How Drama and Acting classes can help your child

Hyderabad, 2019

Drama in education is the practice of drama as a means of personal/child development and as a method of learning and teaching. During the acting activities, the child is given the stimulus and the opportunity to discover himself and the world around him in a free atmosphere, without any judgment, through the experience of spontaneity in group work. It is a method of learning through experience, which has been proven to be the best method of gaining knowledge.

The use of drama and acting is extremely useful for child development. Dramatic expression stimulates imagination, activates creative abilities and increases concentration and attention. In a safe environment of play and fiction, children can explore situations, possible solutions and their consequences, learn about personal strengths and weaknesses. It enables children to experience the joy and opportunity to actively imagine a different world. In dramatic work, safely and artistically, children explore new ideas and shape themselves. When they enter a shared imaginary world, children bring real thoughts and feelings into it, and that experience can change them.

Acting has a special significance for the development of communication skills - active listening, clear expression, empathetic reception, understanding and sending of non-verbal signals: gestures, mimics, movements. In collaboration and exchange with others, children develop dialogue skills and respect for others' opinions. In this way, they become more willing to compromise and to test different solutions. Working together creates better and more open relationships among peers, as well as with adults - teachers, educators, parents.

Role-play, imitation, and acting provide children with the opportunity to develop an awareness of themselves through play, to enhance self-esteem, to enrich their vocabulary, to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for daily activities and independence. This kind of play contains elements of the imagination but at the same time represents a repetition of activities already seen or experienced that children want to perfect or experience from different roles.

Through acting, the child improves his verbal skills and enriches his vocabulary. Children can replace one object with imagination or imagine an object that is not actually in play. While designing the story, characters, and the entire play scenario, the child exercises his or her cognitive abilities and finds creative solutions to different situations.

Putting the child in different roles and positions in the group significantly contributes to the image that the child may have about himself or herself and the attitude of others towards him. In this way, the child's self-esteem is strengthened and they spontaneously adopt socially acceptable behavioural patterns that will greatly facilitate their later management in different environments, daily life, play, school.