Collaborative Drama-Based EFL Learning in Familiar Contexts

Abstract

Contextual learning has been recognized as an important method for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning and drama was also usually employed to be a good activity for EFL learning which guided learners to interact and use body language to practice English. However, there were few studies to consider both drama and authentic contexts together with mobile devices to facilitate EFL learning. In this research, we developed a contextual drama (CD) system in mobile devices for EFL learning. Students can use CD system to prepare, make, and conduct drama with voices, photos, and texts in authentic contexts to improve English learning. Our goal is to examine how CD system and collaborative CD influences students' learning behaviors and achievement. One quasi-experiment design was conducted with 78 participants, who were the fifth-grade elementary school students during a 5-week experimental period. The results demonstrated that drama-based learning in authentic contexts resulted in better learning achievements than traditional methods. Moreover, we found that collaboration, as key in drama-based EFL learning, could promote peer discussion and therefore help students improve students' storytelling and writing abilities. Students' improved abilities were demonstrated in their sentence complexity and diversity. Additional analysis results derived from the interviews and observations also revealed that students' body languages usage and their engagement in drama activities have significant effect on their learning achievement.

Keywords

contextual drama familiar context mobile learning EFL learning body language and engagement

Introduction

Contextual learning is based on the constructivist approach of teaching and learning (Brown, 1998). The constructivist learning theory is that individuals learn by constructing knowledge through interacting and interpreting their environments (Brown, 1998). Therefore, meaningful learning is through learners' experiences using knowledge in authentic contexts, particularly familiar ones. So learners' knowledge can be constructed meaningfully by themselves, not by teachers; and deep learning occurs during applying or problem solving in the real-life contexts (Dirkx, Amey, & Haston, 1999).

Due to limitations of traditional environments, contextual learning cannot be easily implemented. However, the rapid development of information and communication technology makes contextual learning become easy to implement with the support of mobile device. Now, contextual learning has been widely employed, and many studies have proven that contextual learning with mobile devices can enhance students' learning (C.-C. Chen & Lin, 2014; C.-M. Chen & Li, 2010; Li, Ogata, Hou, Uosaki, & Mouri, 2013; Liu, Tan, Lin, & Chu, 2012; Nguyen, Pham, & Ho, 2010). So curriculum content is no longer restricted to textbooks and teaching is no longer restricted to the classroom; it becomes more flexible for students to apply knowledge to and learn from their daily life. When students learn from their life, the learning focus is changed from teachers to students (Hannafin & Hannafin, 2010), which is more learner-centered learning. Contextual learning emphasizes that learning occurs with the “right content” at the “right time” and “right place,” which supports learning without constraints of time or place (Ogata & Yano, 2004). Learning becomes meaningful when topics are relevant to the students' life, needs, and interests. When students are actively engaged in understanding and connecting to knowledge to their daily life, students will have higher motivation to learn and get better learning performance.

Stories can be created from personal experiences (van Gils, 2005). Students can generate what they know, what they like, and where the story takes place. Because most of all story elements are generated by students, they pay more attention on their stories. In story making or telling, students express their experiences and feelings by narrative representations. Pesola (1991) suggested that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for surrounding the young learners with language. “Listening stories draws attention to the sounds of language and helps children develop a sensitivity to the way language works” (Isbell, 2002, p. 27). Furthermore, when students make stories, they express their opinions, feelings, and experiences by creating multiple representations in stories. Therefore, story making can provide multiple ways of thinking about one's ideas. Story making engages children in creating multiple representations of their observations and integrating them into coherent narrative and physical form, enabling them to make deeper and personally meaningful connections with the ideas they are exploring (Panjwani, 2015). Digital storytelling is an effective tool for learning by doing, as students create all stories by themselves (Gimeno-Sanz, 2015). Digital storytelling can be done by using many tools including digital camera, editing tools, electronic media, and digital painting board. Students can use these tools to construct their knowledge and idea in a meaningful way (Standley, 2003).

Drama includes more elements than story making. In drama, students can use their body or facial expression to perform like interacting with other actors or surroundings, which can impress them deeply. Nowadays, many teachers use drama to let students perform a history or a famous novel to learn English. Students can deeply understand different roles, emotion, and situation through discussion and communication. By communicating with each role, students can learn how to use English well when performing dramas. Moreover, drama can help students feel interested in practicing English speaking, particularly in authentic contexts. Therefore, in this study, contextual drama learning is proposed to facilitate students' speaking and writing in English.

There is so little research combining drama with mobile devices to help students learn English. Therefore, this study combined the advantages of contextual learning and drama in familiar contexts with mobile device support. Most English contents are often taught with uninteresting topics in relatively passive classroom contexts, which cannot easily enhance students' interest and achievement (Cheng, Hwang, Wu, Shadiev, & Xie, 2010). Therefore, this study focused on the scenarios in which English learning occurs in familiar and interesting contexts where students feel interested, that is, their surroundings such as playground, library, and corridor. In such familiar contexts, students can choose learning topics as their drama topics that are both enjoyable and meaningful to them.

