A Study of the Effect of Theater on Iranian L2 Learners’ Speaking Fluency, Class Engagement, and Self-Esteem

Every l2 teacher faces some challenges in his or her l2 classroom which can be eliminated through some techniques, one of which is using drama and theater. lots of studies have been carried out concerning the effects of drama and theater on various aspects of l2 learning. the purpose of this study was to investigate the (possible) effects of theater on iranian l2 learners’ l2 speaking fluency, classroom engagement, and self-esteem. for this purpose, 60 intermediate participants were selected from safir institute of shahrekord (shahrekord, iran), using a placement test. after that, the participants were divided into 2 groups: those who were interested in acting and theater made up the experimental group and the rest constituted the control group. first, all the participants were asked to answer 2 speaking questions orally and 2 questionnaires for class engagement and self-esteem as the pretest. after participating in 12 hours of treatment, the participants were asked to answer 2 other speaking questions and 2 questionnaires for class engagement and self-esteem as the posttest in order to investigate whether they had improved during the treatment or not. results revealed that using theater in l2 classrooms improved the participants’ l2 speaking fluency and class engagement. but there was no significant difference between the performances of the experimental group participants and the control group participants in terms of their self-esteem. in conclusion, l2 teachers can take advantage of theater in order to make their l2 classrooms more entertaining and effective.