Fostering foreign language skills through an extracurricular drama project

Abstract

Drama activities can have a variety of benefits for foreign language learners of all ages. Staging an entire play, however, is not often possible as part of traditional foreign language education due to curricular, programmatic and departmental constraints. This article summarises an extracurricular German theatre project carried out at a small private college in the US with undergraduate students of all levels of German. The semester-long project culminated in the performance of Albrecht Dürer's Die Physiker (The Physicists) in the German language. The article summarises benefits of using drama to enhance foreign language skills and offers recommendations for implementations of similar projects for other language instructors. Further, challenges of organising extracurricular foreign language drama projects at the college level will be outlined. The article ends with a brief analysis of students’ experiences during the project based on a feedback survey completed by the participants. Students’ self-perceived learning outcomes are highlighted.

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