Projects
Research suggests that oral language interventions delivered by teachers have the greatest impact on children’s development. However, not all teachers feel comfortable to incorporate drama into their practice.
This project aims to: investigate teachers’ current practices and beliefs concerning the use of drama-based activities for oral language development; identify their needs and challenges as they endeavour to incorporate drama into their teaching; and further our understanding how teachers perceive the potential impact of drama-based activities on students' oral language skills and overall academic performance.
The project will involve the facilitation of focus groups with primary school teachers and support staff. The project will result in academic-facing and practitioner-facing outputs (e.g., CPD workshops and training materials for practitioners).
​
PI: Dr Faidra Faitaki | Co-I: Prof Victoria Murphy
Oral Language Development through Drama: Practitioner Needs and Perspectives (2023-2024)
Improving oral language skills in children with English as an Additional Language through a drama-based intervention (2022-2023)
This project, which is funded by the John Fell Fund (Oxford University Press), aims to develop and test an intervention for improving EAL children’s oral language skills in English through theatre – a medium that seems well-suited to developing oral language, but whose potential has not been evaluated to date.
The project involves a systematic review of the literature on the effect of creative activities on oral language development; a steering workshop with teachers and researchers; the design of the theatre workshops in collaboration with drama facilitators; the piloting of the resulting drama-based intervention with Year 1-3 children; the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data for evaluation purposes; and a knowledge exchange workshop to update the teachers and researchers who steered the project.
​
PI: Dr Faidra Faitaki | Co-I: Prof Victoria Murphy | Postdoctoral RA: Dr Sophie Liggins | RA: Joyce Li