Drama use in teaching English language to promote students’ speaking skills in Kigali secondary schools

Abstract

The focus of this study is to explore the extent to which the use of drama in teaching English language promotes students’ speaking skills in four selected schools in Kigali city secondary schools. The identified gap is that few studies investigated the use of drama in teaching English language. In addition, some scholars indicated that the lack of fluency, poor pronunciation, limited vocabulary, and a general lack of confidence in using English in academic settings is caused by insufficient exposure to English and traditional teaching methods. They often emphasize on grammar, reading, and writing but without using drama as a teaching method. This study addressed this gap by investigating on how drama use in teaching English language promote students’ speaking skills. The social Learning Theory and Cognitive Learning Theory of drama use to teach language guided this investigation. As methodology, the study adopted the mixed methods. It adopted a descriptive research design with a random sampling of 100 students, and 8 teachers from the selected schools in Kigali City, from the target population of 142. Questionnaires, interview and observation were used to collect data. The study’s findings indicated that using drama activities to teach English in the classroom had a beneficial impact on students’ speaking skills in secondary schools in Kigali City. In addition, the study’s findings indicated that students’ positive attitude to drama in speaking was improved at 96%. As a result, the use of drama in four selected secondary schools in Kigali City enhanced the fluency, pronunciation and accuracy of the students’ speaking. The research recommends that teachers should be aware that all schools needed to integrate drama as a significant teaching method to enhance students’ speaking skills, increase their learners’ motivation in speaking skills and initiate clubs of speaking competition through drama.