Abstract:

A number of educational researchers have been drawn back to the impact of the relationship between teachers and students in mapping and predicting student progress. It seems to be impossible to talk about teaching without reference to relationships. A great number of research suggests the importance of close, caring teacher - student relationships for students’ self-perception, self-esteem, motivation and performance. (Furrer, Skinner and Pitzer 2014 ,Cozolino 2013).What’s missing in our education is a sense of connection, attachment or belonging. Effective teaching requires close, safe and caring attitude towards learners. Attachment theory is one of the leading approaches to researching interpersonal relationships (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2011 The theory was first proposed by John Bowlby who described it as a ‘lasting psychological connectedness between human beings’ (1988).He considered that children needed to develop a secure attachment with their main caregiver in their early years. This theory has been revised to acknowledge that multiple attachments can occur with other adults throughout the lifespan, although early experiences may continue to have an impact. Secure attachments support mental processes that enable the child to regulate emotions, reduce fear, attune to others, have self-understanding and insight, empathy for others and appropriate moral reasoning (Bowlby called these mental representations the internal working model). Insecure attachments, on the other hand, can have unfortunate consequences. If a child cannot rely on an adult to respond to their needs in times of stress, they are unable to learn how to soothe themselves, manage their emotions and engage in reciprocal relationships. Positive, healthy and supportive relationships hugely influence the architecture of our brain, create our social behaviour. (Cozolino) Research has inextricably linked attachment to school readiness and school success (Commodari 2013, Geddes 2006).

Some of the most important and formative attachments will be derived from relationships with teachers who provide the essential attachment ingredients of proximity and care (Kesner, 2000).Most of the current attachment literature reporting school relationship research assumes the childhood attachment model, with teacher as caregiver and students as care seekers. But as it was said the child is entering the transition to adult attachment well before school age using the established inner working model (IWM) or schema as a guide. The interaction between the teacher, the pupil and the learning task is a fluid dynamic whereby the task is a reflection of the teacher’s awareness and understanding of the pupil and the pupil is able to seek reliable support when challenged by the task .(Geddes, 2006)
Drama provides a safe emotional experience in fictional reality where kids can form safe relationships and be confronted with different emotional encounters.

This project investigated the role of corrective emotional experience young children went through in drama applied in the LT classroom A number of different drama techniques were used to provide children especially with insecure attachment style with profoundly positive social relationships. In the presentation the impact of drama experience on children with different attachment styles will be discussed.

Keywords:

Drama in ELT, Attachment based teaching, emotional corrective experience.