1043490

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LTR0010.1177/13621688211043490Language Teaching ResearchBora

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TEACHING
Article RESEARCH

Language Teaching Research

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2024, Vol. 28(5) 1869­–1892
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DOI: 10.1177/13621688211043490
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accuracy, pronunciation
and complexity

Simona Floare Bora

University of Essex, UK

Abstract
This article intends to add to the rising discussion related to the employment of authentic plays
and drama within a high school compulsory curriculum for enhancing learners’ foreign language
(L2) oral skills. In particular, it examines the pedagogical use of authentic contemporary plays for
developing learners’ L2 oral production in terms of (1) complexity – syntactic and mean length of
AS-units (MLAS) and (2) accuracy – global and pronunciation accuracy. For this purpose, a class
of 10 final year high school students with a lower-intermediate to upper-intermediate level of
language in an Italian context was exposed longitudinally to a blended-drama approach – the use
of literary play scripts, drama games and techniques, and a full-scale performance – conducted
over two terms for a total of 40 hours in-class lessons. A control group was taught through a
traditional approach over the same period. Quantitative data were collected through a pre-test/
post-test design with three tasks under different conditions regarding status and interaction: oral
proficiency interview (OPI), story-retelling and guided role-play (GRP). Findings revealed that
drama significantly improved learners’ pronunciation accuracy, syntactic complexity and MLAS.
There was no significant statistical result on global accuracy between the two groups. Pedagogical
implications for teaching practice will be discussed.

Keywords
accuracy, complexity, drama approach, high-school compulsory curriculum, L2 oral skills,
pronunciation

Corresponding author:
Simona Floare Bora, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK
Email: [email protected]
1870 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

I Introduction
In recent years, research has shown that drama in language teaching forms a stepping-
stone towards foreign language (henceforth L2) oral proficiency. When they start learn-
ing a new language, most foreign language learners hope to achieve a high level of
speaking proficiency. Nonetheless, possession of a wide range of vocabulary and gram-
matical structures along with speaking accurately with a correct pronunciation is essen-
tial for achieving high communicative competence. To help learners achieve this goal an
increasing number of scholars have focused their work on ways in which literature and
drama can help L2 learning (e.g. Bora, 2020b; Colangelo & Ryan-Scheutz, 2010; Even,
2011; Korkut & Çelik, 2018; Marini-Maio, 2010; Moody, 2002; Nguyen et al., 2016;
Ronke, 2015; Schenker, 2017; Schewe, 2013). According to Holden (1981, p. 1) drama
is ‘any activity which asks the students to portray (a) himself/herself in an imaginary
situation or (b) another person in an imaginary situation’. The term drama comes from
Greek and means ‘action’. For the scope of the present article, drama includes a full-
scale performance as well as role-plays, warm-up exercises, games and theatrical tech-
niques as activities which include gestures, feelings and expressions of action.
Drama in foreign language learning is a growing field of practice and research
(Stinson & Winston, 2011). Using various drama-based approaches, scholars propose to
varying degrees that drama in its various forms is indispensable for a myriad of reasons.
It is considered an ideal way of encouraging learners to use real, everyday authentic
language (Maley & Duff, 1984) which they will need outside the classroom. A drama
class offers opportunities for encountering contextualized exposure to the language in
which the learners can ‘experience the signaling value of natural and more spontaneous
communication’ (DiNapoli, 2009, p. 106). Brash and Warnecke (2009) claim that drama
pedagogy uses authentic tasks which lessen the feeling of artificiality and may make
learning more realistic and meaningful. Drama involves physical activity which can lead
to improved retention of lexis and grammatical structures (O’Gara, 2008; Sambanis
et al., 2013) since ‘the more sensory organs a student uses while learning, the greater the
retention of the lesson’ (Ulas, 2008) whilst lowering anxiety (Piazzoli, 2011) and increas-
ing motivation (Hulse & Owens, 2019) which may lead to a higher language achieve-
ment. Drama is not only useful for acquiring communicative competence, but it can also
enhance intellectual, social and emotional skills. DiNapoli (2009, p. 101) upholds that
drama promotes the development of emotional aptitude because in dramatic dialogue
‘meaning is dynamically exchanged between people in a context that includes subjective
and emotional aspects’ which enhance empathy and learning. Drama also uses more
cognitively demanding tasks as compared to the schematic dialogues found in the text-
books because dramatic dialogue prompts imagination and cognitive thinking to explore
the inner life of the characters (DiNapoli. 2009). When analysing or even staging a play,
learners can enhance their understanding of literature and another culture. This is an
important dimension in language learning and a drama class will allow opportunities for
learners to engage with intercultural language learning (Rothwell, 2011). That is because,
language items are more relevant when they become a part of a wider message in human
communication than learned as ‘stand alone entities’ (Gill, 2013, p. 38). As Nguyen
(2016, p. 171) puts it: ‘literature has potential for communicative competence, aesthetic
Bora 1871

enjoyment, critical awareness, specific skills training and whole-person development.’

Drama facilitates language development through social interaction and through provid-
ing opportunities for co-constructing knowledge by expanding and deepening under-
standing of the topics explored (Vygotsky, 1978). For all these reasons, drama and theatre
may be seen as complementary means for producing more accurate and complex speech
because a blended-drama approach offers opportunities for both planned and thus more
accurate and spontaneous production (Bora, 2020a; Bräuer, 2002).
There is by now an increasing number of studies which have examined the advantages
of using dramatic activities or a theatre performance as an extra-curricular activity espe-
cially in a university context (Ronke, 2005; Ryan-Scheutz & Colangelo, 2004; Schenker,
2017). However, to date, there is very little research carried out within a secondary man-
datory compulsory curriculum (Járfás, 2008; Lutzker, 2007; Moody, 2002). In addition,
most of these studies were qualitative or lacking a control group and results were based
on impressionistic self-reported levels of oral proficiency achieved by students. Omasta
and Snyder-Young (2014) studied 428 international research articles published between
2002 and 2012 related to educational drama in order to discover which methodological
design researchers had applied to conduct their research. They found that only 4% of the
studies were quantitative. Galante & Thomson (2017, p. 2) note that studies have not
been framed in terms of which particular dimension of oral communication might be
most affected by drama approaches, but instead have only showed the impact of such
instruction on global oral proficiency. Accordingly, they call for a more fine-grained
analysis of how drama and theatre techniques promote the enhancement of specific
dimensions of oral communication. Hence, there is a deficit this article attempts to
redress by reporting on findings from an experimental study implemented longitudinally
within a compulsory high school curriculum, in an Italian context, which explored the
effectiveness of a blended-drama approach when compared to a traditional form of
instruction. A blendeddrama approach involved the use of various extracts from authen-
tic play scripts combined with dramatic activities followed by a theatre project (see
Section III.2). The aim of the article is to assess the extent to which learners improve
their oral skills on subdimensions of complexity and accuracy to better understand the
impact of a blended-drama approach on foreign language learners’ oral abilities.

