1.1 Definition

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Drama is an exploratory and experiential approach to learning. It is experiencing or living an idea, a unit, or an event of a daily life or behavior by considering its inferior cognitive patterns. Students construct their own knowledge by means of their experience.

Drama is a learning medium rather than an art form. Drama is informal and focuses on the process of dramatic entactment for the sake of the learner, not an audience. They are shown how to construct knowledge and encourage reproduce it.

Drama activities are outcomes in the form of spontenous self-expression of the individual . Success of the activity is not measured by the level of thearetical skill. A polished performance is not the goal of the drama.


  1.2 Conducting Drama

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  1.2.1 Classroom environment

During drama lessons, the classroom environment is a kind of open classroom of the humanistic approach of education. Its characteristics:

Climate of acceptance, psychological freedom and open communication

Self-actualization, students’ choice and decision

Mutual trust and respect

Setting the appropriate atmoshere for the drama activities is important. One the key concerns of the drama is creating dramatic moment. Dramatic moment which can also be called conflict or tension means the struggle between opposing forces. By means of the dramatic moment, students feel the neccesity of the solving problem or motivation and deseperate reasons for the learning.

Students must learn subjects with understanding, actively building new knowledge from experience and prior knowledge. In order to provide understanding, communication is very essential.

Communication can occur by speaking, discussing, writing, listening, reading, acting, drawing etc. Communication enables to take responsibility for students. For instance, students get insight about the topic by solving a problem if teacher support the learning of all students, use worthwile task that allow significant communication to occur and guide classroom discussion.

Drama is invaluable as a means for developing communication skills, encourage positive social interaction. Knowing each other better and appreciating themselves as human beings is the one of the most important goals of the drama activities. It allows children to put themselves into other’s shoes. They have the opportunity to see the world from other’s point of view. Thus more effective communication will be developed.

In order to communicate in course, students should represent their knowledge, thinking, and ideas. Important standard for the drama activities is representation. When students translate their ideas into dramatic form, they strive to symbolically represent life as they know it. The skills and abilities that students use in these dramatic representations are ones they have acquired, for the most part unconsciously, in their daily lives

This presentation could be physical objects, drawings, charts, graphs, body movements, poems, and symbols. As they create, they compare and deepen their understanding of concepts and relationships. Through dramatization students are provided an opportunity to see information in a more concrete and meaningful way.


  1.2.2. Role of the Students

As students make connections between dramatic situations and their own life experiences, they will discover meanings that they may not have otherwise uncovered. Making and sharing these connections will enable students to clarify, deepen and extend their understanding of human behavior and to discover universal meanings within dramatic situations.

 Students develop abilities in listening, expressing and initiating ideas, negotiating, problem-solving, decision-making and consensus-building. Students should

use their life experiences and imagination to create scenes,

compare the world of the role with the world of the player,

consistently apply the ability to sustain a role in a given situation with others,

adjust the movement, language, and gesture of the role to changing dramatic situations

reflect on and express their experiences both in and out of role

discuss the relationship between their own experiences and those they have presented.

  1.2.3. Role of the Teachers

Teacher do not give direct information to the students, instead of this facilitate the students to explore, develop, express and communicate ideas, concept and feelings.

Teachers are not the one who knows everything or the experts. Teacher in drama become a learner among learners, a participant, and a guider, who lends expertise to the students.

Teacher can observe and side coaching the activities. They can also participate into the activities by taking role just as students. Teacher in role can shape the action, challange and extent thought.

The most important responsibility of the teacher is to foster communication. Intervention of the teacher should be made when neccasary.

Teachers should help children understand what emotions are, how they are expressed, why people as they do, and how emotional responses differ and how can emotions be handled.

Teacher should encourage creative thinking abilities by providing an accepting environment in which a child can try and fail, in which children are not afraid of taking risks and explore.