INTRODUCTION

Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) refers to teaching

English to students whose first language is not English. TEFL usually
occurs in the student's own country, either within the state school system, or
privately, for example in an after-hours language school or with a tutor.
TEFL teachers may be native or non-native speakers of English (Wikipedia:
2011).
Teaching English sometimes do not reach its goals. Even after years of
English teaching, the students still do not gain the confidence of using the
language in and outside the class. The conventional English, such as
teacher-centre manner, class barely gives the students an opportunity to use
language and develop fluency in it.
One of alternative way to teach English is through drama. Drama is a
unique tool, vital for language development as it simulates reality and
develops self-expression. It gives a context for listening and meaningful
language production, forcing the students to use their language resources
and, therefore, improving their linguistic abilities. It provides situations for
reading and writing. It is very useful in teaching literary texts as it helps in
analyzing the plot, character and style. It also involves students more
positively and actively in the text.
In general, drama has some types, namely: Improvisation / Let’s
Pretend, Role Plays, Mime, Masked Drama, Puppet Plays, Performance
Poetry, and Radio Drama. Some of these types can be used to teach English
to the students. So, the teacher can choose the types of drama which is
appropriate to the material will be given.
Drama techniques are equally successful in making students
experience language in operation and provide motivation to use language
embedded in a context and a situation. By using drama techniques in
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teaching English, teacher can break the monotony of a conventional English
class and the syllabus can be transformed into one which prepares students
to face their immediate world better as competent users of the English
language because they get an opportunity to use the language in some
context and situation.
Beside that, drama is considered by many students to be important for
the development of social and communication skills and tolerance when
working with others. They feel that they can get to know people better,
especially as they often work with peers with whom they would not
normally associate. Being able and confident to perform in front of the class
gives them a higher status with the rest of the group. It is acceptable to
‘show off’ and be good at something.

DISCUSSION

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A. Definitions of Teaching
Teaching is the activities of educating or instructing or teaching;
activities that impart knowledge or skill (Accurate and Reliable Dictionary:
2010).
Another definition is proposed by Rasyid (1997), teaching is an
active-responsive process which is conducted by the teacher concisely and
continuously to regulate, motivate and facilitate the implementation of
students’ learning activity and attainment of learning goal which have been
determined. So, teaching does not only include the teacher but also the
students. There will be no teaching if there is no teacher or students.
Similarly, Lott (2008: 47) states that teaching is contract between a
teacher and students. This implies that teachers and students have an
agreement to give the teaching obligations each other. He adds that teaching
is bidirectional and challenging. This is the case with a highly enthusiastic
teacher - student relationship. The common goal of teaching is always the
same: learning.
From the definition above we can conclude that teaching is an activity
in which the teachers transform the knowledge or skill to the students
concisely and continuously.

B. Definitions of Drama
Working in a foreign language, the students usually have difficulty
combining the simultaneous demands of comprehension and language
production (Collie, 1987:163). He further states that putting students on
drama activities on short play is obviously a great help. It can be both
enjoyable and rewarding. This idea stimulates interest and help learners to
overcome the barriers pawed by the language.
Drama by its very nature is action bound, but has meant the sequential
actions plot rather than the inner dynamic of situation (Bolton, 1984:39).
Allen et al. (1986:290) points out that many people view drama or play as

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merely the acting out of written stories, but drama is more than that. Drama
is a blanket term converse a wide range of oral activities that have an
element of creativity present.
Based on SACSA Framework (2011:1), drama is a unique tool to
explore and express human feeling. Drama is an essential form of behaviour
in all cultures, and it is a fundamental human activity. Furthermore, drama
is the enactment of real and imagined events through role-play, play making
and performances, enabling individuals and groups to explore, shape and
represent ideas, feelings and their consequences in symbolic or dramatic
form.
Based on the explanation above, the writers are interested to elaborate
drama as an action which expresses the human ideas, feelings, and
emotions.