II Literature review
1 The positive impacts of a blended-drama approach
Hoecherl-Alden (2006) maintains that a literary text is an invaluable tool for teachers
because it is one of the few vehicles of instruction that can support not only the develop-
ment of oral skills, but every aspect of literacy development: it contributes greatly to oral
and to written acquisition ‘since oral language provides the foundation for reading and
writing’ (Hoecherl-Alden, 2006, p. 246). ‘Students are rarely allowed to view a text as
anything but an abstract, flat piece of printed matter, isolated from and irrelevant to their
lives’ (Heathcote, 1982, as cited in Wessels, 1987, p. 93) and even though text analysis
and reading cannot be omitted from language teaching, the teacher ‘needs to breathe life
into the words on the paper’ (Ronke, 2005, p. 132). The implementation of dramatic
1872 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

games and techniques, and enactment strategies encourages students to become more
creative and ‘to apply their social, physical and intellectual selves to L2 literature analy-
sis’ (Hoecherl-Alden, 2006, p. 244). A simple drama script extract and appropriate activi-
ties make drama work at the level of repeated reading, decoding knowledge and
expanding vocabulary, developing syntactic knowledge as well as discourse and meta-
cognitive knowledge (McMaster, 1998) which ultimately may lead to the improvement
of learners’ oral skills. Creative interaction with a dramatic text results in communicating
personal interpretation. Hence, by meaningfully combining dramatic learner-centred
activities with analysis of authentic texts can help students to deepen their understanding
not only of the target language but also of the culture. Similarly, teaching grammar in the
context of a text and using drama activities can be an effective way of helping earners
understand specific grammatical structures more easily (O’Gara, p. 2008). As Giebert
(2014, p. 4) observes, dramatic activities ‘lend meaning to language structures by letting
students experience the language in concrete situations’. Furthermore, students will
more likely become emotionally involved: on one hand, there will be emotional personal
responses to the text (Hoecherl-Alden, 2006, p. 260) whilst on the other hand, the dra-
matic games in which students take part will also engage their feelings and, in this way,
language will become more memorable. Drama can additionally provide a low affective
filter through the enjoyable atmosphere created which can increase motivation and in
turn promote learning (Ronke, 2005) whilst catering to the wide range of students’ learn-
ing styles. As Krashen (1982) holds in his ‘Affective filter theory’ if motivation is low
the affective filter is high, and the brain will not be receptive to language input. He also
posits that students’ language learning acquisition emerges from their own experiences
within the context of meaningful, useful and natural language input which a drama
approach to literary texts can create.
Still, a dramatic text will ‘blossom into its full range of meaning only when put on a
stage by actors in flesh and blood’ (Sosulski, 2008, p. 7) as only by performing one has
the chance to see drama from the inside offering the students the possibility of interpret-
ing the words and giving them meaning, not only through the words uttered by charac-
ters, but by using gestures and body movements which more evocatively reveal the
relationship between the characters, their attitudes and intentions. Discussion of charac-
ters’ motivation and thoughts along with acting give learners opportunities to engage
more fully with the language which may lead to an improvement of their oral skills. A
full-scale performance places the students in a realistic, quasi-immersive language situ-
ation in which learners negotiate meaning and learn by doing. Throughout the numerous
phases of production, like textual analysis and discussion, warm-up techniques, rehears-
als and props preparation and performance, learners engage in an array of communica-
tive approaches, through discussion and interaction in the target language. In these types
of collaborative activities learners deal with language features in context rather than in
isolation making learning more meaningful and effective (Almond, 2005; Gill, 2013).
Ronke (2005) noticed how learning via rehearsals, in particular, generates a real need for
intensive and longer-lasting interaction which leads to the improvement of pronuncia-
tion, accuracy and fluency. As Gill (2013) observes, group performance allows for exten-
sive learner discourse, fosters balanced participation, and because it is student-centred,
instils a sense of motivation in the students, thereby fitting the description of a successful
Bora 1873

speaking activity as defined by Ur (1996), which is conducive to oral skills development.

Similarly, Kao and O’ Neill (1994) suggest that script-based drama forms and working
on a performance towards an end product can be suitable for enhancing learners’ accu-
racy. Apart from possible language improvement, taking on a role and acting enhances
self-confidence (Wessels, 1987, p. 13) because it is cooperative and mutually supportive
(Senior, 2002), but above all is fun and full of enjoyment (Almond, 2005; Bora, 2020a).
A full-scale performance has the unique ability to engage many different types of intel-
ligences, as theorized by Gardner (1983), to enable rapport between students and inspire
them. More importantly, Bora (2020a) has found that learners who learned through a
blended-drama approach were more involved and more engaged with their learning as
compared to those learning via a traditional approach.

