An investigation into the effects of creative drama activities on young learners' vocabulary acquisition: A case study

The primary concern of this study was to investigate the effects of creative drama activities on young learners? vocabulary acquisition. The current study was conducted on 78 seventh grade students at 30 Ağustos Primary School in Gaziantep. The participants consisted of two groups, treatment and control group. A variety of creative drama activities were administered to the treatment group for a duration of eight weeks. At the end of treatment period, both groups were administered a vocabulary achievement examination as a posttest as well as Gardner?s Attitude-Motivation Test Battery. Students? self-related and lesson-related feelings concerning creative drama classes were measured through an evaluation checklist immediately following each drama module.As a result of the quantitative analyses, it was found that creative drama activities had a significant effect on enhancing vocabulary acquisition of young learners in the treatment group. Students? responses to the checklists were supportive of creative drama lessons as the subjects found these lessons entertaining and educative. It was also discovered that students? motivation had a predictive effect on subjects? vocabulary examination scores. The results revealed that gender played a distinguishing role where females displayed higher success on the vocabulary measures than males while males in the treatment group made greater vocabulary gains compared to the males in the control group. Moreover, our results indicated that the treatment group students who achieved higher vocabulary scores also received higher grades from their English Course at the end of the term. In sum, our findings suggest that vocabulary attainment levels were superior when students are exposed to new vocabulary items by means of creative drama activities. The pedagogical implications of this study for primary school English classes are discussed and recommendations are made for further study in view of the findings.