C. Types of Drama
SACSA Framework (2011:1) divides drama into many forms. Here is
non-exhaustive list with a simple explanation of each:
1. Improvisation / Let’s Pretend
A scene is set, either by the teacher or the students, and then with little
or no time to prepare a script the students perform before the class.
2. Role Plays
Students are given a particular role in a scripted play. After rehearsal
the play is performed for the class, school or parents.
3. Mime
Students use only facial expressions and body language to pass on a
message script to the rest of the class.
4. Masked Drama
The main props are masks. Students then feel less inhibited to perform
and overact while participating in this form of drama. Students are
given specific parts to play with a formal script. Using only their
voices they must create the full picture for the rest of the class.
Interpreting content and expressing it using only the voice.
5. Puppet Plays

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 Students use puppets to say and do things that they may feel to inhibit
to say or do themselves.
6. Performance Poetry
While reciting a poem the students are encouraged to act out the story
from the poem.
7. Radio Drama
It is similar to script reading with the addition of other sound effects.
The painting of the mental picture is important.
Almost all of these types can be used to teach English to the students,
but the teacher should consider the types related to the level of the students.
For elementary school, the teacher can use Role Plays and Puppet Plays,
because both of them are interesting for the students. By using puppet, the
students will be more motivated to explore their mind about what they
should do with the puppet, and the Role Plays give them the freedom to
express their self to be similar with the role-character.
For junior high school, the teacher may apply Improvisation and Role
Plays to teach English to the students due to those types get the students
involve in the situation of the script and they will be able to express more
their ideas, feelings and emotions according to the script. At senior high
school, the students have been able to use English more efficient, so that the
teacher may apply Improvisation, Role Plays, and Performance Poetry. The
rest types of drama include Mime, Masked Drama, and Radio Drama are
considered not so efficient to be applied in teaching English to the students
because they cannot develop the students’ ability in English significantly.

D. Why Use Drama?

According to Bolton, drama is a unique tool, vital for language
development as it simulates reality and develops self-expression. It can be
can consideration in choosing drama an alternative way in teaching English.
Using drama can avoid teacher using monotone way in teaching.

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 Drama is fun and entertaining and because it engages feelings. It can
provide a rich experience of language for the participants. Drama as a
process is inevitably learner-centred because it can only operate through
active cooperation. Being a collaborative and participatory teaching
approach it contributes positively to the development of the learners' self
esteem and self-efficacy (one's beliefs about their capabilities in certain
areas) especially to those they have rather low levels (Williams and Burden,
1997).
Collie and Slater (1987) focused on the positive contributions
language learning through literature could make in that literary texts
constituted valuable authentic material as it exposes the learner to different
registers, types of language use.
Writers such as Maley and Duff, (1978) and Wessels, (1987) have
pointed to the values and uses of drama: 'Drama can help the teacher to
achieve 'reality' in several ways. It can overcome the students' resistance to
learning the new language:
 by making the learning of the new language an enjoyable experience
 by setting realistic targets for the students to aim for
 by creative 'slowing down' of real experience
 by linking the language-learning experience with the student's own
experience of life
And drama can create in students a need to learn the language:
 by the use of 'creative tension' (situations requiring urgent solutions);
 by putting more responsibility on the learner, as opposed to the
teacher.' (Wessel: 53-54)
Drama provides cultural and language enrichment by revealing
insights into the target culture and presenting language contexts that make
items memorable by placing them in a realistic social and physical context.

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Drama texts help to address the need for sufficient texts for worthwhile
reading in which suitable materials can be accessed.
By allowing reading and the adding of some characterisation to a
drama, learners became personally and fully involved in the learning
process, in a context in which it is possible for learners to feel less self-
conscious and more empowered to express themselves through the multiple
voices of the differing characters. (Vygotsky, 1987; Bakhtin, 1981, 1986)
Transferring acquired skills from educational settings to real life
situations have always been a challenging task in education. The value of
drama is often attributed to the fact that it allows the creation of contexts for
different language uses, thus fostering students' language awareness. In both
language teaching and drama, context is often thought to be everything.
Students talking and listening to each other in a dramatic play situation use
language in a communicative way (taking turns, interacting verbally, using
body movements, gestures and facial expression, listening actively). Hutt et
al. (1989) found that in a role play children's verbal responses were longer
and included more adverbs than in other situations. Because speech has its
origin in social action and life (Lantolf 2000, Merleau-Ponty 1962,
Vygotsky 1987) dramatic play and improvisation are advantageous to
language acquisition as the created situations place the emphasis on social
interaction and thus, facilitate knowledge transfer from the classroom to the
outside world.
Drama is a unique value as a pedagogic technique as the fact it brings
about students' creative thought and asserts language education as a creative
process. Moreover, for the reason it points out that creative expression
depends not on talent alone, but also on motivation, interest, effort, and
opportunity. That creative process, contrary to popular opinion, is socially
supported, culturally influenced, and collaboratively achieved through
instruction (Zafeiriadou, 2009:6).
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 From all definitions above, the writers conclude that using drama in
teaching English will avoid the students to get bored in learning. Also, both
the teachers and the students will be more creative to conduct the teaching
learning process. Furthermore, drama can help the students to develop their
knowledge about language and culture. Most of all is the teacher can use
drama to teach the integrative skill to the students.