2 Studies of background knowledge

Using authentic texts and various drama activities as well as engagement in a theatrical
production of a literary text were found to be conducive to oral skills development.
Miccoli (2003) explored the value of teaching English through drama to help university
students in Brazil enhance their oral skills. Results gathered from students’ self-reports
only revealed that they experienced an improvement in their oral skills, especially in
pronunciation and vocabulary, and higher confidence in speaking. Ryan-Scheutz and
Colangelo (2004) implemented a contemporary play as an extra-curricular project with
10 university students over the course of 27 rehearsals (each ranging from one hour and
fifteen minutes to two hours) during a 10-week period. Results obtained from a version
of American Council oral proficiency interviews showed notable improvements in learn-
ers’ oral skills. However, there is insufficient evidence that the instrument was carefully
designed and evaluated before implementation and additionally, there was no compari-
son group in their study. In another study, Járfás (2008) researched the feasibility of
implementing a full-scale production in an intact class within a compulsory curriculum
over a two-term period using a questionnaire as a data collection instrument. The learn-
ers did not manage to stage the performance, however, the questionnaires revealed self-
reported increased gains in accuracy and pronunciation. It appeared that the meaningful
task gave students motivation and input to speak more in the target language in an inter-
active environment. Sirisrimangkorn & Suwanthep (2013) conducted a 16-week study
with 80 undergraduate students learning English at a university in Taiwan to determine
whether the pedagogical use of drama-based role-play and cooperative dramatic activi-
ties would have an effect on students’ L2 oral skills. The learners underwent memoriza-
tion of a script, rehearsal and reflection aimed at achieving a common goal of staging a
performance, as well as being involved in other cooperative dramatic activities. Findings
from a pre-/post speaking test showed that blended drama role-play and dramatic activi-
ties had a significant effect on students’ speaking skills as compared to a control group
not exposed to dramatic actives measured on a global scale of language proficiency.
Finally, Schenker (2017) carried out an extra-curricular semester-long German theatre
project at a small private college in the US with undergraduates which culminated in a
performance. Students’ self-perception of learning knowledge was tested. Results
showed that all students agreed that the play had improved their pronunciation skills. The
1874 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

majority perceived an increase in their vocabulary and some of them found the project
beneficial for their grammar knowledge. More recently, Korkut and Çelik (2018) nar-
rowed down their investigation and developed 18 hours of creative drama sessions with
12 Turkish volunteers learning English at university level directed towards developing
learners’ pronunciation. A pre-/post-test read aloud task showed that the learners exposed
to drama improved more at suprasegmental level as compared to the control group.
Thus, despite the heartening results offered by these previous studies, no study has to
date endeavoured to quantify potential improvements attained by students involved in
learning English through a blended-drama form of instruction, especially when designed
as part of a compulsory high school curriculum. Moreover, no previous study has meas-
ured participants’ improvements in L2 speech production in terms of (1) complexity
(syntactic complexity and mean length of AS-units; henceforth MLAS) and (2) accuracy
(global accuracy and pronunciation accuracy). As such, the following research questions
are posed in this reported study:

Research question 1: Does a blended drama approach promote the development of L2

oral complexity measured as syntactic complexity and MLAS?
Research question 2: Does a blended drama approach promote the development of L2
oral accuracy measured as global accuracy and pronunciation accuracy?

III Methodology
Vygotsky’s (1978) research on the importance of interaction and social context in lan-
guage learning offers an effective lens through which to view the impact of a blended-
drama approach on foreign language learners’ oral skills on sub-dimensions of complexity
and accuracy. Drama brings into play the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as theo-
rized by Vygotsky (1978) by offering possibilities for scaffolding through interaction and
cooperative learning, so that a learner can perform linguistic functions at a much higher
level than is possible individually. He defines ZPD as ‘the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by problem solving, and the level of potential devel-
opment as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration
with more capable peers’ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). Students learn better when they engage
in meaningful communication with other people and the dramatic activities offer numer-
ous opportunities for social interaction and peer feedback that are essential for internal-
izing new knowledge. When engaging in dramatic activities learners are encouraged to
use and learn language within interactively situated social contexts which are sensitive to
learners’ potential development.

1 Context of study and participants

The longitudinal study took place in a small private school in a small town in the north-
ern part of Italy. An intact class of 10 final year high school students took part in the
study for the experimental group (henceforth EXG) and the same number for the control
group (henceforth CG). These two groups of learners, aged 18–20 years with a
Bora 1875

lower-intermediate to upper-intermediate level of language, were taught over 20 weeks

during a spring and a summer term with a frequency of one lesson of 120 minutes per
week. Prior to the intervention, both groups were taught by the same teacher and both of
them had the same level of language proficiency as shown by their academic perfor-
mance grades as well as similar language learning experience. Since this was a private
school where students were paying fees, they were all motivated to do well in their stud-
ies. None of the learners had been exposed to drama-based approaches before.
The EXG was exposed to a blended-drama instruction delivered by the teacher/
researcher, the author of the present article, who was in the school only for one academic
year (including the pilot study that took place in the first term) with the aim of collecting
data for research purposes. The EXG teacher/researcher was not a usual teacher at the
school. The CG instead continued being instructed through a traditional teacher-centred
approach by their usual schoolteacher who had a number of years of experience in this
specific school. In the traditional approach the learners received no exposure to any form
of drama and authentic literary texts. Coursebook texts written for the purposes of teach-
ing language rather than authentic texts were used instead. The usual lesson would con-
sist of teaching grammatical structures and vocabulary by using drills, gap-fill exercises
and rote memorization of lists of vocabulary with an emphasis on grammatical accuracy
which was generally the norm in the English classes. During such lessons, learners would
mostly sit at their desks, unlike in the blended drama approach where they would get the
chance to interact, move around and learn by doing.

2 Treatment: Blended-drama instruction

The blended-drama instruction comprised two phases. In the first phase, which stretched
over 10 weeks, the learners were taught grammar and vocabulary in context through a
variety of self-standing contemporary play extracts. The authentic texts selected inten-
tionally took into consideration the institutional grammatical syllabus. Self-standing
extracts from plays such as Little Brother, Little Sister and Us and Them by David
Campton, Educating Rita and Blood Brothers by Willy Russell, Skirmishes by Catherin
Hayes, The Patient by Agatha Christie and A Night Out by Harold Pinter were studied.
They exemplified the grammatical structure to be learned on the day and formed the
basis for classroom discussions and drama activities.1 Grammar was taught mainly
inductively. That is to say, under the teacher’s guidance, learners would deduce the gram-
mar point from the play extract themselves which would be ultimately more enduring as
compared to the passive transmission of knowledge by the teacher. The new grammar
and vocabulary were then practiced through various activities and games. Role-plays,
simulations, creative storytelling, characters’ presentations or various grammatical struc-
ture games were used as a means of scaffolding to reinforce the grammatical points and
the lexis (see Appendix 2). These activities were mainly designed to encourage responses
to the text, creativity and in-depth analyses of the text with a focus on character, plot,
grammar and vocabulary, increasing the learners’ opportunities for speaking and creating
a safe atmosphere in which learners could talk without reservations.
In the second phase, lasting a further 10 weeks, the learners worked together towards
preparing a staging of Over the Wall (Saunders, 1977). This one-act play was selected
1876 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

