Journal article
Developing young language learners’ oral language through drama: a systematic review
- Abstract:
- Success in literacy relies on the secure development of oral language, particularly for bilingual learners who are known to start school with lower oral language skills than their monolingual peers. Drama-based activities could have beneficial effects on children’s second language (L2) development, but the extent and strength of the evidence in favour of this claim has not been evaluated to date. We conducted a systematic review to fill this research gap. After searching for literature, we identified 471 initial records. Following systematic screening and selection, 29 studies that met the inclusion criteria were included for in-depth analysis. We found that the studies were all conducted in the last 25 years; spanned numerous geographical contexts and educational settings; involved children of varied ages and target L2s; used diverse drama pedagogies; and focused on distinct linguistic, psychological and social skills. Despite their differences, all studies reported positive effects of drama on children’s development of oral language and socio-affective skills in the L2. However, most studies were not able to give rise to unbiased conclusions regarding the effectiveness of drama as a pedagogical approach because of their design and reporting omissions. Based on our findings, we suggest that drama-based education programmes seem to have the potential to develop young L2 learners’ oral language and communication skills. However, more studies –involving more robust methods and more thorough reporting– are needed to draw firmer conclusions about the effectiveness of the approach.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.4MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1080/17501229.2026.2642400
Authors
- Publisher:
- Taylor & Francis
- Journal:
- Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching More from this journal
- Publication date:
- 2026-03-17
- Acceptance date:
- 2026-03-05
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1750-1237
- ISSN:
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1750-1229
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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2385398
- Local pid:
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pubs:2385398
- Deposit date:
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2026-03-05
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Faitaki et al
- Copyright date:
- 2026
- Rights statement:
- © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on whichthis article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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