We designed a system, named contextual drama (CD) system, to facilitate contextual English drama making in mobile devices, including many functions such as picture taking, voice recording, drama sharing, and Text To Speech tools. The CD system not only enhances learning motivation but also helps students to learn realistic English related to their daily life. Moreover, students can share their drama with each other and learn collaboratively.

Literature Review

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning

Students can learn language anywhere anytime due to the portability and popularity of mobile device, and they can also take mobile device to engage in activities (Huang, Yang, Chiang, & Su, 2016). There are five advantages of mobile-assisted language learning presented by Klopfer and Squire (2008): portability, social interactivity, context sensitivity, connectivity, and individuality. Mobile-assisted language learning is language learning that is assisted or enhanced through the use of a handheld mobile device (Chinnery, 2006). Due to many advantages of mobile device, many researchers have explored the effect of mobile technology on student language learning (Chang & Hsu, 2011; Hsieh, 2011; Hsu, Hwang, Chang, & Chang, 2013). For example, Hsu et al. (2013) conducted a personalized recommendation-based mobile learning and found that students who were provided adaptive articles had better learning performance than those who read nonadaptive reading material. These results imply that students who were given appropriate materials according to their preferences and reading proficiency level can learn more efficiently and effectively. Basoglu and Akdemir (2010) showed the effectiveness of vocabulary learning in mobile device to enhance students' motivation. Students who use mobile devices have much active participation to complete the vocabulary learning.

However, many researches on computer-assisted language learning and mobile language learning found that teaching materials are limited to textbook content and not be easily applied to daily life. Students cannot feel interested and motivated to apply what they learned in their daily life easily. Therefore, if mobile language learning is combined with the familiar context, students can learn from daily life, and it helps them to learn language effectively.

Context-Awareness Language Learning

Language is a product of culture, so language learning is affected by contexts (Ogata & Yano, 2004). Hornby (1950) indicated that contexts can enhance learning interest and efficiency. Many research studies help learners use mobile devices to learn in contexts, which make learning environments extend to outside of the classroom and learning materials from textbook to daily life (G. J. Hwang, Kuo, Yin, & Chuang, 2010; G. J. Hwang, Shi, & Chu, 2011). For example, G. J. Hwang, Wu, Tseng, and Huang (2011) developed a context-aware ubiquitous learning system with smartphones and QR-codes to assist learners to get real-time help from right people when encountering problems during their learning activities. C.-M. Chen and Li (2010) proposed a personalized context-aware ubiquitous learning system to detect locations of students and record individual vocabulary ability, learning time, and leisure time. Students were provided related vocabulary of their location. In the result, students can enhance their vocabulary skills in the context-awareness environment.

Learner-Centered Contextual Language Learning

Although many researchers use mobile devices to help learners learn everywhere, most contextual learning activities are predesigned by teachers or researchers without much flexibility to allow learners to learn what they feel interested, which confined students' motivation for active learning and resulted in a passive attitude toward learning (T.-S. Chen, Chang, Lin, & Yu, 2009). According to Shadiev, Hwang, and Huang (2017), a familiar authentic context is relevant to students' backgrounds and previous experiences. It can be found at places near students' homes or schools which they visit almost every day. Learning in familiar authentic context is beneficial for learning; however, it was not considered in most related studies (Huang et al., 2016; G. J. Hwang & Wu, 2014). Therefore, how to promote learner-centered learning becomes vital. In a learner-centered classroom, students choose what they will learn and decide how to learn (Hannafin & Hannafin, 2010). For example, Li et al. (2013) designed and developed a ubiquitous learning log system to help learners recall and practice English they had learned before. In the system, learners' learning logs were recorded, including the context information and the learning habits, which were detected using the context history. After that, the system recommended learners what they had learned when they came to the same contexts. The results of the study showed that the learners benefited from the contexts-based recommendation and learning habits and were also motivated to study more. W.-Y. Hwang and Chen (2013) developed a system which could enhance learners' speaking and listening ability. While eating lunch in school, learners could use mobile devices to listen English about food. Later, Students could make related sentences about lunch food and record their voices. The results showed that learning in familiar contexts not only provided more learning opportunities for learners but also increased the frequencies of English dialogues among peers and English proficiency. W.-Y. Hwang, Huang, Shadiev, Wu, and Chen (2014) aimed to enhance speaking and listening ability of fifth-grade elementary school students with mobile devices. In this study, students were provided sentence patterns to practice in different methods including recording repetition and game. Students had high intentions using the system to learn English.