since it was accessible in terms of language, length (approximately 17 minutes on the

stage) and theme: a philosophical quest which was meant to be engaging for the students.
It was also believed to be manageable in the ten English lessons available. Above all, the
great advantage of this play was that any number could take part in the play, thus allow-
ing learners to choose if they favoured being actors or taking on production roles such as
stage managers, costume designers, etc. There was also a fair balance between actors in
actors the quantity of lines to memorize. All learners decided to take on a role once the
play had been studied through close reading, discussions and analyses of the characters.
During the rehearsals, learners tried to memorize their lines, discussed the script in more
depth and acted their parts for linguistic precision, pronunciation and accuracy. Warm-up
drama activities and stretching routines with physical, vocal and linguistics objectives
were performed at the beginning of the lessons. These activities aimed to establish a
relaxed learning environment, energize and help the learners to focus. Some games com-
bined linguistic goals such as exploring new vocabulary with performing objectives such
as learning lines by heart whilst experimenting with different emotions and tone of voice
(see Appendix 2). All these goal-oriented activities gave learners further language prac-
tice in order to develop their spoken skills in terms of vocabulary, fluency, pronunciation
and accuracy. Although they did not manage to fully memorize all their lines due to time
constraints and various levels of commitment, a presentation of the play, in which learn-
ers made use of rudimentary props, was held in the final English lesson.
The design of the study was dictated by the demands of a compulsory curriculum at
this specific stage of learning English in that the grammatical syllabus had to be covered
and grammar rules had to be taught systematically and gradually from a cognitively
simple to a higher level of language difficulty. The theatre project, instead, was designed
to consolidate the points of grammar taught in the previous stage, and further improve
fluency, grammatical and pronunciation accuracy, and to expand learners’ vocabulary
and thus language complexity.

3 Data collection procedure

Samples of speech to be analysed were collected through an oral pre-test and an immedi-
ate post-test administered at the beginning and end respectively of the whole period of
instruction by implementing three tasks: a story-retelling from a written stimulus, an oral
proficiency interview (OPI) and a guided role-play (GRP). Although the content of the
task was different for the two testing phases, they had the same level of difficulty. The
multiple tasks were used to allow for triangulation of data and to ensure some tasks did
not favour others unfairly. Table 1 gives details of the tasks used in the oral test and sum-
marizes their characteristics. The times given are based on the period spent by the learn-
ers speaking during their actual test in the main study.
Based on previous results in second language acquisition (SLA) research, different
testing task formats were chosen in the present study because there is some evidence that
L2 complexity and accuracy depend on the type of tasks used for eliciting samples of
oral speech. Planned tasks have been found to increase complexity, but not accuracy
(Levkina & Gilabert, 2012; Ortega, 1999); narrative tasks appear to favour greater accu-
racy (Skehan & Foster, 1997) whilst a task in which there is greater scope for interaction
Bora 1877

Table 1. Testing formats used for eliciting samples of oral speech in the pre- and post-test.

Instrument/ Description Planned/ Additional skills Interaction/ Speaking time

task unplanned involved status (minutes)
OPI Pre-structured Unplanned Listening Dialogic; high 10–15
questions (real time) status: S–I
Story-retelling Self-standing Planned (15 Reading Monologic 2–6
(written extract minutes)
stimulus)
Guided role- Information Semi-planned Listening + Dialogic; 3–5
play guide papers (5 minutes) Reading equal status:
S–S

Notes. I = interviewer. S = students.

seems to promote accuracy, but not complexity (Ferrari, 2012). Accordingly, different
types of tasks were chosen to obtain a variety of speech samples (e.g. spontaneous and
planned) and obtain a broad representation of learners’ oral abilities. The tasks featured
different content and an equal level of difficulty in the two phases of testing. In order to
make sure the tests had the same level of difficulty the two extracts used for the story-
retelling were checked for readability. For this purpose the Flesch readability software in
the Compleat Lexical Tutor website was run which displays the vocabulary profile of a
text (Cobb, 2010).

IV Data analysis
1 Complexity
In this study, complexity is the extent to which the language produced in performing a
task is elaborated and varied (Ellis, 2003) and which translates into a learner’s capacity
to use more advanced language and richer vocabulary. Complexity can be measured on
various dimensions which are used to quantify the elaboration of language. Syntactic
complexity and Mean length of AS-units (MLAS) were chosen for the present study. The
production unit used in this study for syntactic complexity is the AS-unit (‘analyses of
speech unit’) which is specific to SLA research and used frequently since it was first
proposed as an improved option for oral discourse segmentation by Foster et al. (2000).
The AS-unit is ‘a single speaker utterance consisting of an independent clause, or sub-
clausal unit, together with any subordinate clause(s) associated with either’ (Ellis, 2003,
p. 365). ‘An independent sub-clausal unit’ is formed by ‘either one or more phrases
which can be elaborated to full clause by means of recovery of ellipted elements from the
context of the discourse situation’ (Ellis, 2003, p. 366). Such a unit, specifically designed
for spoken production, is sensitive to genuine differences in performance, especially in
highly interactional ones. The process of coding started with the manual transcription of
the samples of speech in MS Word (2010) that were next segmented into independent,
subordinate clauses, and sub-clausal units. Subsequently, AS-unit boundaries were cre-
ated and calculated. Lastly, ratios of clauses per AS-unit were calculated.
1878 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

MLAS measures the level of complexification occurring in units smaller than clauses,
such as the noun phrase, and constitutes a more global metric for indexing overall syn-
tactic complexity (Malicka, 2018; Mora & Valls-Ferrer, 2012; Norris & Ortega, 2009).
In this study, MLAS was measured as mean number of words per AS-unit which was
calculated by dividing the total number of words by the total number of AS-units in a
speech file. If the results show that the students increased the number of words in an
AS-unit, it means that they possess a larger repertoire of syntactic structures than previ-
ously attained and implicitly, a richer lexis. The number of words in a file transcription
was shown automatically by MS Word.

