Impact of Drama and Questioning Techniques in English Language Classroom Interaction

Abstract

This study is an attempt at investigating the impact of implementing drama and questioning techniques in the third classroom of Asir province secondary schools. It discusses classroom interaction that can be fostered through using drama and questioning techniques. For traditional methods of teaching English as a foreign language are no longer providing learners with authentic situations for active English classroom interaction; drama and questioning techniques can better achieve this goal. This study is of paramount significance because techniques such as drama and questions can provide stimulating opportunities for EFL learners to use English language in real situations. The main hypothesis of the study was that students taught according to drama and questioning techniques would score higher in the post-test than in the pre-test and there would be statistically significant differences at the level of (α = 0.05 between the post-test mean scores of the experimental group and the control group. The population of the study included students and teachers of secondary schools (male and female) of Asir province distributed into 37 schools. The total number of sample is 46 teachers and 30 students distributed into two groups, experimental group which was taught through using drama and questioning techniques and control group taught by using traditional English language teaching methods in the second semester for the Academic year (2013 - 2014). Instruments for the data collection were teachers' attitude questionnaire, pre-test, and post-test experiment in actual classroom setting. The significance difference between the pre-test and post-test of the control and experimental group was tested through paired t-test. The questionnaire was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to obtain accurate results. Four phases were used in the instructional treatment to apply drama lessons. To address the issue of classroom interaction an experiment was conducted with an intact group of 30 Saudi third year secondary schools students from selected classrooms in Asir province. Research findings obtained from the students mean score of the pre and post-tests revealed that there was an impact of using drama and questioning techniques in fostering EFL classroom interaction in favor of the experimental group. The data obtained from teachers' attitude questionnaires manifested teachers' positive attitudes towards classroom interaction enhancement through implementing drama and questions techniques. The significant conclusions indicated that EFL teachers played an essential role in creating an attractive classroom environment by using drama and questioning techniques through which students were motivated to interact effectively in the classroom activities. On the light of these findings, it could be recommended that drama and questioning techniques could be used as a significant teaching method. Promoting novice teachers knowledge and skills in asking questions is also of paramount significance to raise English learners level of thinking. The study recommended that the English language teaching methods that dominated the present English language classrooms should be reevaluated to validate their effectiveness in establishing better environment for the classroom interaction, too.