Theater club as a means of developing school students’ foreign language lexical skills

the article explores the potential of a theater club as an effective means of developing middle school students’ foreign language lexical skills. The authors view theatrical productions not as an entertaining form of extracurricular activity, but as a comprehensive pedagogical technology that helps create a communicative environment for the acquisition and activation of the new vocabulary. This approach helps students overcome the language barrier, enables them to speak in a foreign language in natural settings, and simultaneously reinforces the stable lexical speech patterns. The article demonstrates the practical significance of integrating theatrical methods into the foreign language teaching process to facilitate the transition of lexical units from passive word knowledge to their active use in speech. In today's reality teachers are faced with the challenge of organizing students' activities in such a way that, in addition to their foreign language skills, they also develop their creative potential and personal qualities. Theatre performances serve as an effective means of building a vocabulary base on topics covered in the school curriculum, helping students overcome psychological barriers and attitudes, creating a natural environment for learning a foreign language, and providing opportunities for students to express their imagination and creativity, while also enriching the teaching experience for English teachers. The analysis of the presented method of teaching the lexical aspect will allow us to understand whether theatrical performances can really play a significant role in teaching a foreign language, in this case, English. The study is based on the works of Russian and foreign scientists in the fields of foreign language teaching methodology, psychology, and pedagogy. In particular, the ideas of the communicative approach (W. Littlewood), the concept of «learning through action» (J. Dewey), the «theory of second language acquisition» (Stephen Krashen), as well as the ideas of Russian researchers about the role of play and theatrical activities in the development of a student's personality (L.S. Vygotsky, P.Ya. Galperin), the ideas of the concept of communicative foreign language education (E.I. Passov), and the modern methodology for organizing independent work of foreign language learners (N.F. Koryakovtseva) were used. The primary research method was the method of pedagogical design, which includes the analysis of the scientific literature, the generalization of teaching experience, and the development of the task system aimed at the gradual acquisition of the vocabulary. This process occurs in several stages: from presentation and practice to creative application in the context of staging and improvisation. The article describes a step-by-step process of learning performances, which includes five consecutive classes. Each stage is aimed at gradually transitioning from learning the new vocabulary to a full-fledged theatrical performance. Special attention is paid to developing pronunciation and intonation skills, working on roles, improvisation, and natural performance. The final step is the performance, which helps build confidence, responsibility, and interest in learning the language. The research directly demonstrates that consistent work in a theater club creates the conditions for the deep and lasting acquisition of the vocabulary, as the word is reinforced by context, action, and facial expressions. Solving the problem of transferring lexical units from a passive to an active vocabulary requires modern interactive approaches and methods. This set of tasks and the proposed system achieve this result by integrating theater pedagogy into the foreign language learning process.

foreign language, theatrical activities, theater club, lexical skills, communicative environment, game-based technologies, language acquisition