Returning to the Face-to-face English Classroom and Rebuilding Human Contact through Drama and Gamification

Overview

The action research used for this presentation, was conducted along with another voluntary programme called ‘Supporting low SES students through English classes in HK’ and both of them were funded by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 2014 to address the effectiveness of participatory, collaborative and process-writing approaches in English lessons as well as providing charity care to HK students. The findings from both the students’ reviews and observational results, had matched and showed a moderate progress in academic performance but a major increase in learners’ motivation and creativity. The research also illustrated that such approaches help very significantly in authentic language learning which can also be paralleled with Communicative Learning Teaching (CLT). This occurs not only between the teachers and students but also among the students. The research project was awarded by CUHK with merit and later published at the academic conference 2020 of Hong Kong Metropolitan University and The Open University of China.