E. Organizing Drama
According to Via (1975), there are five stages in organizing drama,
namely:
1. Stage I: To Create the Relaxed Atmosphere. For drama to be
successful, first of all we have to create the relaxed atmosphere. In this
case, the teachers have to have a good relationship with their students,
and the students also have to know each other. To do this, we have
each student to make self-introduction or self-expression activities.
2. Stage II: To Build Confidence. In this case, the teachers put the
students into groups. The teachers should make them feel that they
belong to English case.
3. Stage III: Selecting a Play. The play should fit the students’ interest
and suit their language.
4. Stage IV: Talk and Listen System. The talk and listen system mean
that only the person who is going to speak will look at the script and
read the line to himself. Then, he looks at to the one whom supposes
to speak and say as much of that line as he can remember.
5. Stage V: Role-playing and Improvisation. The purpose of this stage is
to get the students involve in the situation of the script. In this case,
the students are expected to be able to express their emotion according
to the idea of the script.
Another stage in organizing drama is proposed by Sharim (1975) as
follows:

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 1. Stage I: The Need to Know Each Other. The students start their drama
activity by speaking about themselves. In this activity, the teacher can
readily distinguish the introvert and extrovert students.
2. Stage II: The Need to Express Our Self. The teacher puts the students
into situations that require a flow of speech between two persons.
3. Stage III: The Need to Communicate. The students are put into
situations where speech can be developed in a natural way. Promoting
participation by the whole group and encouraging each student to
communicate more easily with his peers.
4. Stage IV: The Need to Help. To help the students understand that
speech must be linked to movement if it is to have life and meaning.
5. Stage V: The Need to Develop Corresponding Gestures. To help the
students know that messages to not transmit by words alone.
6. Stage VI: How and When to Improvise. To show there is the necessary
motivation and need for such activity. In this case, the teacher may
give the students the outline of story in a brief, clear paragraph written
on a slip of paper that is handed to them three or four minutes before
they go n the stage. The students read the story quickly, distribute the
roles among the member of the group, and determine how to begin
and end the play. The rest they make up as they go.
In organizing drama in the class, the teachers are free to determine the
stage. It depends on what the teachers interested in and the students’ need.
To make it clear, we will give an example through the lesson plan below:
LESSON PLAN
Student’s Grade : Junior High School
Subject : English
Class : VII
Focus of Ability : Speaking
Focus on Grammar : Using Basic Vocabulary
Theme : Ordering Food in a Restaurant
Prior Knowledge : Going to Restaurant with Parents
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Costume : Waiter/Waitress Dress
Display : Menu and Some Food
Objective :
1. The students are able to use basic vocabulary in ordering food in a
restaurant correctly.
2. The students are able to perform the dialogue with the theme
“ordering food in a restaurant” in front of the class.
3. The students are able to do the role play based on the dialogue.
Materials :
1. Dialogue
- Waiter : Hello, can I help you?
- Rossi : Yes, I’d like to have some lunch.
- Waiter : Would you like a starter?
- Rossi : Yes, I’d like a bowl of chicken soup, please.
- Waiter : And what would you like for a main course?
- Rossi : I’d like a grilled cheese sandwich.
- Waiter : Would you like anything to drink?
- Rossi : Yes, I’d like a glass of Coke, please.
After Rossi has his lunch...
- Waiter : Can I bring you anything else?
- Rossi : No thank you. Just the bill.
- Waiter : Certainly. That’s $6.75.
- Rossi : Here you are. Thank you very much.
- Waiter : You’re welcome. Have a good day.
- Rossi : The same to you.
2. Menu
Tri’s Restaurant
-Starters:
Chicken Soup $2.50
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 Salad $3.25
- Main Course:
Ham and Cheese Sandwich $3.50
Tuna Sandwich $3.00
Vegetarian Sandwich $4.00
Grilled Cheese Sandwich $2.50
Piece of Pizza $2.50
Cheeseburger $4.50
Hamburger Deluxe $5.00
Spaghetti $5.50
- Drinks:
Coffee $1.25
Tea $1.25
Soft Drinks – Coke, Sprite, etc. $1.75
Stages :
1. To create the relaxed atmosphere:
 Say greeting to the students.
 Let the students to introduce their self.
 Give some questions to the students related to the materials
will be given.
2. To build confidence:
 Pair the students up and ask them to write down some types
of food which they can find in a restaurant.
 Ask students to watch the video related to ordering food in a
restaurant.
 Ask students to share their opinion about the video.
 Give students the sample of dialogue and menu, and ask them
to read it carefully.
3. Selecting a play:
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  Teacher selects a particular type of drama that will be applied
by the students later, e.g. Role play.
4. Talk and listen system:
 Teacher asks the students to make a script related to the
material and selected type of drama.
 The students read their script without any expression or
action.
5. Role playing and improvisation:
 Ask students to do the conversation with suitable expression
based on their own dialogue in front of the class.
 Give a conclusion to the students based on the class activities
which have done.

