REVISION ONLY! Reflection on a Filmed lesson and ways of integrating drama

Title Your Name Subject and Section Professor’s Name Date Part 1: Reflection on Filmed Improvisational Drama Activity After conducting the activity, I realized that the improvisational drama activity was created to work on different student skills, such as verbal expression, instantaneous thinking, teamwork, and confidence in public speaking. For instance, in the “Argument Starters" activity, the students were asked to engage in an impromptu conversation using prompts aligned with the goals we enumerated. In the succeeding sections, I will discuss some of the academic theories used to support the various pedagogical methods in the activity. One of the theories used in the activity is the Theory of Situated Learning, which highlights the role of real-world contexts in providing rich learning environments. Personally, I believe that this is one of the most appropriate theories for achieving our goals for two reasons. First, it states the incorporation of the improvisational activity in real-life conversational scenarios, and second, it also highlights the fact that the students could use the language in a manner that is relevant to their context (Onyeji et al., 2023). Going back to my previous readings (and experience), I realized that this theory is grounded and related to various other approaches that were heavily studied before. Let me discuss four related foundational theories that support our pedagogical approach. First, reading the Situated Learning approach made me think this relates to Piaget’s idea that cognitive development is achieved through social interaction and collaborative problem-solving. It stimulated cognitive development through conversation and negotiation (MacQueeney et al., 2022). This is because situated learning focuses explicitly on learning at the moment, which entails face-to-face interactions between learners and the teacher itself. Second, the said theory relates to what I have read regarding Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. Central to his theories was the idea that (a) language has a vital role in terms of cognitive development and (b) learning can be mediated through meaningful conversations (Rahmatirad, 2020). While I believe this approach may be limited in learning and teaching, combining these with dialogue-based activities such as the “Argument Starters” will help improve their language skills and enable them to develop higher-order thinking skills (Drama et al.). In other words, this shows that we could combine these two things to address the gaps between the pedagogical approaches. Third, aside from those already mentioned, there is also evidence from Swain's Output Hypothesis. Swain indicates that the good linguistic skills of language learners can be improved when being given the chance to produce language actively because it helps them refine language structures (Wanlu, 2021). Going back to what we did, this theory is supported by the improvisational nature of the activity, which promotes students' spontaneous speech and consequently helps them improve their verbal expression and fluency. Finally, the conduct and results of the activity also show that we can improve the activity's effectiveness by using Krashen's Input Hypothesis. Krashen says the language is acquired if exposed to the slightly advanced language input. To do this, the instructors should expose learners to problem-solving and critical thinking by suggesting a suitable combination of complex yet understandable premises (Wanlu, 2021). In this manner, students can be scaffolded towards developing language proficiency while being encouraged to function within their critical thinking and language proficiency. Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths Overall, our activity was highly successful. For one, this is because the improvisational drama shows evidence of several strengths that brought performance effectiveness in terms of students' language and speech competency. Another reason is that it indirectly calls for their involvement as they respond to the casual speech. I realized that this interactive method allowed all students to contribute questions, proving the efficiency of the activity and attracting attention throughout lesson time. This is an actual strength for me since, during traditional face-to-face discussions, the tendency is that several students who are not directly participating would be less attentive or tardy, which is not the case for this activity. Second, the activity led to a friendly yet challenging academic atmosphere where I and other students could share their ideas. On the one hand, the activity seemed comfortable enough for most students to accomplish as long as they put in enough effort. On the other hand, however, the activity also utilized effective scaffolding by making the succeeding orders unpredictable compared to before. Finally, the group activity also added to their oral and aural skills practice in a position meaningful framework. Overall, the success of...