2 Accuracy
Accuracy is dually defined as ‘the ability to produce error-free speech’ (Lennon, 1990, p.
390), and ‘the extent to which the language produced conforms to target language norms’
(Yuan & Ellis, 2003, p. 2). Accuracy was operationalized as global accuracy and pronun-
ciation accuracy. A global measure of accuracy was adopted which has the advantage of
being potentially the most comprehensive in that all errors are taken together (Iwashita
et al., 2008, p. 31). The percentage of error-free clauses has often been used in research
as a global measure (Foster & Skehan, 1996), however, this measure leads to possible
bias as it ignores cases where there is more than one error in a clause. A further potential
disadvantage of using the percentage of error-free clauses as a measure is that if a speaker
uses many short correct utterances, the resulting score may be inflated (Skehan & Foster,
2012, p. 203). To analyse global accuracy, the ratio of errors per 100 words (t-unit) was
counted and all errors related to syntax and lexical choice were taken into consideration:
verb tenses, third person singular, articles, prepositions, plural markers (Nitta &
Nakatsuhara, 2014), to which word-order and omissions were added because they con-
stituted frequent mistakes found in learners’ testing samples. However, features of repairs
were excluded from the analyses of global accuracy because learners show evidence of
correct use of the target-like features when it is shown in their repaired utterance.
Pronunciation accuracy was assessed at word-level by making a distinction between
‘meaningful’ (intelligible) and ‘non-meaningful’ (unintelligible). A meaningful error
comprised marginally target like word pronunciation (e.g. ‘The story talks /tɔlks/ about
. . .’ instead of talk /tɔ:k/) and clearly non-target like word pronunciation (e.g. ‘The
mother and her son /su:n/ . . .’, instead of son /sʌn/). All these pronunciation errors taken
together were calculated and ratios of errors per 100-words (t-unit) were computed
(adapted from Iwashita et al., 2008). Standard British English was considered the target
language when coding the data.

3 Research method for complexity and accuracy analyses

To ensure reliability of measurements on (sub)dimensions of complexity and accuracy,
intra-rater reliability was carried out. The intra-rater reliability is the consistency of a
single marker with him/herself (Weir, 2005). Two months after originally coding the data
for the main study, the researcher re-coded 10% of the data (a total of about 5,000 words)
for global accuracy and pronunciation accuracy and respectively complexity in terms of
Bora 1879

AS-units and clauses. Samples to be recoded were chosen randomly from the pre-test
and post-test and from the three types of tasks (one sample per task). Scholfield (1995,
p. 206) states that a typical view regarding desirable levels of reliability ‘would suggest
aiming for 0.6 in exploratory research, 0.75 for hypothesis testing research, and 0.9 for T
purposes’, where T refers to teaching purposes within a pedagogical context and where
individual cases are often being assessed (Scholfield, personal communication,
September 2013). The results for the intra-coder agreement proved to be very high: .996
(99.6%) for AS-units and clauses, .94 (94%) for global accuracy and .983 (98.3%) for
pronunciation accuracy which assured that the segmentation and measurement proce-
dures were highly reliable.
Prior to performing the statistical analyses, Kolmogorov–Smirnov pre-test normality
check tests were performed. The results showed data to be normally distributed and thus
suitable for parametric analyses. Consequently, a two-way ANOVA design was used to
check if there were any statistically significant differences of interest between pre-test
and post-test in the CG and EXG and if so, whether the difference was greater in the
EXG. Box’s test of equality of covariances and Levene’s test of equality of variances
were used in order to see if the data met the assumptions for this type of analyses. The
0.05 level of confidence was used as the criterion level for determining a significant dif-
ference. Subsequently, post-hoc follow-up paired sample t-tests were performed in order
to check the significance of the differences between pairs of occasions within the groups.
In order to reduce type II errors the usual threshold significance value of p = 0.05 was
divided by 2 giving p = .025 as the threshold for these post-hoc tests. A one-way ANOVA
general linear model was performed separately for each group to calculate the effect size.
For the present empirical study effect sizes are important because they show which
approach had a greater effectiveness in developing L2 learners’ complexity and accu-
racy. For interpreting the magnitude of the effect sizes the subsequent benchmarks were
considered: .10 to .29 (small effect size), .30 to .59 (medium effect size) and .60 to 1.0
(large effect size).

V Results
Table 2 gives the mean accuracy and complexity scores for EXG and CG on pre- and
post-test.

1 Syntactic complexity
The results of pre-/post comparison test of syntactic complexity for CG and EXG (Figure
1) disclosed a significant effect of time, F (2,18) = 25.783, p < .001, ηp2 = .589, a sig-
nificant effect of group, F(2,18) = 13.820, p = .002, ηp2 = .434 and significant interac-
tion effect, F (2,18) = 9.629, p = .006, ηp2 = .349 which shows that the groups performed
differently. One-way RM-Anova with Bonferoni-Adjusted Pair-wise Comparisons indi-
cated that the EXG improved significantly t (–4.798), p < .001 and a large effect size
(.642) was obtained whereas the CG obtained a non-significant score t (–1.889), p =
.092 with a small effect size (.235). In sum, this result shows that the blended drama
approach was highly effective in developing learners’ syntactic complexity unlike the
1880 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

Table 2. Mean accuracy and complexity scores for experimental and control group on pre-
and post-test.

Experimental group Control group

Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test

M SD M SD M SD M SD
Global accuracy .0557 .02351 .0233 .02277 .0577 .02323 .0469 .02195
Pronunciation .0099 .00494 .0017 .00132 .0088 .00467 .0082 .00516
accuracy
Syntactic 1.2415 .09850 1.6002 .14918 1.2815 .09450 1.3585 .10664
complexity
MLAS 8.8452 1.40471 10.4876 1.6384 8.7426 1.29993 8.9184 .78726

traditional approach. Figure 1 illustrates mean scores for syntactic complexity ratings
across groups and time.

