Drama and the speaking skill

Abstract

At present, the English language has become almost a necessity for every person, academically, personally, and professionally, so that English is considered the main element of communication between very diverse cultures that share few or no features in common. Therefore, this research project investigates the relationship between drama and the speaking skill development in high school students at Unidad Educativa Archidona, Napo-Ecuador. The 40 students are in the third year of high school and they learn English as a foreign language. Since this research project was based on the quasi-experimental design, students were divided into two groups (experimental and control). The main research tools were a pre-test and a post test (KET) that were applied to both groups at the beginning and at the end of the quasi-experiment in order to study the relationship between both variables and thus obtain more significant results. The process took about 12 days and the results were analyzed using the Wilcoxon test. In consequence, the results showed that there was a significant improvement in the speaking skill of the experimental group because drama stimulates and strengthens students’ oral expression to communicate effectively in English. That is why this research project considers highly relevant the role that drama techniques can play when used as a learning tool in English language teaching, of course within a classroom, because when these techniques are correctly applied, they facilitate the oral development of the student and help to improve their verbal communication with others