Drama-Enhanced Language Learning

Drama is beneficial for learners' language learning because it involves practicing language in a specific context (Phillips, 2003). Learners need to read the text, listen to other person's actor lines, and play roles (Maley & Duff, 2006). These processes include reading, listening, and speaking skills. Drama integrates verbal and nonverbal communication, which brings both mind and body and restores the balance between physical and intellectual aspects of learning (Rew & Moon, 2013). Pica, Lincoln-Porter, Paninos, and Linnell (1996) claimed that when learners participated in verbal interaction, they could be provided the opportunities to learn the new words and structures of which they had exposed and to practice them in contexts. Learning becomes meaningful when topics are relevant to the students' life, needs, and interests. Therefore, drama is beneficial for young learners with limited English ability because it provides language learning in contexts with a coherent story (Maley & Duff, 2006).

Rew and Moon (2013) gave fourth-grade students a story to practice lines, and rehearse facial expression and body language. The result showed that English drama could help students learn expressions in drama, and they could create more meaningful expressions by themselves in new situations. Hui and Lau (2006) involved elementary school students of Grade 1 and Grade 4 in drama curriculum. The results indicated that creativity and motivation can be enhanced with drama activities. The results also showed that participants with drama education scored significantly higher than those without drama education in creativity measurement. Janudom and Wasanasomsithi (2009) conducted drama to enhance verbal commutative skills for 15 nonnative English undergraduate students in Thailand. The students were asked questions to know their role and contexts where the communication took place and can have opportunities to practice expressing their thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Results showed that drama enhanced students' speaking abilities and their positive attitudes toward learning English. K. T.-C. Chen and Liao (2013) also integrated English drama to the class. The participants were 37 Taiwanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduate students. The goals of the study tried to find out whether English drama can support oral skills in terms of motivation and achievement. They gave students play scripts for rehearsal. To increase students' interest, students could modify their characters' lines with their experience. Result showed that English drama could increase students' motivation and oral English achievement.

Until now, there is no research combining drama with mobile devices in authentic context to help students learn English. Therefore, this study will integrate the advantages of contextual learning and drama. Moreover, English is often taught with uninteresting topics in a relatively passive classroom context, which cannot enhance students' interest and achievement (Cheng et al., 2010). In this study, we focused on familiar context to facilitate EFL learning with collaborative drama, which is different from previous related studies like performing traditional drama in the classroom. Students were asked to practice English with drama mechanisms in their daily life, which is a very effective method to learn English. Students were asked to use their surroundings as the topics of the drama. They did not specifically think about a different drama but around their own experience about what happened in their surroundings. Therefore, when they saw things they had learned, they could naturally connect and reflect what they had written and performed in the drama. The drama combined with learner's personal experiences will strengthen learner's memory and further applications.

By combining the advantages of drama and contextual learning, the study aimed to increase elementary school students' learning motivation and hope the ideas “What you see is what you learn” and “learning everywhere” can be applied to our study. In addition, through writing and speaking drama, we hope that students can speak English confidently and have a better understanding and applications of English.

Methodology

Participants and Backgrounds

One quasi-experiment design was conducted with three classes, a total of 78 fifth-grade elementary school students in Taiwan as participants, and 5-week experimental time period. Their mother language is Chinese while English is their foreign language. All participants had learned English for several years and had basic skills to use tablet PCs; therefore, they have similar background and experience in English learning. These three classes were taught by the same English teacher using the same learning materials.

Research Structure

The research structure of this study is shown in Figure 1. Every student spent 160 minutes learning per week (total 4 weeks) and all students in the three classes were taught by the same teacher with the same learning materials. Experimental Group 1 (E1) had 27 students who participated in drama activities collaboratively using the proposed system in tablet PCs; Experimental Group 2 (E2) had 23 students who participated in drama activities individually (individual drama or storytelling) using our proposed system in tablet PCs; and control group (C) had 28 students who participated in drama activities individually with pencil and paper. Dependent variables included learning achievement, activity behaviors, activity performance, and learning behaviors. The details are explained as follows:

Learning achievement: Pretest and posttest were employed to evaluate students' learning achievements, including the two following parts:

Reading aloud: To see students' speaking fluency and see whether they can use correct sentences to answer the question.

Describing a story by a picture: Aims to ascertain students' ability of describing a story. First, students need to speak the vocabulary which they had looked in the picture, then, make sentences according to the picture.

Activity behaviors: Two behaviors were collected and evaluated from students' drama.

Activity speaking behaviors:

(a) Quantity of speaking T-unit: How many sentences they speak.

(b) Quantity of speaking dialogue in a turn: How many times they speak dialogue to peers.

Activity writing behaviors:

(a) Length of writing T-unit: to see sentence complexity; it is the number of words counted per T-unit written in a drama.

(b) Sentence pattern diversity: to see how many sentence patterns they use, different from sentence examples provided by the study. It is scored with the criteria: (sentence patterns of writing) − (sentence patterns of examples).

Activity performance represents students' performance in drama. We evaluated students' drama performance based on the rubrics (Dunbar, Brooks, & Kubicka-Miller, 2006). Activity performance includes four dimensions: voice, intonation, body language, and engagement. Only activity performance of E1 students was evaluated because we would like to analyze its influence on learning achievement.

