The discourse of drama supporting literacy learning in an early years classroom

This article describes the discourse occurring during a guided drama event, with embedded literacy teaching, in an early years classroom. In this Preparatory school classroom, in 2007, dramatic pedagogies were privileged in the teaching of literacy across a year of learning, and a longitudinal research case study examined the effects of this approach. A discourse analysis of three film transcriptions from the data was conducted as part of the study, one of which is discussed here. The findings were that the teacher used the language of the personal and particular, with little explanation, generalisation, or questions eliciting student knowledge. Language was supported with action and modelled the speculative mode of investigation of the scientist, and the literate practice of recording single-word data. Dramatic features such as mood, pace, tension and the mantle of the expert supported the learning focus. Children's responses included active, engaged voices, the adoption of the mantle of the hypothesising, literate scientist, and the confident writing of words that had never been attempted out of role. Follow-up play sustained the teacher's oral and literacy-linked model and the students' self-efficacy as users of the alphabet.