The Effects of Creative Drama on Achievement and Motivation Levels of the 7th Graders in English Language Classes

Accepted: 17.01.2021 The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of creative drama method on the 7 graders’ achievement and motivation towards English language course. The study was in quasi-experimental pattern model with pretest and posttest control group. It was conducted with seventy 7 grade students, 36 of whom were assigned as the experimental group and 34 of whom were assigned as the control group. Three units “Tourist Attractions”, “Our Natural Heritage” and “Computers” were taught during a six-week period in the experimental group by using a book developed by the researcher, while the same units were taught by using the usual course book in the control group. “English Course Achievement Test” and “Motivation Scale” were conducted in both groups preceding and following the intervention. “Student Interview Form about the Implementation of Creative Drama Method” was conducted with the experimental group to get the students’ opinions on the method following the intervention. It was found that the students’ achievement test scores improved in both groups, and this improvement was higher in the experimental group. However, the difference was not significant. On the other hand, there was a statistically significant difference between average motivation scores of the two groups in favor of the experimental group, and this was supported by student interview forms.


Introduction
Foreign language teaching has recently been a topic of great importance in Turkey. Knowing a foreign language is regarded as an obligation in several areas of life. This stems from the fact that countries need people knowing foreign languages to advance their international relations politically, socially, culturally, and economically (MEB, 2006). Because of this need, importance of learning a foreign language has increased in Turkey. Undoubtedly, there are a great number of languages that can be learned as a foreign language; however, the most common language required to be learned is English. This stems from the fact that English is regarded as a lingua franca of all languages, and this fact has promoted the necessity of learning and teaching English language all over the world (Solak & Bayar, 2015: 106). It is a well-known fact that English is the most taught language all over the world, in * Correspondency: ofkadan@mku.edu.tr over a hundred countries (Crystal, 2003: 5). Possibly, that is why English is currently the most taught foreign language in Turkey as well.
Foreign language education starts in pre-school and primary school levels in Turkey. The students, who have difficulty in learning a foreign language or get bored during this period, may hate that language, and start to believe that it is impossible to learn it. This is the biggest barrier for them to learn that language. This is mostly experienced by teachers or instructors giving foreign language lectures at high schools or universities. Since the students at primary schools are quite young, it is essential to teach foreign languages through activities like drama or games which can attract students' attentions, address to their sense organs, and help them enjoy the lessons (MEB, 2006).
It is not possible to expect students learn a foreign language effectively in learning settings where only the teacher speaks and students listen during the whole class. If students actively take part in the learning process, hands-on learning can be achieved. Thus, students can become participants who take active roles in activities that encourage communicative use of language rather than being passive learners getting formal information about a foreign language given by teachers. Additionally, teacher can become a person who regards students as individuals rather than being authoritarian, and he / she becomes a guide who arranges the classroom environment suitably for students' needs and interests (Nunan, 1988). The intersecting argument observed in the recent studies conducted is that students should be active, use their creativity and explore information on their own in foreign language education. Methods providing this are more acceptable.
One of the methods enhancing students' active participation in the classes is drama. The term creative drama appeared with adaptation of drama into education. Creative drama was introduced in education by Winifre Ward in early 1920s. "Creative Dramatics", written by Ward, was the first text on creative drama that teachers had. He implemented his theories about creative drama in Northwestern University. These implementations were so successful that six drama experts started to apply them in the schools in a short period of time (Wells and Ellen, 1993). Creative drama is the improvisational type of drama which prompts people to imagine, think and reflect their experiences (Davis and Behm, 1978). Hands-on, individual or group learning help learners not to forget the things they have learnt (Demirel, 2004: 96). Creative drama is the way of individuals' enacting events or situations by reacting naturally with the help of their previous knowledge and without needing any texts. Due to all these reasons creative drama has been considered to be an appropriate method taking students into the centre, triggering their feelings like exploration, research, and empathy.
Creative drama method has some common steps to be followed which are warm-up and relaxation activities, playing (pantomime and role-play), improvisational exercises and production. In this study, the researcher defined three steps which were warm-up, main part and assessment. Main study consisted of three sub-titles that were pantomime, role-play and production.

Warm-up Activities
The purpose of warm-up activities is to help the participants relax, to provide them with an environment where they can meet and contact each other and to encourage their feelings of adaptation (Adıgüzel, 1994). Moreover, warm-up activities can be used in order to help students get ready for a new topic. These activities are considered to be quite necessary and useful for attracting students' attention to the lesson, preparing them to the lesson with the things that are interesting and enjoyable for them, reviewing their background knowledge and making them remember the necessary information. The individuals' interests, intellectual levels and abilities need to be taken into consideration while organizing these activities in creative drama (Hornbrook, 2002: 56).

Pantomime Study
Pantomime can be defined as expressing ideas through gesture, facial expression and body movements instead of applying words (non-verbal language). It is claimed to be one of the most effective methods to be used for teaching children creative drama (Karateke, 2006: 39). According to McCaslin (1990), pantomime is the reveal of rhythmic movement and the art of transferring ideas without words when the participants benefit from it to be another person or thing. Pantomime can be applied with guidance of the teacher. Furthermore, Cömertpay (2006: 34) defined pantomime as the expression of feelings and ideas without words. Individuals can express themselves just by using body language. Some studies have shown that children may mime when they are alone. This technique can help a lot of subjects to be understood in language teaching. It can help students understand the subjects more easily and enjoyably. It is easy to use pantomime in classes, and it can enhance active participation of the whole class (Yazkan, 2000: 69).

