has always had a place in teaching and for some teachers forms a key component of the classroom climate they create.

Knowledge bank

• Drama has the potential to invigorate the teaching of any subject area, allowing learners to gain new insights into the subject matter or concepts they’re investigating in a highly engaging way.
• In purely curricular terms, at present drama doesn’t appear as a subject in its own right within the English/Welsh National Curriculum and curriculum guidance has generally ignored the contribution that drama makes.
• Drama appears simply as a statutory requirement as part of the ‘speaking and listening’ strand of the National Curriculum for English. This requires that learners participate in a variety of drama activities to ensure that they:- use language and actions to explore and convey situations, characters and emotions
  • create and sustain roles when working individually and with others
  • comment constructively on drama they have watched or in which they have taken part.
• The Scottish 5-14 guidelines, however, do recognize the value of drama and make specific reference to it, stating that it should provide all learners with opportunities to:
  • reach new understandings and appreciation of self, others and the environment through imaginative dramatic experience
  • communicate ideas and feelings through language, expression and movement, in real and imaginary contexts
  • develop confidence and self-esteem in their day-to-day interaction with others
  • develop sensitivity towards the feelings, opinions and values of others through purposeful interaction
  • develop a range of dramatic skills and techniques.
• Drama offers a number of key benefits to learners and can be applied across the wider curriculum, regardless of the age of the learners:
  • Accessibility: For the majority of learners drama is the most easily accessible form of art. It does not require mastery of a musical instrument or a specific level of competency in painting or reading in order for learners to be able to express themselves. It is a natural development of the communication skills which they’re acquiring elsewhere through play. Their familiarity with the media of film and television means that learners are used to relating to expressing ideas in this manner. It is essentially an extension and refinement of these areas rooted in life and human interaction. Use of movement, language, gesture and facial expression in order to convey meaning are concepts with which learners are already familiar, even if they have not yet reached the point of verbalizing them as such.
  • Drama as group activity: Learning via drama is a sharing experience, similar to play, in which imagined worlds can be explored. It is an active experience which requires collaboration between parties.
  • Drama as process: In this genre there is no external audience for the work, but there is an essential internal audience which leads to evaluation and discussion.
• Process is more important than the ‘product’ in drama and this is seen as a creative exercise, where the creativity is the application of the imagination to problem-solving activities. The activity is generated in response to a stimulus (e.g. textual stimulus such as a newspaper article, visual stimulus such as a cartoon, aural stimulus such as music or a specific sound such as an air-raid warning siren or an artefact/prop).

Ask yourself

• To what extent do you already use drama in your classroom?
• How do you use it? How do your learners use it?
• To what extent can you envisage drama being a useful tool within your subject area?
• What barriers exist to your own use at present? What barriers exist to your learners’ use? How might they be overcome?

To do list

• Try to incorporate a new drama activity into one of your lessons over the next month.
• Ask your learners what their opinions are of using drama in lessons.
• Observe a colleague who is passionate about the use of drama in his or her subject.

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