Using Creative Drama to Teach a Foundation French Business Course

Abstract

The French and English foreign language teacher-researcher of this study has been interested in conducting a novel research that focused on the integration of drama in a foundation French for business class. He aimed to help students to reduce the negative effects of shyness and fear that block the learning process (Zahid & Rohi, 2019, p. 1382). To conduct this investigation, a class of absolute beginners in “French for Business Purposes” has been selected as the participants for this study. The students, a class of college students from Ling Tung University, located in Taichung, participated in this investigation during the academic year of 2023. This study included a questionnaire, interviews, and field notes that were conducted by the teacher-researcher. While the participants answered questions about their perceptions on joining drama learning activities in class, the teacher-researcher wrote memos to reflect the teacher-researcher’s thought process in connecting and interpreting data recorded in the questionnaire, interviews, and field notes. The findings of this study indicate that although students are shy to speak foreign languages, they have a sense of curiosity that inspires them to explore new horizons. Most of the students think that learning French with drama activities is more enjoyable as they reflect a student-centered learning approach in which students can reproduce a preplanned script. The role of the teacher-researcher as a facilitator gives students more time to practice short dialogues and to prepare an audio file. That way, students gain more confidence in their speaking abilities and develop their willingness to communicate in French as a foreign language.