This study, undertaken under the auspices of the Singapore Education Ministry's 'Teach Less, Learn More' movement, investigates the impact of the school's Drama-in-Curriculum Programme on students' oral competence and confidence. The Drama-in-Curriculum Programme for Secondary 1 students in the Express course aimed to provide them with a consistent platform to use English Language. Teachers designed a series of performance tasks that incorporated drama strategies (including role play, improvisation, freeze frame and in-role) that provided opportunities for students to communicate English Language in authentic settings in a non-threatening way. Students were given regular feedback on their oral performance through teacher observation checklists, peer evaluations and oral rubrics.
This study was held over ten weeks and a quasi-experimental design was used involving a project class and a comparison class. The project group participated in the Drama-in-Curriculum Programme. A comparison of the project and comparison classes' student engagement and the difference in the instructional practice mapped along the dimensions of PETALSTM framework was made. Students' engagement and PETALSTM dimensions were measured using the PETALSTM Engagement Indicator (PEI) Student Questionnaire. The findings showed that there was a moderate effect on students' engagement : the cognitive, affective and behavioral in favour of the project class. With regard to PETALSTM dimensions, there was a strong effect in favour of project class in the dimension of assessment to improve learning. The assessment practices in the form of ongoing assessment to improve students' engagement and learning will be discussed in this paper.