Dramatic Expression: A Strategy for the English Oral Production through the CLIL Approach

Andrea Medina Soto, Walter Vargas Urrego, Gonzalo Romero Martínez

This paper reports an action research project which analyzed the influence of the dramatic expression strategy in the English oral production through CLIL approach at a school in a monolingual context in Colombia with students of seventh grade (12-14 year-old-students). Initially, the oral production level was identified through an oral production test. Later, the implementation was carried out during twenty sessions of two hours each one, where the dramatic expression was used through the CLIL approach; where the students had to keep the permanent interaction in the target language to achieve the objectives of each class. Moreover, the Low and High Order Thinking Skills were considered to establish the microcurriculum, according to the theoretical framework of CLIL. Finally, the influence of the dramatic expression strategy through the CLIL approach in the oral production of English was evaluated by means of the final test for this ability. In this process was evidenced that more of the half of the students were located in the initial level of the test and just one in the advanced level; meanwhile, in the final test, more of the half of the students were located in the medium level and three in the advanced level. These results generated changes in the school, due to the fact that new subjects were implemented in all grades such as history of art, oral skills and theater as an extracurricular activity; in addition, they began to teach social sciences in English in high school and they are leading a project to carry out all the planning taking into account the CLIL criteria.

Article: https://www.iaras.org/iaras/home/caijels/dramatic-expression-a-strategy-for-the-english-oral-production-through-the-clil-approach