Philippine E-Journals

Dramatic Engagement in Teaching Lao She’s Teahouse

Chee Lay Tan

Discipline: Education, Literature

 

Abstract:

Drama pedagogy has evolved in recent years as one the most creative and adaptable tools for engaged learning in language teaching. This paper discusses the teaching of modern Chinese play selected to be a prescribed text in preuniversity Chinese literature curriculum. The play in focus is Teahouse by the renowned Chinese writer, Lao She. The study aims to pilot qualitative research through concrete individual teaching, in order to perform a preliminary classification and analysis of how teaching methods of modern plays are carried out. These include the use of the Theatre in Education and Drama in Education models to conduct the teaching of modern plays. The study purported that the use of Theatre in Education and Drama in Education are methods to trigger students’ interest in learning before lessons and to carry out warm-up activities and to evaluate lesson results. These methods also aid students to familiarize the core of the original texts and use meaningful, theatrical real scenarios for the teaching of language and literature.