Implementing literature circles in teaching 3rd year drama in Iraqi college classrooms

Abstract EN

Because of their collaborative nature and their emphasis on the students' cultural awareness, critical thinking skills, reading comprehension abilities and inference skills, studies on literature circles have been encouraged , reinforced and given due attention in ESL and EFL classroom teaching.

This study revolves around the application of Literature Circle method to teaching drama for Iraqi EFL college 3rd year students.

Three groups ( consisting of 18 3rd year students of the Department of English , College of Education/ Ibn Rush , University of Baghdad) have participated in the sessions held for the application of literature circles in teaching third year drama ( particularly Othello ) in the Iraqi college classes.

Meticulous observations of literature circles by the three researchers have been made and a comparison between the participants' pretest and posttest results has been carried out.

The study concludes that with the implementation of literature circles, students can more confidentially communicate and interact with one another.

Since literature circles focus on students' autonomous learning, they create more enjoyable learning environment.

On the whole, students have the chances to develop their communicative strategies as they respond to each other, check their comprehension, agree or disagree with others, elaborate on the act of Othello , and negotiate with one another within the groups.

Finally, they have gained better scores for the posttest (of Othello) than for the pretest (of Hamlet