Classroom as a Theatre Space – Effective Communication through Theatre

Abstract

Theatre as a pedagogical tool has been widely used in today’s context to teach language, literature, body language and empathy. Theatre is an inevitable part of an individual as human beings are constantly taking up different roles and performing them to the best of their ability both in the personal and professional contexts. This paper focusses on enhancing Communication Skills through Theatre in the classroom. Theatre can be used to enhance the Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing skills of the students. Employing theatrical aspects in the classroom would not only instill interest in the students but would also bring them close to the lessons contextually. The teacher plays the role of a facilitator here and later becomes part of the audience while the students take up the centre stage (classroom). The entire rehearsal process right from discussing, tinkering the script, rehearsing and finally performing the same in front of other classmates would add to the enhancement of the students’ communication skills and overall understanding of the given lesson. This paper aims to focus individually on developing each Communicative Skill by employing different aspects of theatre both within and outside the classroom setting. The author has employed theatre skills in the classroom for teaching General English Syllabus to UG students of various streams. The experience of the author along with students’ communication progress would be discussed in detail in this paper.