2 Mean Length of AS-units (MLAS)

As for MLAS (Figure 2) significant improvement over time F (2,18) = 7.784, p = .012,
ηp2 = .302 was detected. There was no significant main effect of group F(2,18) = 2.885,
p = 107, ηp2 = .138, but the interaction effect of time by group was significant F(2,18)
= 5.065, p = .037. ηp2 = .220. Similar to the syntactic complexity, only the EXG
improved significantly t (–.3.490), p = .007 with a large effect size (.567) whilst the CG
registered a slight, but not significant improvement t (–.390), p = .706 and a very small
effect size (.089). These results suggest that drama blended approach was highly effec-
tive for developing learners’ MLAS as compared to a traditional approach. Figure 2
illustrates mean scores for MLAS ratings across groups and time.

3 Global accuracy
The results of pre/post comparison of error rate for CG and EXG (Figure 3) revealed a
significant effect of time, F(2,18) = 40.557, p < .001, ηp2 = .693, but no significant
effect of group, F(2,18) = 2.252, p = .151, ηp2 = .111. The main effect of time shows
the learners improved over time regardless of the group. However, a significant interac-
tion effect of time by group, F(2,18) = 10.199, p = .005, ηp2 = .362 was registered.
Post-hoc paired sample t-tests revealed that the EXG in fact did much better compared to
the CG as they improved highly significantly (p < .001), whilst the result for the control
group was just significant (p = .023). One-way ANOVA with Bonferoni-Adjusted Pair-
wise Comparisons showed that both groups improved significantly: the EXG did signifi-
cantly better t (5.883), p < .001 with a large effect size (.794) whilst the CG t (2.725), p
= .023 registered a moderate effect size (.452). In sum, results for global accuracy show
that this dimension of oral proficiency significantly improved for both groups, however,
the blended drama-based instruction had a greater impact as compared to the traditional
Bora 1881

Figure 1. Syntactic complexity scores for experimental and control group.

way of instruction. Figure 3 illustrates mean scores for global accuracy ratings across
groups and time.

4 Pronunciation accuracy
Regarding pronunciation accuracy (Figure 4), there was a significant effect of time
F(2.18) = 15.536, p < .001, ηp2 = .436, which confirms that both groups improved over
time, but no significant effect of group F(2.18) = 2.808, p = .111, ηp2 = .135 was found.
The interaction effect was also significant F(2.18) = 11.689, p = .003, ηp2 = .394 dis-
closing that there was a difference in the improvement made in the two groups. The post-
hoc t-tests, however, showed that in this instance only the EXG improved highly
significantly t (5.468), p < .001 registering a high effect size (.769) as opposed to the CG
which did not attain significance t (.353), p = .732 and the effect size was very small
(.021). Hence, the blended drama approach was notably superior to the traditional teach-
ing in improving learners’ pronunciation accuracy. Figure 4 illustrates mean scores for
pronunciation ratings across groups and time.

VI Discussion
Over the twenty-week instruction period, both EXG and CG groups showed changes in
the complexity and accuracy dimensions used in this study as would be expected after a
1882 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

Figure 2. Mean length of AS-units (MLAS) scores for experimental and control group.

Figure 3. Global accuracy scores for experimental and control group.

Bora 1883

Figure 4. Pronunciation accuracy scores for experimental and control group.

certain period of instruction. However, the scores for the blended-drama approach when
compared to the traditional approach proved to be significant on all measures of com-
plexity and accuracy whereas the CG obtained a significant result only for global
accuracy.
These results may be explained as follows. First, the blended-drama approach appears
to offer advantages in terms of promoting a greater syntactic complexity over a traditional
approach. The learners in the EXG obtained a significant result whilst the CG did not attain
significance. This is important in language learning as it implies the development of a rep-
ertoire of syntactic structures that demonstrates a more advanced stage of language profi-
ciency. A plausible explanation may be that by their nature, authentic pieces of literature
generally contain more complex and varied language as compared to contrived texts.
Constant exposure to a variety of styles and registers and to a greater richness of syntax and
lexis may have helped learners to acquire more vocabulary. It is likely they learned to com-
bine words whilst experimenting with more complex syntactic structures during continu-
ous practice in the process of interaction both with the text and with their peers. The variety
of dramatic games and activities implemented provided a means for scaffolding which may
have led to greater uptake, and conseguently to the significant improvement reflected in
participants’ scores. Furthermore, the debates and the numerous discussions when negoti-
ating for meaning or interpreting the text along with the numerous phases of rehearsals and
repetitions during the performance stage may all have contributed to a greater vocabulary
1884 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

retention and consequently to an increase in learners’ syntactic complexity. This is also

reflected in the significant score obtained by the EXG group for the MLAS which dis-
closed that an AS-unit tended to be longer, whilst the CG did not obtain a significant score.
This result is important as it supports the belief that a blended-drama approach in which
learners engage with authentic pieces of literature and authentic tasks that offer opportuni-
ties for more production output could lead to significantly larger gains in oral syntactic
complexity as compared to a traditional approach. Previous studies reported a positive
impact of drama on vocabulary improvement (Demircioğlu, 2010; Miccoli, 2003; Schenker,
2017), but not on syntactic complexity measures. Overall, the novelty of the whole blended-
drama experience increased learners’ enthusiasm (Bora, 2020a, 2020b) and this may have
had an impact on the positive results obtained by the EXG.
Regarding global accuracy both the CG and the EXG group improved significantly
after the post-test, however, the gains of the EXG were higher. This result might be
explained in the following ways: first, the learners’ accuracy might have improved due
to the repetition that occurred in the numerous phases of the rehearsals during the play
production. This offered learners the opportunity to pay attention to different features of
the discourse, amongst them the syntactical, morphological and lexical errors as the
focus was on ‘getting it right’, so as to make themselves understood both by the audience
formed by classmates during rehearsals and by the other actors in order to get the appro-
priate lines delivered back. Second, peer-correction may have encouraged awareness of
mistakes by offering the necessary corrections. Learners had multiple chances to correct
their erroneous grammar, as the more times a grammatical error is produced, the more
opportunities there are for learners to notice it. Thirdly, putting on stage a performance
creates a constant need for interaction between learners (Vygotsky, 1978) to help them
achieve a common goal in a purposeful and meaningful context: learners practiced lan-
guage together while undertaking cultural and linguistic analyses, or when working on
production-related activities such as creating costumes, props, etc. In this sense, the
Comprehensible Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1985) is also relevant. In the process of
interaction when a learner has received some negative input, the learner is pushed to use
alternative means to convey his or her message. Thus, the process of achieving
Comprehensible Output leads to a more accurate production of the foreign language
(Swain, 1985, p. 248). It seems that working on the performance gave students opportu-
nities not only to internalize and produce correct structures, but also to communicate
meaningfully. Although the learners did not manage to learn all their lines by heart, they
actively participated in all the activities required for the preparation of the production.
They memorized lines in class, performed repeatedly in front of their peers and discussed
critically the characters’ motivation and thoughts which may have increased their level
of attention to the accuracy of their linguistic output. During the formal intervention, the
students in the CG were exposed to constant grammatical practice through fill-in the gap
or multiple-choice exercises and consequently, their error rate decreased over time, how-
ever, with a different impact on the other dimensions of oral proficiency.
As for pronunciation accuracy the EXG achieved a highly statistically significant
score after the drama-blended instruction was implemented. This result seems unsur-
prising since some of the activities, especially the warm-ups used, were theatre tech-
niques which had a clear focus on pronunciation development. Based on previous
Bora 1885

