Benefits of Dramatic Play for Enhancing University Students’ Understanding of Poetry

Abstract

The objectives of this quantitative and qualitative research were 1) to evaluate how dramatic play helps students appreciate poetry as an artistic and aesthetic medium, and 2) to investigate the opinions of the EFL learners and teachers towards the use of poetry for developing language skills and life skills. Dramatic play can be defined as a type of plays where students accept and assign roles, and then act them out. The samples were composed of 320 English specialization students from first year to fourth year,  and 115 English teachers who are currently teaching poetry at selected universities in Myanmar.They were selected through a purposive sampling method. The instruments used to gather information were a questionnaire, an interview survey for students, and teachers’ semi-structured interviews. The statistics employed to analyze the quantitative data were percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results revealed that (1) dramatic play provides an excellent context for students to develop and practice many important skills and behaviors that contribute to later success at university and life, and  (2) the students are having relief from emotional tension, feeling powerful, using social interaction skills, having language development, using symbols and sorting out fantasy and reality through dramatic play.