Theater as a didactic strategy to reduce stage fright in french as a second language classes

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe the impact of the use of theater as a didactic strategy to reduce stage fright in oral expression activities in French as a second language classes. It also shows a documentary review of the topic focusing on the benefits of theater to reduce students’ fear of speaking in the second language. In addition, it shows how it influences the improvement of oral expression and other competences in L2. In this sense, this work is a documentary, descriptive research, inscribed in the qualitative paradigm and had as main findings that theater as a didactic strategy helps to reduce stage fright in university students and positively influences other aspects such as pronunciation, vocabulary use, L2 listening comprehension and collaborative learning. All this allows us to affirm that, although theater does not completely eliminate the stage fright of L2 students when speaking in public, it does allow students to improve this difficulty, because it helps them to practice dialogues with the help of their classmates, offers dynamics that facilitate a better and closer teacher-student accompaniment and undoubtedly enlivens the classroom environment.