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Humanising EAP grammar teaching through drama and song Jonathan Fitchett and Rebecca Coleman

‘no one knows exactly why songs are powerful, but everyone knows from a personal point they

are’: they are a non-threatening and satisfying art form, with the ability to affect our emotions

(Griffee, 1992, p.4).

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Emotional memory journey

• motivate, drive and foster community

• attract learners’ attention to grammar and lexis.

• appeal to learners audibly, visually and emotionally, stressing both its’ effective and affective qualities.

• ‘emotional memory journeys’ (Coleman 2014, p. 66), are created, allowing learners to richly process form and meaning and store lyrical content alongside positive episodic memories.

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Humanising grammar

Thornbury (2006:26) points out grammar presentations which are not retained by the students will not be effective

Mumford (2008) suggests that there can be 2 ways to make grammar both memorable and humanised:

• logically (creating affective contexts that can be dramatised and/or reflect personal responses)

• creatively (taking the grammar out of context to play with it i.e. in puns, rhymes and songs)

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• We propose doing this by combining an awareness raising of form (through the creative use of song) with the focus on meaning (through drama)

• The result is a “focus on meaningful form” (Liu, 2002)

• The Emotional Memory Journey (Coleman 2014)

• What can constitute ‘drama’ in EAP grammar teaching?

• Even (2011) states there is “a necessity for postmethod approaches to grammar teaching and learning”

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Bibliography

• Coleman, R. (2014) Exploratory Practice: Researching the impact of songs on EFL learners’ verbal memory. Journal of Second Language Teaching and Research. 3 (1) pp.53-70

• Even, S. (2011) Drama grammar: towards a performative postmethod pedagogy, The Language Learning Journal, 39 (3), 299-312.

• Kao, S. and O’Neill, C. (1998) Words into Worlds: Learning a second Language through Process Drama. Stanford: Ablex Publishing.

• Liu, J. (2002) ‘Process Drama in Second and Foreign- Language Classrooms’. In G. Bräuer (2002) Body and Language: Intercultural Learning Through Drama, Westport: Greenwood.

• Mumford, S. (2005) Making Grammar Memorable. Humanising Language Teaching. Available at http://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec08/mart03.htm#C7 [Accessed 11/4/2015.]

• Stinson, M. and Winston, J. (2011) Drama education and second language learning: a growing field of practice and research. Research in Drama education: the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 16 (4), 479-488.

• Thornbury, S. (2006) How to Teach Grammar. Longman

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