The effect of body language centered drama activities on students' speaking skills in secondary school Turkish teaching

The body is undoubtedly the first language of communication in human history. Body language, the beginning of which goes back to the first human; it was the first language that people understood with each other. A person who is a social being; not only needs nutrition, shelter, security, knowing, respect and love, but also communication. Therefore, the ability to talk has been one of the most language skills individuals have used in everyday life throughout their lives. The drama method is a way to get people to know themselves and their environment, develop relationships, gain different perspectives, increase social harmony, and more. The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of the body language-based drama activities on the development of students' speech skills in secondary school Turkish education. The participants of the study are 55 students from 7th grade students in a secondary school in the province of Battalgazi in Malatya. This study uses a sequential descriptive pattern of mixed research methods. The quantitative part of the research used the semi experimental pattern, and the quantitative data of the research was collected with the Speech Skill Scale (2017); the phenomenology pattern was used in the qualitative part, and the data was collected with student logs, semi-structured interview form and observation form. In the quantitative part of the study, a control group and an experimental group were created. According to the pre-test results taken by the students from the attitude scale, the experimental and control group were determined. According to the results of the Mann Whitney U test, the groups were found to be equal. In the experimental group, the courses were taught with the body language-based drama prepared in the context of the Turkish teaching program achievements, while the current Turkish course teaching program was used in the control group. At the end of the study, 9 experimental group students had a semi-structured interview and after each drama practice, they collected logs and observed the first and last videos of students' body language-centred speech skills. Reliability and validity work has been carried out on the quantitative and qualitative data collection tools that have been implemented. The analysis of the final tests in the experimental and control group was performed with the Mann Whitney U test. Qualitative data is analysed by code and categories formed by content and descriptive analysis. When the results of the study were examined, it was concluded that the Turkish course, which was taught with body language-based drama events, was more effective than the usual Turkish course. Likewise, after the body language-based drama activities of the students participating in the study, the interest and love for the speech skills increased, and the anxiety and concern decreased. In addition, it has been seen that students have begun to use body language comfortably in both classroom and daily life. Based on the results of the research on qualitative data, it was observed that students started to use body language both in and out of the classroom, speech skills developed and even existing speech disorders were improved. The study results are compared from both similar and different angles by analysing the literature. Looking at the results, it is possible for researchers to diversify in order to obtain rich data in their studies; for drama practices, they should make a pilot scheme before applying the drama workshops and pay attention to the physical characteristics of the place where the drama will be applied; for institutions, suggestions were made to give pre-service teachers the opportunity to practice in drama classes in education faculties and to give drama training to teachers in in-service courses opened within the Ministry of National Education.