Developing Student's Oral and Reading Skills Through Reader's Theatre

The ability to speak well in English has always been a challenging task among students from the rural areas. There are various types of materials that have been developed to improve student's fluency to speak English, and Reader's Theatre (RT) is one of them. A study was conducted using Readers Theatre to help students improve their oral and reading skills in English in a stress free workshop. The workshop was a combination of language and arts activities that combined language skills of speaking and reading to improve students' performance. The workshop was conducted among students over a period of three weeks. A survey was carried out on the student's perceived learning experience to speak and read English whilst taking part in Reader's Theatre. The findings of the study show that Reader's Theatre was a good tool to boost high school students' motivation to speak clearly and confidently in English when they collaborated and interacted with their peers. However, it was not the aim of the present study to check if students spoke or read more English materials outside classroom as a result of Reader's Theatre workshop.     Keywords: Reader's Theatre, reading skill, speaking skill, fluency