![]() ![]() ![]() Consequently, in many FL classrooms, authenticity in language, task, and situation becomes a challenge because the pedagogical context of the language classroom makes what goes on inherently inauthentic, and the pedagogy in the language classroom lacks the genuine communicative value found in the real-world context (Beatty, 2015). In line with this trend, many teaching and practice tasks in the classroom focus mainly on pedagogical or remedial activities that aim to prepare students for tests rather than on tasks that genuinely engage students with real-world language, tasks and situations that are rich in communicative characteristics, such as purposefulness, reciprocity, synchronicity, and unpredictability (Beatty, 2015 Thornbury, 2010 see also Widdowson, 1990). Unfortunately, due to the demands of test-driven curricula, authenticity is often not inherent in the language pedagogy in many second language (L2) and FL classrooms (Widdowson, 1990). Authenticity in the language education literature is often discussed in terms of three aspects: authenticity in language, task and situation (Beatty, 2015 Breen, 1985). So, how do language instructors and scholars perceive the concept of authenticity? According to Celce-Murcia ( 2008), communicative value is a telling sign of authenticity. This issue speaks to the need to design effective authentic tasks that can better prepare FL learners for real-world oral communication. In the case of oral performance, however, while practicing their oral skills, FL learners in the classroom tend to target their presentation assignment on their peers and the teacher, and the presentations generated under such circumstances are often shaped by a restricted array of purposes and audience, and confined to the classroom-based activities and cohort. ![]() It has been repeatedly proven that students acquire a foreign language best when they have a real purpose for learning, and when their use of language is meaningful and authentic (Chamot, 2009 Enright et al., 1988 Long, 2015). One of the most effective ways of learning a target language is to apply it in a real-life context. This study explores drama-based activities as a vehicle for real-world situations to train foreign language (FL) oral presentation skills in tertiary education. Based on these findings, pedagogical implications for drama for FL oral presentation instruction are discussed. Analysis of the survey and retrospective data indicated that the participants’ attention to three presentation skills-structure, audience adaptation and content-was significantly raised after their presentation involved a real-life audience. In addition to the participants’ performance data, survey and retrospective protocols were utilized to shed light on how drama-based tasks targeting both classroom and authentic audiences influence college EFL learners’ presentation performance and their self-perceived oral presentation skills. This finding suggests that drama-mediated pedagogy effectively enhanced the experimental participants’ presentation performance and became more effective than the traditional approach only after a real-life audience was involved. Diachronic comparisons of the participants’ oral presentation skills under the two conditions showed that a significant between-group difference began to become pronounced only after the experimental participants started to present for real-life audiences other than their classmates. The experimental participants dramatized a picture book into a play, refined and rehearsed it for the classroom audience, and eventually performed it publicly as a theater production for community children. This year-long time series classroom-based quasi-experimental study followed a between-subjects design in which two classes of college EFL learners were exposed to two oral training conditions: (1) an experimental one in which drama-based training pedagogy was employed and (2) the comparison one in which ordinary public speaking pedagogy was utilized. Drama activities are reported to foster language learning, and may prepare learners for oral skills that mirror those used in real life. ![]()
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