Drama techniques and the speaking skill

Abstract

Learning English as a foreign language depends on the environment each person grows up. This research main aim is to determine the effects of using drama techniques in the development of the speaking skill. The population considered for this research were 35 students, 24 female and 11 males, from the first semester of “Pedagogía de los Idiomas Nacionales y Extranjeros” program at Universidad Técnica de Ambato. The research had a length of 6 sessions in total, two sessions for roleplaying focus on improvisation, two sessions for imitation, and a pre-test and post-test. In addition, this research used a quasi-experimental design with a quantitative approach to gather the data of students’ speaking performance. Therefore, students took the KET speaking section test by Cambridge for the pre-test and the post-test. At the end of the treatment, the data gathered was analyzed and proved using the Wilcoxon ranks test from the SPSS program. To conclude, the results showed that drama techniques did improve participants’ speaking skills.