Action Research: A Journey of Developing Materials for Process Drama
in Free Semester

Grace Lee (International Graduate School of English, Seoul) in Seminar Room
6

at The MATSDA/University of Liverpool Conference: Authenticity and Materials
Development for Language Learning, June 2016

This study presents how a former actor, a novice English teacher, experiences
teaching process drama in a Korean EFL middle school classroom. The study
originates from previous research findings that process drama helps English
learners in both EFL and ESL settings to develop communicative competence (Kao
& O’Neill, 1998; Park, 2010, 2012). Knowing that process drama does enable
English learners to use the target language in a meaningful context, the
researcher hopes to develop process drama materials that can be applied to an
everyday teaching environment with history or literature as cross-curricular
contents. She hopes to apply these experiences on material developing to suits
the specific target student, Korean EFL learners: She hopes to include
activities that minimize cultural obstacles derived from Confucianism and other
obstacles such as peer pressure. During the piloting, the researcher ascertained
how process drama can help students with special needs and how literacy should
come before using the drama technique. To refine it, the researcher plans to add
Readers’ Theatre techniques in her experimental sessions. The drama session
includes 8 piloting sessions and 10 experimental sessions; 63 students
participated in the piloting session and around 60 students participated in the
experiments. The students are in grade one of Korean middle school, an average
age of 12.5 years old. During the experiment, historical events were introduced
with the techniques of process drama; Salem Witch Hunt. Questionnaires,
interviews, teaching logs, classroom observation and students’ reflections are
used to find out how the students feel about learning English in dramatic and
historical context. With this feedback as cornerstone, the developing material
for process drama is under progression. (The researcher is analysing the
collected data.)