Language Learning in the Classroom

The ability to express creativity helps students to communicate their ideas in a way that is

not necessarily verbal but can be used as a tool to help aid in language acquisition. Students who

are learning a second language tend to learn better, faster, and with more skills when taught

using art, drama, and movement compared to traditional teaching. Studies have shown that

theatre helps generate a greater output of authentic language through interactive, hands-on

activities that are of greater relevance to learners, with the teacher as a guide and an observer

rather than a controller (Gill, 2008). It is common practice for teachers to lecture at students

rather than engage them in their own learning. According to Stern (1992: 313), a great deal of

time has been wasted on routine exercises which have little purpose and which do not translate

into real proficiency and application in language use. Through the course of the observations for

this research paper pertaining to arts in the classroom, the research is supported as art, theater,

and movement improved motivation and engagement in the students overall.

The classroom that was observed for this research project was Mrs. Lowes second grade

dual language immersion classroom at Millcreek Elementary School in Granite School District.

This classroom contained the Spanish half of the dual language program for this grade level. The

students went to another classroom for the English half of their day. The school follows the Utah

state instructional framework for dual language programs which, for the Spanish half, includes

20% of instruction in math, 15% in target language literacy, and 15% in content areas (Dual

Language, 2015). The section of instruction time observed for this project was the language arts

portion focusing on language acquisition and literacy. According to the Millcreek Elementary

School website and its philosophy on dual immersion, the goals are for the students to develop

literacy skills in both English and Spanish while attaining academic achievement that is at or
above their grade level as measured by Utah core testing. Furthermore, students will develop a

world cultural sensitivity (Dual Immersion, 2015). This reflects the ideals that students will be

given the tools they need to acquire a second language by learning to read, write, and

comprehend academic language in the target language as well as apply the knowledge to their

first language.

In this specific classroom, the ratio of caucasian students to Latino students was roughly

50/50 with the exception of one student who was Middle Eastern. The teacher, Mrs. Lowe is

caucasian. The schools statistics are roughly representative of the district as in the school, 65%

are white and 24% are Hispanic whereas in the district 56% are white and 31% are Hispanic

(Enrollment, 2013). According to Mrs. Lowe during one of the interviews, the school serves all

elementary grades with the dual language immersion program with half of their day in one

language and half in the other. The students are selected by a lottery with a higher chance if a

sibling was in the program before them.

Millcreek Elementary School uses the term Dual Language Immersion as their label for

the program they provide for their students (Dual Immersion, 2015). Upon the observation in the

classroom, it is clear that a more accurate label of this program would be 50/50, 2-way, dual

language immersion program. The target population of this dual language program is ELLs who

all speak the same L1 whose goal is to learn English and native English speakers whose goal is

to learn the L1 of their ELL peers (Wright, 2011). This classroom generally followed the Utah

State Standards of this language program as shown on the graph on the Granite School District

website (Dual Language, 2015). The students worked on math, language arts, and literacy during

their morning block with Mrs. Lowe, however, there was no science, social studies, or history

work done during this observation.

 According to Stern (1992), a great deal of time has been wasted on routine exercises

which have little purpose and which do not translate into real proficiency and application in

language use. This statement rings true in the observations in Mrs. Lowes classroom as she

requires the students to apply their knowledge in a hands-on, more real way than merely

dictating vocabulary or reading from a textbook. When Mrs. Lowe had the students recite the

Spanish verbs, there were pictures that went along with them which could be applied to their first

language, English, for overall language acquisition. The best practices for bilingual education

include including physical movement, increasing student participation, and using authentic

assessment (Dresser, 2007). Students are required to participate and are more likely to want to

join in when they are able to express themselves creatively. Theater is a type of authentic

assessment as students are able to show they truly understand something rather than regurgitating

information. In an informal study done by Sheri J. Forsythe (1995), students were exposed to

readers theatre over the course of 4 quarters and experienced that often the classroom was noisy

and appeared to be in total chaos, but work as in progress...All my students were successful.

They were proud of their accomplishments The same learning chaos existed in Mrs. Lowes

classroom as the students were engaged in active learning while drawing, acting, discussing their

work, and working in cooperative groups. The most important point in Forsythes article was that

her students felt successful. The students in Mrs. Lowes class seemed to have high self-efficacy

meaning they felt they would be successful at their work so they ended up producing better work

in the end.

