TY - JOUR ID - 112688 TI - Teaching Literature through the Construction of an English Children’s Drama: A Vygotskian Perspective JO - Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Translation Studies JA - EFL LA - en SN - AU - Hsiao, Yun-Hua AD - Graduate Institute of Children’s English, National Changhua University of Education 1, Jing-de Road, Chuanghua City, Taiwan, R.O.C. Y1 - 2020 PY - 2020 VL - 5 IS - 2 SP - 87 EP - 98 KW - constructivism KW - Vygotsky KW - Zone of Proximal Development KW - Scaffolding Approach KW - Drama DO - 10.22034/efl.2020.238726.1049 N2 - Traditional literature teaching is usually a passive process as students normally perform the role of listeners. This research proposes to alter the students’ role to active learners by assisting them to produce and stage an English children’s drama. This study is student-centered and attempts to adopt workshop and drama practice to enhance students’ participation in the classroom. Different from traditional teaching methods, constructivist pedagogy enables learners to recognize and strengthen their self-learning abilities. Often discussed in constructivist pedagogy, Lev Vygotsky’s works are especially related to this research. Even though the application of Vygotsky’s theory to teaching is beneficial to students, relevant studies are scarce in higher education. This paper then proposes to apply Vygotsky’s idea of zone of proximal development and scaffolding approach to cultivate students’ ability to produce an English children’s drama. Through the support of capable others, the learners achieve a deeper understanding of drama/literature and through the scaffold approach, students steadily leave the need of assistance behind, are able to work independently and autonomously, and become more capable than their previous selves. UR - https://efl.shbu.ac.ir/article_112688.html L1 - https://efl.shbu.ac.ir/article_112688_37b7dd7a1c9a66ebb49a1731fa30eb95.pdf ER -