literature, it may be that the rehearsal phase contributed greatly to this score since this
stage unavoidably required and pushed learners to practice speaking and rehearse their
pronunciation to a higher extent as well as experimenting with pitch, volume and into-
nation patterns. First, in order to memorize their dialogue, they had to repeat their
allocated part of the script numerous times. Second, they had to be careful to speak
with a correct pronunciation in order to make themselves understood both by the class
audience and by the other peer-actors who needed to deliver the appropriate lines back
in response. Peer correction, as theorized by Vygotsky (1978), might also have played
an important role in fostering learners’ pronunciation as multiple repetitions also pro-
vide more chances for those involved in a play to make themselves aware of pronun-
ciation errors and provide the required corrections. Since the learners were aware the
focus was on the way they delivered the lines and ideally with the correct pronuncia-
tion, they may have been motivated to speak as accurately as possible. It may be that
the performance offered a safe atmosphere in which the learners could take risks
regardless of mispronunciation and, consequently, their pronunciation skills improved.
Thus, the blended-drama approach provided a useful setting for learners to practise
their pronunciation in an effective way because practicing pronunciation in the context
of a drama-based blended approach facilitated greater uptake by learners. The improve-
ment in pronunciation accuracy is in line with findings from previous studies (Bora,
2020a; Dodson, 2002; Korkut & Çelik, 2018; Miccoli, 2003; Ryan-Scheutz &
Colangelo, 2004, 2008), confirming the effectiveness of a blended-drama approach
with a performative component for developing L2 oral skills.

VII Conclusions
This study sought to establish the extent to which learners exposed to a blended
drama-based approach improved their oral skills on the sub-components of complex-
ity and accuracy: syntactic complexity, MLAS, global and pronunciation accuracy.
The differences in pre-test and post-test scores for the EXG and the CG showed that
learners who learned through a blended-drama form of instruction significantly
improved their pronunciation accuracy, syntactic complexity and MLAS when com-
pared to the CG whilst there was no significant statistical result for global accuracy
between the two groups. However, the accuracy achieved by the EXG was greater
than that of the CG with a greater effect size. That is to say, the blended-drama
approach was more effective than the traditional approach in developing learners’ L2
spoken skills. The participants in the EXG, as a result of exposure to a drama-based
form of instruction started speaking more accurately using a wider range of vocabu-
lary in longer sentences. A noteworthy result of this study is that learners in the EXG
improved their syntactic complexity, MLAS and pronunciation accuracy at nearly
double the rate of the CG over the same period of time. It appears that authentic
texts, dramatic activities and games spurred learners’ motivation and offered oppor-
tunities for learning grammar and lexicon in context. As posited by Vygotsky (1978),
cooperative learning and meaningful interaction especially during the play produc-
tion increased students’ confidence in manipulating language, as it seems that a more
natural and spontaneous interaction was promoted by the authentic communicative
1886 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

situations created in a blended drama approach rather than in a traditional class set-
ting. Performing in front of peers as well as using peer-correction (Vygotsky, 1978)
may have made students more aware of their mistakes and they corrected each other
without the risk of ‘losing face’ which resulted in higher global and pronunciation
accuracy. Predominantly, learning lines, constantly using the target language and
gaining confidence during the play production phase are all likely to have contrib-
uted to the students’ increased competence in the target language.
An important strength of this study is that the blended-drama lessons were entirely
integrated into the students’ weekly English classroom routine within the compulsory
foreign language syllabus. At the level of design, an additional strength was that the
pre-/post-tests were used both as data collection instruments and for course assess-
ment without using additional time for learners’ evaluation. However, it can be argued
that students might have been more motivated to do better than otherwise expected all
throughout their course by taking part in the activities and performing well because
the testing was part of their required school assessment. Accordingly, they strove to
achieve better marks and the overall significant results could well be influenced by
this fact.
As with any study that endeavours to explore new and under-researched areas, the
research reported here has limitations. The sample sizes of learners were small and the
research was also limited to a small public school. Furthermore, the sample of students
participating in the experimental study was not randomly selected, thus, generalizability
cannot be extended to all contexts and settings. Further research would benefit from
larger sample sizes in different school settings to corroborate the results of the present
study. Another limitation may be that although a variety of tasks were used, they were
conducted in a test environment which may have affected the scores. Learners were more
prepared to do well given that the scores were part of their curricular assessment.
Additionally, given the design of the study in which the participants’ level of language
ranged from lower-intermediate to upper-intermediate, with most of them having a mid-
intermediate level, the present findings may not be relevant to all stages of language
proficiency.
Nevertheless, from a pedagogical perspective, this study constitutes another step
towards more empirical and less anecdotal research in the field of drama in language
teaching, and attempts to offer more insights regarding new ways, variations and
possibilities in implementing drama-based approaches within a mandatory rather
rigid compulsory curriculum. As for the implications, it is hoped that this study will
persuade language instructors to use authentic literature and drama approaches in
their classes so that drama could become a greater part of foreign language instruc-
tion in order to foster the development of L2 oral complexity and accuracy among
other skills whilst cultivating learners’ positive attitudes towards foreign language
learning.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Bora 1887

ORCID iD
Simona Floare Bora https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2223-1323

Note
1. For an example of a play excerpt used in class, see Appendix 1 in Bora, 2020a.