F. Teacher’s Roles in Drama

In teaching English through drama, teacher has certain roles. Based
on our experience, we would like to sketch out the teacher’s role in drama
as follow:
1. Before Teaching. Here, the teacher roles to create relaxed
atmosphere in the classroom in order to make the students feel
comfort and ready to learn. Also, to give some prior knowledge
about what they are going to learn, so they will be more confidence
in learning.
2. Whilst Teaching. In this case, the teacher should help the students to
solve any problem which they find. The teacher also should give as
much suggestion about selecting a good play and organizing the play
with suitable expression and action as possible.
3. After Teaching. After all, it is better if the teacher appreciates the
students work by giving some comments or adding directions in

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 order to increase the students’ knowledge about learning English
through drama.
In our opinion, the teacher is the one who should decide drama
because he/she has known what the students’ need and what type of drama
which is suitable for the students. However, the teacher may ask the
students opinion about the type of drama which will be used in teaching, so
that both the teacher and the students will not get any disadvantages in
teaching and learning process.

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 CONCLUSION

Most of all, drama is an alternative way to teach English. Through

drama, teacher can get rid from a boredom classroom activity and make
teaching and learning process more effectively. Drama as a unique tool can
make students and teacher more creative. Besides that, drama can help the
students to develop their knowledge about language and culture.
The teacher can use drama to teach integrative skill to the students. By
using drama teacher can teach two or more skills all at once. In conducting
drama in classroom, teacher can use some types of drama depends on
student’s levels and needs. The organisation of drama in classroom activity
also depends on students’ need and interest. All of all teachers can use
drama as alternative way to teach English.

APPENDIXES

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QUESTIONS - ANSWERS
GROUP II
1. Why the teacher use drama as teaching media in teaching process and
what is the benefit of using drama?
# Answer: It has been covered on our paper. It is in ‘Why Use Drama’.

GROUP III
1. From the types of drama, which one of the type that most successful
used by the teacher in teaching English?
# Answer: In our opinion, the most succesful drama type used by teacher in
teaching English is Role Play and Improvisation, because those types get
the students involve in the situation of the script and they will be able to
express more their ideas, feelings, and emotions.

GROUP IV
1. How drama can provide cultural and language enrichment?
# Answer: It has been covered on our paper. It is in ‘Why Use Drama’.
2. What skill that the teacher can improve through drama?
# Answer: The skills that teacher can improve through drama are all of the
language skills include listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

GROUP V
1. Actually, drama is very interesting way in teaching English. We think
that through drama we can include multiple skills to encourage students
ability. We do not find it in your presentation. Can you give explanation
about it?
# Answer: We agree that teacher can include multiple skills to encourage
the students’ ability through drama. Eventhough we do not explain it more
on our paper, we have explained that the teacher can use drama to teach
integrative skills to the students because there are many types of drama
which not need only one skill but also more than one skill.

GROUP VI
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1. Is drama good for improving the all language skills? Could you divide
which one of the types of drama is good for writing, reading, speaking
and listening skill?
# Answer: As we explained before, drama does good in imrpoving all
language skills, but we cannot decide what type which is suitable for each
skill, because the types depend on what skill the teacher wants to teach.
2. In Sharim’s stages, are they suitable for all language skills or not? Give
example and explanation?
# Answer: The stages in organizing drama are suitable for all language
skills and we have explained the example about it through Lesson Plan on
our paper.

GROUP VII
1. Tell us the different activities of drama and role play?
# Answer: It has been covered on our paper. It is in ‘Types of Drama’.
2. What is the focus of evaluation in drama?
# Answer: The focus of evaluation in drama is all of the language skills.
3. Is it still effective by considering different learning style of students?
# Answer: We think drama is still effective to be used in teaching English
because it can encourage the students to learn all of the language skills
whether the students have the same or different learning style.
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