Learning behaviors: The E1 students' learning behaviors and usage in our proposed system were studied to know the relationships with their learning achievement.

Figure 1.

Research structure.

Experimental Procedure and Instruments

The E1 (27) and E2 (23) students used our proposed system with tablets to make drama in familiar contexts, while the control group (C, 28 students) used the traditional method with paper and pencil to make drama. The experimental procedure comprises the following six steps (Figure 2).

Pretest: A pretest was applied to know the levels of prior knowledge that the participants had, including two different categories (reading aloud and describe a story by a picture).

Preliminary training: To reduce the novelty and effect of technology to the research results, E1 and E2 students were taught how to use the functions of the proposed system. On the other hand, control group students could practice and draw their drama about their daily life.

Encountering vocabulary:

E1 and E2 (using the CD system): Students were asked to take a picture on objects they were interested in and made a sentence related to the objects and read aloud the sentence recorded in the proposed system.

C: Students were asked to know the words of everything they saw and encouraged them to make sentences related to objects. Students were also encouraged using English dictionary to look up words they did not know.

Drama activity with CD system: Every student in E1 was a director in turn a week, and the left two in the group were actors. Only the director needed to use a tablet. The director needed to draft the drama, guide actors how to let the intonation and body action match the drama, take photos, and type actor lines in the system (Figure 3). The actor needed to practice speaking actor lines with the other actor and record their actor lines in the system. The director and actors need to finish drama collaboratively by continuous discussion. On the other hand, E2 made drama individually. E2 students could look for their peers being models or objects being their drama's elements. But, all sentences were recorded by themselves. C students made drama individually. Students needed to draw four-square drama by pencils and paper. In terms of the design and functions of CD system, we discussed with English teachers and students and then designed the user interface and functions based on their needs, meanwhile iteratively improved it after their feedbacks. To make drama with CD, without much training, students took photos first, then added actors' lines and recorded their voice, and then went to next scene with another photo-taking. Their main functions were described in Figure 3 as follows:

Modify and preview episode: Students can view and modify each drama episode they finished, for example, the central photo in Figure 3 is the fourth episode of one student's drama and the three photos on the right side are other episodes. Students can click one of them to retake picture, modify lines, or record voice again if needed.

Voice recording: This function includes voice recording, playing, and pausing. So, students can record repeatedly before they feel satisfied.

Sentence example: If students want to make better sentences or ensure their sentences are correct, they can click the sentence example button to view grammar or sentence examples.

Translation: This function helps students to know the meanings of sentences and how to pronounce the sentences or spell words.

Posttest: How much students had learned was determined by a posttest, the difficulty level and format are the same as those of the pretest.

Questionnaires and interview: E1 students were only surveyed in this stage to know their perception to our system and find some reasons to explain statistical analysis deeply. A questionnaire about students' motivation was designed based on ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) proposed by Keller (1987) and aimed to understand whether the learning system and learning activity affected learning motivation. The questionnaire had 20 items in Likert 5-point format (Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree), consisting of four subscales: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. Interview questions were designed together by English teacher with 10 years of teaching experience and researchers after discussion and investigation of statistic results to deeply understand the reasons behind interesting phenomena.

Figure 3.

Drama making.

Figure 2.

Experimental procedure.

In scoring learning achievement, reading aloud criterion was revised based on Hughes (2003). A score was given in each rubric item, 5 to be the highest and 1 the lowest in the dimensions of accent and fluency. The Question-and-Answer was scored according to grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension. The test scores were given by two individual raters. There was a high interreliability in pretest (Spearman's rho = 0.93) and in posttest (Spearman's rho = 0.92).

The scoring criterion of describing a story with a picture by speaking was presented by the researchers. One vocabulary gets 0.5 score (total is 10). One complete sentence gets one point (total is 10). Sentence scoring rule is constructed according to five basic sentence patterns (in Appendix). For example, in vocabulary, when a student says “teacher, chair, and tables,” student would get 1.5 points. In sentence making, when a student says “Teacher is speaking,” and “There are many tables,” student would get 2 points. But if student say “Teacher speaking,” it is grammatically incorrect, so students would get 0 point. In terms of drama performance, we evaluated students' drama performance based on the rubrics (Dunbar et al., 2006), including four dimensions: voice, intonation, body language, and engagement.

Results and Discussion

Learning Achievement

Pretest, including “Reading aloud” and “Describing a story with a picture,” was conducted to understand the differences in prior knowledge among the E1, E2, and the C groups. The test of homogeneity of variance of two variables, “Reading aloud” and “Describing a story with a picture,” were found as not significant (p = .514 and p = .72) after Levene's test, so a one-way ANOVA was used to examine the differences of prior knowledge among the three groups (Keselman et al., 1998). The results showed no significant differences existing between three groups (Table 1). Table 2 shows the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) result on the posttest of the three groups. That is, the pretest was regarded as the covariance for ANCOVA for removing the effects of the prior knowledge on the learning achievement. The test of homogeneity of variance of two variables, “Reading aloud” and “Describing a story with a picture,” in posttest are not significant (p = .301, p = .709). A one-way ANCOVA was used to examine the differences between the three groups on students' learning achievement.