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Appendix 1. Guided role-play.

Task: Guided role-play

You are going to act out a scene in a theatre where one of you is a customer and the other
one is a box-office assistant. The customer wants to book a ticket for a performance based on
few of the requirements provided.
Candidate A
1. You have 5 minutes to read the following information and think about what you want to say.
2. If there is anything that you do not understand, please, ask the teacher who is with you. Do
not start talking with your partner yet.
3. After this 5 minutes preparation time, you will start interacting with another candidate.
A. Customer
  You want:
• A comedy or a historical play
• To be played in a foreign language
• To spend up to 15 pounds
• The theatre to be as near as possible to the city centre
• An evening performance
• To be a contemporary play
• Tickets for two people

Task: Guided role-play

You are going to act out a scene in a theatre where one of you is a customer and the other
one is a box-office assistant. The customer wants to book a ticket for a performance based on
the requirements provided.
Candidate B
1. Y ou have 5 minutes to study the following information carefully so that you can answer A
(customer).
2. If there is anything that you do not understand, please, ask the teacher who is with you. Do
not start talking with your partner yet.
3. After this 5 minutes preparation time, you will start interacting with another candidate.
B. Box-office assistant

Performance Theatre Day Language Ticket price

Henry V, Shakespeare The Globe Saturday, 7pm English £15
Blood Brothers, Willy Russell Oliver Theatre Wednesday, 2pm Italian £17
Absent Friends, Alan National Theatre* Saturday, 8pm Italian £5
Ayckbourn
The Patient, Agatha Christie Palace Theatre* Sunday, 2pm English £10
Us and Them, David Hall Palace Tuesday, 7pm English £16
Campton
Endgame, Samuel Becket National Theatre* Saturday, 2pm Italian £9

Notes. * the theatre is situated right in the centre of the town.

Bora 1891

Appendix 2
Examples of warm-up games, theatrical techniques and games

1 Focus
• Description: Ask the learners to stand in a circle with their feet slightly apart tak-
ing deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Stand on tiptoes
for three seconds and then down again. Repeat this until everyone can do it with-
out wobbling for seven seconds. Then ask the learners to close their eyes and
stand on their tiptoes. Again, repeat the action until everyone can perform the task
without wobbling.
• Purpose: Help to focus and concentrate on the lesson.

2 Finger to finger
• Description: Put students into pairs (A and B) and ask them to make contact with
the forefingers. ‘As’ close their eyes whilst ‘Bs’ leads them around the room by
the forefinger. After a couple of minutes reverse role.
• Purpose: Make them aware of the physical space, of getting the feeling of the
space in the room and of the proximity of people around.

3 Breathing exercises
• Description: Students sit in a circle and the teacher gives directions: Imagine how
you might breathe if you had just climbed a long flight of stairs, you had just
learned you had passed an examination you had expected to fail, had managed to
catch a train by running after it, etc. Students have to act the imagined scene.
• Purpose: Improve listening skills, learn new vocabulary, help to focus and con-
centrate on the lesson.

4 Tongue twisters
• Description: Students are given slips of paper with some tongue twisters (one
each). They are given time to memorize it and then, in turn they try to say it as best
as they can in front of the other classmates. Some of them can be repeated in
chorus.
• Purpose: Improve pronunciation, listening skills, vocabulary and fluency, ener-
gize group.

5 The glove (improvisation game)*

• Description: Students sit down on the floor forming a circle. A glove is thrown
into the middle of the circle. One by one the students would have to imagine a
short situation where the glove is used as representing something, stand up
1892 Language Teaching Research 28(5)

spontaneously, pick up the glove and act the scene in front of their peers either
miming or using their voice. After all students completed their turn some of the
scenes can be commented on so as to reveal what they were all about.
• Purpose: Offer an opportunity to improve imagination, fluency, accuracy, vocabu-
lary; help to focus and concentrate on the lesson.

6 I am a tree
• Description: In the exercise ‘I am a tree’ students spontaneously create a statue
whilst the game is in progress. Students sit in a half circle. One student gets up,
stands in the middle, assumes a pose and tells the others what he/she represents
(e.g. ‘I am a tree’). One after the other (in big classes, this exercise is best limited
to only a part of the class), the students position themselves in a way that adds to
the picture and say what/who they portray, e.g. ‘I am the apple that hangs on the
tree’; ‘I am the bush next to the tree’; ‘I am the dog that pees on the tree’, etc. The
first person always sets the theme for the statue, e.g. ‘I am a circus tent’; ‘I am a
student in our German class’; ‘I am a train’, etc. The individual statues can come
alive when, for example, an observing student taps them on the shoulder, where-
upon each member of the statue spontaneously makes a statement fitting to their
image (e.g. ‘The apples on me are heavy’; ‘When will the class be finally over?’).
• Purpose: Practise non-verbal expression and improvisational speech, as well as
vocabulary and sentence structure.

7 Memorization game**
• Description: Write on the blackboard/whiteboard a few of the emotions and
moods from the play you are rehearsing (brainstorm as many emotions and moods
as possible from the play). Learners mill around the room repeating their lines.
Every ten seconds call out an emotion. Students must keep repeating their lines
with this emotion until you call out another one. For each of the emotions/charac-
ters, encourage the students to overreact and exaggerate. Let them have fun with
this.
• Purpose: Memorize lines in a funny way, practise with non-verbal expression,
learn and practise new vocabulary, learn how to form adverbs.

Suspiciously bewildered mumbling shuddering

doubtfully pleasantly Sharply
Laughing irritably unwillingly bluntly sulky
surprised muttering Breathlessly shyly

Notes. * Game learnt in Introduction to drama and theatre classes, Department of

Literature and Theatre Arts, University of Essex. ** Adapted from Almond, 2005,
p. 83.