Pronunciation Through Creative Drama Exercises

Drama Games Enhance Pronunciation Practice in the ESL Classroom

Oct 6, 2009

Teachers strive to find methods of helping students to practice English pronunciation. Creating an accepting atmosphere for learning is essential for improvement.

Language labs, repetitive choral practice, listening and mimicking sounds are some of the ways to improve pronunciation. Each of these, as well as many other kinds of exercises, such as dialog role play work, using grammar scripts and working on a variety of drama skits, can all be included in a pronunciation syllabus.

Creative Drama Exercises for Pronunciation

The issue of pronunciation is very stressful for the students, however, using creative drama tasks can alleviate the pressure and make for a fun, relaxed atmosphere that encourages real speech production. Creative drama is a platform in which students move in a free space, which allows for movement around the room, acting out, connecting in pairs or groups, communicating, and being able to express oneself in an unstructured, unrestricted environment. Here are some creative drama ideas:

To warm up and relax, students in pairs must move together, one taking the lead and creating movement, the other facing him or her and mirroring every move the other makes. Each student should get a chance to be leader.

In this activity, which is similar to the mirror task, the students in pairs mimic the leader in speech. One of the two students is the speaker and starts to talk. The partner tries to speak at the same time as the leader. This requires that the student who is attempting to copy the speaker has to watch his or her mouth in order to keep up with the other. This focus is an excellent way to learn to take note of mouth and tongue placement; it is also a lot of fun. Do this exercise again by changing the leaders.

Students stand in a circle. The teacher hands each student a card with a sentence or word combination for practice. Example:

One student says his sentence, then in domino form, each of the students in the circle repeat the sentence. Then the next student reads his or her sentence and the same "round" occurs. Repeat the action until all the students have read, and everyone has practice all the sentences.

The day before the lesson, tell all the students to bring a small hand mirror to class.The teacher should prepare a list of specific sound words, or sentences that are problematic for that particular class.

The teacher starts by reading the first word or sentence. The students look at their own mouths in the mirror when copying the sounds the teacher says. The instructor can move around the room looking and helping to correct the students form the best sounds possible.

The lesson can be completed with role play practice in pairs. Dialog scripts created by the teacher or found online on various websites, can be handed out to each pair. The students practice together. If there is time, each pair can perform the dialog in front of the class.

Pronunciation Improvement – A Constant Goal for Teachers and Students

Improving the pronunciation of students is not a fast fix. Hours of listening, practice, and correction is just a means to improvement. Clarity and good articulation is the aim, and finding methods to achieve this goal is the constant work of the ESL teacher.

Some ideas work well, while others are less successful, but an effort to keep looking for strategies to help students is ongoing and essential for language acquisition and well produced speech communication.

The copyright of the article Pronunciation Through Creative Drama Exercises in English as a Second Language is owned by Lucille Lever. Permission to republish Pronunciation Through Creative Drama Exercises in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.