Table 1.

ANOVA Analysis Results of Reading Aloud and Describing a Story by a Picture in the Pretest.

	Group	N	Mean	SD	F	p
Reading aloud	Experimental Group 1 (E1)	27	14.62	5	.248	.781
	Experimental Group 2 (E2)	23	15.39	6.37
	Control Group (C)	28	14.28	5.6
Describing a story with a picture	Experimental Group 1 (E1)	27	6.33	4.28	.832	.439
	Experimental Group 2 (E2)	23	6.21	5.15
	Control Group (C)	28	4.92	3.96

Table 2.

ANCOVA Analysis Results of the Reading Aloud and Describing a Story With a Picture in the Posttest.

	Group	N	Mean	SD	Adjust mean	F	Post hoc (least significant difference)
Reading aloud	Experimental Group 1 (E1)	27	18.03	6.21	18.13a	9.294***	E1>C E2>C
	Experimental Group 2 (E2)	23	17.78	5.6	17.12a
Control Group (C)	28	13.96	7.44	14.40a
Describing a story with a picture	Experimental Group 1 (E1)	27	10.77	4.80	10.27a	5.753**	E1>E2 E1>C
	Experimental Group 2 (E2)	23	8.56	5.70	8.16a
Control Group (C)	28	6.35	5.65	7.17a

**p < .01. ***p<.001.

As shown in Table 2, in reading aloud, the E1 and E2 students' posttest scores were significantly higher than those of the C groups (p < .001) and the effect size is .201. This implies that the situated learning is helpful for students to enhance speaking ability. This research asked E1 and E2 students to work on authentic tasks that take place in real-world setting. W.-Y. Hwang, Ma, Shadiev, Shih, and Chen (2015) suggested that if the learners use situational materials in their daily life, then they could recall what they had learned when they encountered the same scenarios.

In describing a story in a picture, the E1 students performed better than E2 or C students (p < .01) and the effect size is .135. This result implied that collaboration in drama-based EFL learning in authentic contexts could broaden students' imagination when they looked at a picture. When students made drama, they looked at the photos and discussed together with the director and actors that they might need to change poses to match actor lines or modify or add actor lines to make drama more interesting. Therefore, in the drama, three students work collaboratively in order to improve the quality of the play. Through these processes, students used gestures or body language to interact with contextual surroundings. This result was consistent with the enactivism theory; students in E1 could increase students' interaction with surrounding stimulus and generate meaningful drama. Enactivism theory indicated that cognition and environment were inseparable and meaningful learning happened during the interaction between students and the world they enact (Begg, 2000; Di Paolo, Rohde, & De Jaegher, 2010). So, when students looked at pictures, they could get higher scores in describing a story in a picture.

On the other hand, students in E2 and C made drama individually. They usually did not use their body language or facial expressions to express drama. When they designed their drama, they first drafted the drama on a paper. Students in E2 fulfilled the draft drama by photographing authentic contexts alone. It might be the reason why E2 students' ability of describing a story by a picture were not significantly higher than C.

Activity Writing Behaviors

In terms of the writing behavior “length of writing T-unit,” the test of homogeneity of its variance was significant (p = .021 < .05), so Welch test was employed. Table 3 shows that E1 is significantly higher than E2 and C (F = 5.724, p < .001) and the effect size is .176. The longer the T-units length of production is, the higher is its sentence complexity. That is, sentence complexity in E1 was significantly higher than E2 and C. The reason might be that students in E1 could collaboratively discuss how to make suitable sentences to match their drama. Through collaborative discussion, E1 students could brainstorm with each other to make appropriate sentences. Drama enables students to take advantage of their experiences and personalities as resources for English production (Duff & Maley, 1978). On the other hand, every student in E2 and C was making drama individually, so they worked on their own by drawing and taking photos and making decisions by themselves to modify the drama contents. Therefore, their length of writing T-unit was shorter than E1.

Table 3.

Length of Writing T-Unit.

	Mean	SD		Post hoc (least significant difference)
			F = 5.724**
Experimental Group 1 (N = 27)	4.50	1.19
Experimental Group 2 (N = 23)	3.64	0.66		E1>E2
Control group (N = 28)	3.68	0.66		E1>C

**p<.01.

In sentence pattern diversity (Table 4), the test of homogeneity of its variance was not significant (p = .921), so a one-way ANOVA was employed to analyze the difference of this variable and the results showed that there was significant difference among the three groups and the effect size is .723. E1 was significantly higher than E2 and C, and E2 was significantly higher than C, this is because E1 and E2 were learning in familiar contexts. Therefore, their drama was not constrained to the sentence examples. Additionally, E1 was collaborative learning and E2 was individual learning. So, students in E1 could discuss and brainstorm with each other to increase various plots of drama. By interviewing E1 students, students thought they felt fresh and interested in drama activity because they can find their common interesting daily life as drama topics and discuss them with more diversified sentences for drama. Therefore, the sentence pattern production in E1 was diversified rather than limited to individual learning or sentence examples that they learned in textbooks.