The benefits or strengths of using art and theater as an instructional tool in the classroom

are numerous. According to Dresser (2007), designing activities that promote physical

movement provide the opportunity for students to move around as a way to motivate students
and promote oral language development. It makes the curriculum accessible to all students. Oral

language development is one of the most important goals in second language acquisition and

bilingual education. Without oral language development, students will not be able to express

themselves fully in their new language. In order to make the curriculum accessible to all as

Dresser points out is essential, students should be given creative ways to express themselves.

While a specific language may not be known to everyone, expressing oneself through art, is

universal. In line with that way of thinking, Beeman (2013) speaks about total physical response

which can be used to introduce many academic concepts concretely and comprehensibly, and it

requires little in the way of productive language by the students. This reiterates the fact that the

use of art, theater, and movement in the classroom allows students to fully grasp a concept

without the necessity of oral language. Thats not to say that language will not be used or learned

in this way. Theatre production provided students with multiple learning opportunities, making

it an appropriate language learning environment (Raquel, 2011). When students are involved

with such things as readers theatre, they are collaborating with one another, using the language

in a real world situation rather than in a traditional classroom setting. However, readers theatre

minimized the emphasis TPR places on associated a specific vocabulary word or phrase with a

specific movement (Beeman, 2013). Overall, the use of art, theater, and movement in the

classroom as a way to approach bilingual education promotes self-efficacy, creativity, real world

application of language, and whole concept comprehension compared to traditional classroom

practices.

While using these creative outlets for instruction has many strengths, there are a few

unfortunate negative aspects of it as well. In the absence of a concrete experience and the key

vocabulary to discuss the concepts of the unit, some students are effectively excluded from the
discussion (Beeman, 2013). Students do sometimes need to be explicitly taught vocabulary and

key concept points in order to build background knowledge on a topic. This is not necessarily a

negative thing but more of a weakness for using the arts consistently in instruction. Not all

lessons can be transformed in a way that will easily include theater or art into instruction. As

Forsythe found out in her study when implementing readers theatre in her classroom, not all

students are on the same ability level all of the time (Forsythe, 1995). Instruction must be

adapted to fit the needs of all students which can prove difficult when the instruction is not

exclusively explicit. One final weakness of this type of instruction would be the research

completed on the topic. According to Raquel (2011), dynamics within a theatre production are

mostly dependent on the directors craft...the impact on the production is not taken into account

in the analysis of learning opportunities. It is difficult to adequately gauge the effectiveness of

such studies using quantitative data as they are more qualitative in nature. However, the nature of

most educational, classroom action research is qualitative and based upon the opinions of the

teacher or researcher.
 References

Beeman, K. & Urow, C. (2013). Building background knowledge. In Teaching for Biliteracy:
Strengthening bridges between languages (pp. 78-87). Philadelphia, PA: Caslon Publishing.

Dresser, R. (2007). The effects of teacher inquiry in the bilingual language arts classroom.Teacher
Education Quarterly, Summer 2007, 53-66. Retrieved April 19, 2015, from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ795172.pdf

Dual Immersion. (2015). (Information stated on Millcreek Elementary School website). Retrieved from
http://schools.graniteschools.org/millcreek/dual-immersion/

Dual Language Immersion Instructional Time: Grades 1-3. (2015). (Graph illustration of split instructional
time per Utah state standards). Retrieved from http://www.graniteschools.org/curriculuminstruction/wp-
content/uploads/sites/29/2015/03/Dual-1-3-instructional-minutes.pdf

Enrollment by Schools 2012-2013. (2013). (Table illustrating demographic information for Granite School
District from 2012-2013). Retrieved from http://www.graniteschools.org/edequity/wp-
content/uploads/sites/21/2014/07/2013-Enrollment-by-School.pdf

Forsythe, S. (1995). It worked! Readers theatre in second grade. The reading teacher,49(3), 264-265.
Retrieved April 15, 2015, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20201595

Gill, Chamkaur (2008). Motivating English-language learners through drama techniques. The Journal of
INTI International Education Group, (Special Issue on Teaching and Learning), 43-51.

Stern, H. H. (1992) Issues and Options in Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Raquel, M. R. (2011). Theatre production as a language learning environment for Chinese students. The
Journal of Drama and Theatre Education in Asia, 2(1), 93-120.