The effect of drama on language teaching success

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of the drama activities on academic success in basic language arts, and its relation with learning styles. The group in this study consisted of 58 6th grade students attending elementary school in Erzurum City Centre during the 2009-2010 academic year. The group was divided in two sections: one was the control group, in which a conventional method was used; the other was the experimental group. This study uses the “pre-test/post-test control group” pattern, which is one of the experimental research models. The learning styles for the study group were gathered using the Kolb Learning Style Inventory; the data on their academic success was gathered with the Turkish Course Achievement Test; student opinions were gathered using the Student Opinion Form). The qualitative data was analyzed with SPSS 11.5 while the qualitative data was analyzed with the content analysis method. Analyses demonstrated a considerable difference between the experimental and control group in teaching the Turkish course language skills, favouring the experimental group in terms of academic success and opinions.