Table 4.

Sentence Pattern Diversity Among Three Groups.

	Mean	SD		Post hoc (least significant difference)
Experimental group 1 (N = 27)	8.1	1.55	F = 97.67***	E1>E2,
Experimental group 2 (N = 23)	4.6	1.72		E1>C,
Control group (N = 28)	2.1	1.47		E2>C

***p<.001.

Learning Achievement and Activity Performance

This section aims to examine the relationship between learning achievement and activity performance of E1 group. Table 5 represented that there was significant correlation between two learning achievement and activity performance (p < .05). These findings indicated that if students' activity performance were higher, their learning achievement would be better. Because activity performance included intonation, facial expression, and vocal loudness and so on, these factors could enhance students' speaking ability and explanations in English. According to enactivism theory, familiar contexts can facilitate and stimulate students to use multiple representations like their body language and verbal ways to perform what they want to express, so it is indeed helpful for EFL learning using drama with familiar contexts. If students only read the sentences without facial expression, bodies, and gestures, it would limit to what and how they learned (Roth & Lawless, 2001). Therefore, it is worthwhile to promote students' activity performance in drama with familiar contexts in order to improve EFL learning.

Table 5.

Pearson Correlation Between Learning Achievement and Activity Performance.

	Activity performance
	Performance-based assessment
Reading aloud	.815**
Describe a story with a picture	.679**

**p<.01.

Learning Achievement and Activity Speaking Behaviors

This section aims to examine the relationship between learning achievement and activity speaking behaviors. As shown in Table 6, the results suggest that there were significant correlations between two learning achievements and two activity speaking behaviors (p < .05). It was the reason that if students were speaking more, they practiced more. Harmer (1991) suggested that practicing could enhance learning because it provided more opportunities for students to rehearse speaking skills. Duff and Maley (1978) mentioned that drama enabled students to take advantage of their experiences and personalities as resources for oral English production.

Table 6.

Pearson Correlation Between Learning Achievement and Activity Speaking Behaviors.

	Activity speaking behaviors
	Quantity of speaking T-unit	Quantity of speaking dialogue in a turn
Reading aloud	.607**	.463*
Describe a story with a picture	.539**	.438*

*p<.05. **p<.01.

Learning Achievement and Learning Behaviors

This section aims to examine the relationship between learning achievement and learning behaviors. As shown in Table 7, an analysis was conducted to understand how students' behaviors in the system affected students' learning achievement. We found that the quantity of encountering vocabulary was significantly related to reading aloud (p < .05). This finding suggested that students who created more vocabularies could achieve better speaking skills. With respect to quantity of translation, we found quantity of translation was negative significantly related to reading aloud and describing a story with a picture (p < .05). This analysis implied that translation intonation was not suitable for the drama. Students could not match the intonation to the drama if they mimicked the intonation of machine. Although some students used translation functions to translate sentences, it translated wrongly. So, these results could be explained that EFL learners cannot overly depend on translation tools.

Table 7.

Pearson Correlation Between Learning Achievement and Learning Behaviors.

	Quantity of encountering vocabulary	Quantity of translation	Quantity of listening peers' voice	Quantity of listening own voice
Reading aloud	.536**	−.598**	−.339	.320
Describe a story with a picture	.298	−.582**	−.380	.181

**p<.01.

Prediction of Student's Learning Behavior for Learning Achievement

According to Table 8, only “activity performance,” “quantity of speaking T-unit in drama,” and “quantity of encountering vocabulary” retained in reading aloud. These results indicated that these behaviors had significant prediction from reading aloud (R² = .833, F = 33.513, p < .0001). That is, in all learning period, students performed well in activity performance when speaking many times and they generated more vocabulary words, which might enhance the ability of speaking.

Table 8.

The Coefficient of Multiple Regression.

	Predictor variable	B	SE	Beta	t-value	Adj. R²
Reading aloud	Activity performance	.426	.099	.455	4.293***	.833
	Quantity of speaking T-unit	.675	.215	.285	3.138***
	Quantity of encountering vocabulary	.299	.071	.365	4.215***
Describe a story with a picture	Activity performance	.491	.106	.679	4.623***	.461

***p<.001.

On the other hand, in the ability of describing a story with a picture, only “activity performance” retained. It showed that activity performance had significant prediction for picture description (R² = .461, F = 21.37, p < .0001). This result indicated that if students performed well in an activity, it might be beneficial to enhance the narrative ability.

