BECOMING EPIC THROUGH READERS THEATER AND CREATIVE WRITING

The recent, much needed reform in the EAP studies in Israel, invites us to rethink and revise our teaching methods in light of the CEFR. This paper will suggest an effective teaching method that incorporates all the four skills of language learning across the various CEFR levels. Readers Theater (RT) is a reading activity that employs theatrical techniques to improve students’ reading fluency and comprehension, self-efficacy and motivation. Instead of memorizing lines, students read from scripts, using expressive reading, facial expressions and body language to convey meaning. The purpose of this paper is to show how the techniques of RT can be adapted to the academic framework developing not only reading comprehension, but also our students’ writing and oral proficiency thus serving as an efficient method to practice all the four skills. RT has been effectively applied “as an alternative tool for fluency instructions in the Thai EFL context” (Lekwilai 2014) as well as for remedial instruction of “freshman English underachievers from a university of science and technology in northern Taiwan” (Chou 2013).“Positive effects of using RT were [also] found” in Jun Liu’s study of “ESL students in an intermediate L2 writing class in a US university” (Liu 2000). The current paper will present the Israeli perspective through practical examples of using RT as an effective tool to explore academic texts through dramatic writing.