The National Endowment for the Arts, an independent agency of the federal government, was created in 1965 to encourage and support U.S. arts and artists. It fulfills its mission by awarding grants and through its leadership and advocacy activities. This booklet is designed to help individuals and organizations become familiar with the Endowment…

Intended for middle school teachers interested in helping students (especially those with no experience attending theater) learn how to read and see a play by themselves, this paper provides a lesson plan based on W. W. Jacobs's dramatic play, "The Monkey's Paw." After furnishing a rationale for reading this particular play, the paper…

This newsletter issue focuses entirely on classroom instruction in adult basic education (ABE) and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs. The first article, "Whole Language and Adult Literacy Education" (Kazemek), describes 10 principles of holistic language education and how they may be translated into actual classroom practice.…

Reading and writing plays can be a good way to learn reading, listening, and writing skills. This paper contains suggestions for using plays in adult literacy courses. Ideas are given for reading and writing plays, including developing a plot and characters, drafting a script, and editing and finalizing a script. Various methods of transcribing…

This guide is a collection of books, activities, art, creative dramatics, creative writing, games, and films intended for use with children from age three through grade seven. Eight weeks of activities that are fairly simple and inexpensive to put together and of varying degrees of effort and complexity are presented in eight chapters reflecting…

Creative dramatics can be used effectively by the elementary teacher to help motivate students to become involved in various language arts activities. Dramatic play, pantomime, story dramatization, imagination exercises, creative movement, improvisation, and other structured activities encourage students to relate new experiences to old. As they…

A class activity for young adult students of English as a second language uses simplified versions of Shakespeare's familiar dramatic plots to promote student participation and use of second language skills. The students are provided with a list of characters, a synopsis of the story, a room with floor space, and a time frame in which to recreate…

A study was conducted to determine the effect of language arts instruction that emphasized aesthetics on the attitude, self-concept, and IQ of primary school students. The subjects, 129 kindergarten through grade two students in a large urban school, were divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group received language…

The full power of drama as both a teaching and learning medium can be realized only when the inner world of meaning is harnessed to the outer world of expressive action. The teacher has available a number of techniques that can involve the students in the vital interaction of both frames. To involve the students in the expressive frame, the…

The purpose of this study was to design a strategy for teaching young children the information expressed in words of selected songs. Out of five classes of from 25 to 30 seven-year-old students, 86 students were selected for observation. The investigator chose 18 songs from a song textbook to be taught for the first 12 weeks of school. During the…

A case study design that included classroom observation, repeated self-assessments, and formal interviews was used in a training workshop for 11 preservice teachers. The intent was to train them to use dramatic activities with secondary school students in their own classrooms. The training incorporated elements of theory, demonstration, peer…

This book aims to help the practicing language teacher apply theories of communicative language teaching in classroom situations. The text is divided into two main parts, preceded by an introductory paper which sketches some of the background to communicative language teaching and attempts definitions of crucial terms. The first part of the book…

This introduction to, and comment upon, a symposium on communicative competence argues that the appropriate unit of analysis in language development is communicative competence and proposes that the development of communicative competence can be studied usefully through observing children's communication during role play. Communicative competence…

The second of four related manuals describing the goals and methods of an established developmental theatre project at the University of Colorado, this manual presents a hierarchical framework and practical guidelines for conducting drama workshops for elementary students, secondary students, and adults. It describes four types of…

Research findings indicate that role play can contribute to children's language growth through furthering: (a) growth in imaging, (b) increased recall, (c) discriminative listening, (d) development of novel forms of communication, (e) learning of socially appropriate communication, and (f) motoric actions. Teachers can facilitate role-playing by…