Only activity performance showed significant prediction to the two learning achievements. These results implied that activity performance could predict reading aloud and narrative ability. That is, students who knew how to use verbal and nonverbal to perform could not only speak English but also could use English.

Students' Motivation and Interview

The ARCS questionnaire was administered to 27 students in the experiment class (E1) and all were received (100% return rate), and its Cronbach α was .96 after the survey.

Table 9 shows the results of the questionnaire survey analysis. According to the results, most students scored high for the items of attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction toward our proposed system in the learning process. This demonstrated that, in general, students thought drama learning stimulated their attention and interest in learning materials. That is, students thought learning content relating to themselves, which attracted them to learn.

Table 9.

Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction.

#	Question of attention	SA	A	N	D	SD	Mean
1	I am interested in the CD system activity.	19	5	3	0	0	4.59
1	I am interested in the CD system activity.	70%	19%	11%	0%	0%	4.59
2	The CD system can help me to be more engaged in learning.	20	5	2	0	0	4.67
2	The CD system can help me to be more engaged in learning.	74%	19%	7%	0%	0%	4.67
3	The CD system is very attracted to me.	19	4	4	0	0	4.56
3	The CD system is very attracted to me.	70%	15%	15%	0%	0%	4.56
4	I am interested in learning vocabulary through the CD system.	21	2	4	0	0	4.63
4		78%	7%	15%	0%	0%	4.63
5	Variety learning activity can be attracted to me.	19	6	2	0	0	4.63
5	Variety learning activity can be attracted to me.	70%	22%	8%	0%	0%	4.63

#	Question of relevance	SA	A	N	D	SD	Mean
1	I can connect the content of the material to my daily life.	18	5	4	0	0	4.52
1	I can connect the content of the material to my daily life.	67%	18%	15%	0%	0%	4.52
2	Compared with other courses, the content in this activity is really relevant to my life and I can use them in daily life.	17	4	6	0	0	4.41
2		63%	15%	22%	0%	0%	4.41
3	The content of the materials is important to me.	16	4	7	0	0	4.33
3	The content of the materials is important to me.	59%	15%	26%	0%	0%	4.33
4	The content of materials is relevant to my life, I feel very kind.	18	4	5	0	0	4.48
4		67%	14%	19%	0%	0%	4.48
5	The course content will be useful to me. I can connect the content of the material to my daily life.	22	3	2	0	0	4.47
5		82%	11%	7%	0%	0%	4.47

#	Question of confidence	SA	A	N	D	SD	Mean
1	The level of learning content is suitable for me.	18	4	4	1	0	4.44
1	The level of learning content is suitable for me.	67%	15%	15%	3%	0%	4.44
2	I have confidence on learning this courses.	22	2	2	1	0	4.67
2	I have confidence on learning this courses.	82%	7%	7%	4%	0%	4.67
3	I believe I have ability to conquer it when I have difficulty in the process of learning.	20	5	2	0	0	4.67
3		74%	19%	7%	0%	0%	4.67
4	I have confidence that I can learn well by learning English vocabulary in this courses.	21	2	3	0	1	4.56
4		78%	7%	11%	0%	4%	4.56
5	I have confidence that I can behave well in this courses. The level of learning content is suitable for me.	18	5	4	0	0	4.52
5		67%	18%	15%	0%	0%	4.52

#	Question of satisfaction	SA	A	N	D	SD	Mean
1	I like learning English by drama activities.	23	2	2	0	0	4.78
1	I like learning English by drama activities.	86%	7%	7%	0%	0%	4.78
2	I am satisfied with what I learned in this course.	21	5	1	0	0	4.74
2	I am satisfied with what I learned in this course.	78%	18%	4%	0%	0%	4.74
3	I think the time passed quickly and feel interested with learning English by drama activities.	21	3	3	0	0	4.67
3		78%	11%	11%	0%	0%	4.67
4	I made progress in learning by drama activities, which let me know it is worth paying my effort.	21	4	2	0	0	4.70
4		78%	11%	11%	0%	0%	4.70
5	I feel happy in participating in drama activities.	24	2	1	0	0	4.85
5	I feel happy in participating in drama activities.	89%	8%	3%	0%	0%	4.85

Note. CD = contextual drama.

Before the 4-week experiment, there was 1 week for E1 and E2 participants to be familiar with the proposed system and taught them how to use the system to take pictures and describe pictures with related vocabularies, phrases, and sentences. Although there was only 4 weeks for them to conduct the experiment, E1 and E2 students perceived highly confident and satisfied in the questionnaire survey when making drama with the proposed system; in the interview, they also expressed that they would like to continue using it for EFL learning, particularly discussing with their peers to make more drama in familiar context. This is because they learn how to use their daily life and surroundings to practice English which is diversified and interesting rather than limited to any textbook. This showed our approach indeed appeals to their interests and motivation and helps them practice EFL learning. To sum up, learners had positive attitude to this learning method and satisfaction in the process of learning.

