Can Educational Drama Be of Help to Young Managers to Improve Their Bo

Title: Can Educational Drama Be of Help to Young Managers to Improve Their Body and Verbal Languages ?

Abstract

The success of company-managers depends to a large extent on their potential to express themselves efficiently during their meetings with co-workers. As a student, I acknowledge the fact that educational Drama can help me to achieve this objective, especially when I become a company manager. However, I had to make this qualitative and quantitative research to check the validity of the hypothesis that educational Drama could virtually help Moroccan young managers to improve their expressive abilities, especially their verbal and their body languages. The findings revealed it could.

Introduction

Many Dramatists believe that Drama can serve students not only to improve their art skills but also to learn many things inscribed into the curriculum. The improvement of one’s body and verbal languages have notably been focal points in their discussions.

D Heathcote, for instance, notes that

‘Drama in education has altered greatly during the last twenty five years and it is still changing. There has been a shift in direction from an interest in the personal development of the individual pupil through the acquiring of theatrical and improvisational skills to the recognition of Drama as a precise teaching instrument, which works best when it is part of a learning process. Drama is no longer considered as another branch of art education but as a unique teaching tool, vital for language development’ (1991: 42)

Based on the assumption that Drama can be a learning tool in classroom-drama, I wonder if it could help us, we, university students to improve our Oracy skills, taking it for granted that without efficient oral and body skills, we might not be efficient company managers. The literature on management and commerce has drawn my attention to the fact that as a manager, I would need to hold meetings with co-workers to convince them to put policies and projects into practice. Therefore, an investigation into this issue is worth being made.

On this ground, four chapters will be devoted to the study of the impact that educational Drama could have on body and verbal languages. The first chapter will be reserved for literature review. The focus will, in this chapter, be placed on the opinion(s) of scholars about the part that educational Drama could have in improving the oral skills of university students enrolling in Commerce and Management. The second chapter will shed the light on the methods that I will use to generate qualitative and quantitative data from a sample made up of company managers as well as of graduating students who have had enough experience with educational Drama, especially during extra-curricula activities at ENCG Agadir, Morocco. The third chapter will exclusively be reserved for the description of the results. Tables and charts will be drawn according to the regulations that govern quantitative research. Some questionnaires will also be used as attachments in the part reserved for appendices. The fourth chapter will be devoted to the discussion of the results. Here, I shall discuss the potential of educational Drama to improve the Oracy skills of university students. I shall give full credit to both my opinions as well as to those finding an echo in the literature on educational Drama. Finally, the part dealing with the conclusion will be reserved for a follow up as the the findings will be subjected to evaluation. Then I shall conclude whether educational Drama could virtually help university students enrolling in Commerce and Management to improve their body and verbal languages.

Ms Yasmine Boujerfaoui, attended by Ms Amina Foukara, ENCG Agadir, Université Ibn Zohr, Morocco, May 2012.