Dancing – Teaching English through Body Movement

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how it is possible to implement dance in an EFL classroom with the purpose of developing students’ language skills, while taping on their creativity and imagination. In the contend based course of 10 weeks students covered materials related to four types of dances, - classical, folk, ballroom and Latin American – and did various language-related and dance-related activities. The results showed that in an EFL classroom the integration of dance fosters not only dance skills, but also has influence on language skills, particularly on speaking, reading and writing. It also enhances students’ cultural competence. In addition, it revealed that after this course some changes were noticed in students’ behavior.