In the interview part, we prepared some questions like how to use familiar context to prepare their drama, is it interesting to make drama related to their daily life and surroundings when they encounter with familiar surroundings, is it helpful for them to connect and remember related English?

Regarding choosing participants, in order to know the reasons behind statistical results and conduct investigation deeply, high achievement and low achievement students in posttest from E1 were chosen to be interviewed and asked why they like or dislike drama making and what are their most preference learning behaviors in drama making and reasons behind. The following are some of interview results which show that E1 students have positive perceptions toward the proposed approach, particularly they connect their daily life and surroundings to practice English and learn from peers:

“I think drama topic related to my life can help me create story easier.”

“I can use surrounding object like basketball, bag, and pencil in my drama, this way can connect my life.”

“Everything can be a part of my drama, when I see the thing, I can connect what I had learn, so it is impressive.”

In terms of collaborative drama and influence on their confidence and attitude.

“After taking photo, I can see actor's facial expression is vivid or not, which is useful to make better drama.”

“I can teach my classmates how to pronounce or how to modify the sentence, I am very glad to teach others.”

“When I see something I have learned; I know its vocabulary immediately. I think learning English is not difficult, which can increase my confidence.”

“It is interesting because talking with classmates is like talking with foreigners.”

“I want to learn English by this way next time.”

Suggestions and Implications

This study examined the effects of CD on students' learning achievement and learning behaviors. The findings (in sections Learning Achievement and Activity Writing Behaviors) indicated that CD had positive effect on learning achievement, especially facilitating EFL learning collaboratively in familiar context. Thus, there is a need to consider how to enhance students' collaboration in EFL learning with contextual support. For example, students were asked to choose their familiar and interested contexts to make more drama or more dialogues so that they had more opportunities to interact with each other and to practice in English. Therefore, when students encountered the familiar and interesting contexts in the daily life, they could reflect the related English they learned and their EFL learning could be strengthened and sustained. This design indeed helped them learn the target language more effectively. In addition to the system, several issues can be considered, such as different learning personalities may affect their drama performance and interaction. Through the interviews, students mentioned that unlike performing a drama in front of the class, they were not nervous to participate in the drama activities in this experiment. Therefore, we suggest that it is possible worth considering students' different personalities and to analyze the effects on motivation and learning performance.

Drama has many strategies to help learners develop enquiry skills to encourage negotiation, understanding, and creativity. For example, hot seating is a useful and effective drama strategy; a learner in hot seat would be questioned by peers about his background. This method would enhance learners' imagination to describe their characters and useful for peers to develop their questioning skills. In the second example regarding teachers' role, teachers could be actors in a drama or ask learners questions. Teachers in this strategy could enhance communication between learners and help learners become more active as characters. Therefore, in the future study, these useful drama strategies can be employed to enhance drama EFL learning.

Conclusions and Limitation

The results of the study show that both the experimental groups' speaking abilities performed significantly better than those of the control group. These results suggested that a contextual learning approach with real contexts is more helpful for students to enhance their speaking performance. Furthermore, the E1 students describing a story with a picture was significantly higher than those of E2 and C students, and the E1 student's sentence complexity was significantly higher than those of the E2 and C students. These results suggested that drama activity collaboratively provided participants with the chances to use the target language, and collaborative learning which motivated participants to speak English. Another more valuable finding is that the students who performed well in CD had better EFL speaking achievement. This showed that it is very critical and useful for students carrying out physical actions in contexts to facilitate EFL speaking. Regarding limitation, in this study, although we calculated students' sentence complexity, we did not analyze the quality of drama structure or whether their grammar is correct or not. This is because participants were only fifth-grade elementary school students who had insufficient English ability to make their drama well although we provided them some sentence models. To improve this part, more scaffolding should be given to help drama making or performing quality.

Footnotes

Appendix. Sentence Scoring Rules

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Hao Zhang is an associate professor of the Department of Education Technology at Yangzhou University in Yangzhou, China. His research interests include technology enhanced learning, deep learning, micro-learning, online educational technology, and human computer interaction.

Wu-Yuin Hwang is a distinguished professor of the Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology, National Central University, Taiwan. Dr. Hwang has published many articles in major international journals indexed by SCI and SSCI in the area of educational technology. Owing to the outstanding contributions of research outputs to National Science Council, Taiwan, Dr. Hwang Received the Ta-You Wu, Memorial Award from National Science Council in 2005. The major research interests of Dr. Hwang include human–computer interaction for collaboration, multimedia tools/systems design, and knowledge construction. Regarding the recent publications of Dr. Hwang, there are more than 40 journal articles published or accepted by SSCI/SCI Journals in recent 5 years.

Shih-Ying Tseng received her master’s degree from the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Central University, Taiwan, in 2016. Her research interests focus on mobile learning and human–computer interaction for collaboration.

Holly S. L. Chen received her doctor’s degree from the Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology at National Central University (NCU), Taiwan, in 2015. Her research interests focus on EFL learning and multimedia mind tool design.

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