Role-play Study
This is the second step of the main part. Role-play can be defined as playing a specified role and pretending to be someone else (Taylor, et al., 2012: 442). It is a technique of creative drama which enables a person to be sensitive by showing empathy and to think similarly. Role play is a frequently used technique by language teachers. During role-play, not only does the individual gain linguistic characteristics such as loudness, diction, pronunciation, and others but he also gains some social skills such as waiting for somebody / something, listening and not interrupting anybody (Önder, 1999: 138). This technique can also be used for different purposes such as developing or showing attitude and conception, understanding social situations profoundly, analysing social problems and testing hypotheses related to the problem (Yazkan, 2000: 72). With the help of role-play, the students can realize that the others do not have to agree on their ideas, and they learn how to behave in certain circumstances.

Production Study
This step can refer to the activities that are not determined before the implementation, and to the activities that are not planned. Some of the basic features of this step are encouraging students to produce new things about related units, helping them create meaningful and concrete outputs by making use of their prior knowledge and promoting their awareness on topics they have just learnt. These outputs can be texts and conversations generated by the students, dialogue completion exercises, responses for the questions and so on in language teaching. This step triggers students' engagement in the learning process.

Assessment Study
During this step, students are asked to express their opinions on the process and are given some exercises or tasks related to the process to understand if they have adequately learnt the subject or not. Initially, the teacher starts a discussion. Some questions like "What have you experienced?", "How have you felt?", "What kind of problems have you experienced?" or "What have you enjoyed most?" are asked to the students, and they are expected to answer them. Discussion on a topic is important in the process of creative drama (San, 1990: 581). Basis, importance, qualification, and quantity of the techniques are defined in this step. Feelings and ideas are expressed as well. Furthermore, it is questioned if the knowledge has changed into acquisition and if this would have any effects on future life, and it is dwelled upon how creative drama experiences and process are considered within this step. In this step, instructional knowledge of creative drama is also discussed (Cömertpay, 2006: 45).
According to Gaudert (1990), drama activities foster student motivation and self-confidence in language learning. Students can have learning motivation by willing to communicate in a meaningful way about meaningful topics determined by their reactions (as cited by Aldağ, 2010: 30). People need motivation for learning new things, and this is shaped by their reactions. Learning a foreign language requires high motivation. Some of the basic reasons of this requirement are that learning a foreign language necessitates a lot of individual effort, and it is not possible to learn a language just by getting external information. Decrease in motivation is a serious problem for English language learners. If students become reluctant to learn a language, it will be really hard to teach them that language. That is why educators need to find ways to motivate the students for learning English effectively (Shand, 2008: 14). Drama is suggested in language education since it makes the language more comprehensible for the learners and creates a reliable environment where students can understand and use the target language effectively.
According to the Turkish Ministry of Education -Primary Schools Elective Drama Course Curriculum (2006), drama means "acting and getting into action". It also means "enacting" in education. Drama is enacting a word, a notion, an experience, an event, or a play by improving them (Akbaba, Sağlam & Kök, 2003: 19). People imagine and make plans for the future during their daily lives. Drama is transforming these plans into action (Enginalp and Onay, 1998: 52). According to San (1990: 579-582), drama is conceptualizing or acting out a word, a term, a behavior, a sentence, an idea, an experience, or an event by making use of theatre techniques and playing process. Drama is regarded as one of the most effective learning methods for children. This stems from the fact that it provides children an opportunity to learn by experiencing and playing games which are very important for them. While students try to understand subjects of a lesson with the help of an educator and within the frame of a plan in a traditional classroom, they learn by doing and experiencing, that is naturally, in a drama classroom. That makes learning more effective and long lasting. Drama is a social progress in which reality and games are nested, education is integrated, and information turns into experience (Okvuran, 2003: 82). Drama reveals the hidden energy that individuals have. It also helps them understand their potential, become aware of their feelings, and learn that they can be hurt or enjoy. Thus, it guides children's behaviours (Gönen & Dalkılıç, 1999). In an environment where students are active and happy while learning the target language with the help of creative drama, it is expected that learning becomes more effective and permanent. Moreover, achievement increases since they learn by doing and enjoying. According to Shand (2008: 13-14) motivation is a real trouble for learning English, and drama is an activity to increase motivation in language learning. In fact, motivation is crucial not only for language learning but also for all fields of learning. It helps individuals learn better and faster. It is also believed to promote learning achievement. On the other hand, students' achievement can be shaped by instructional methods implemented in the classroom, and drama is one of them. That is why impact of drama on student achievement and motivation was investigated in the current study.
Several studies have revealed that creative drama helps students learn a foreign language in a better way. Hyacinth (1990) carried out a study to investigate the impact of drama activities on EFL learning in Malaysia. It was found in this study that drama activities such as language games, pantomime, role-play and simulation were influential on motivating the students, attracting their attention and triggering their creativity. Another study was conducted by Ghiselli (1998), who found out that creative drama method and story-telling promoted the students' speaking, listening, reading and writing skills in EFL. It was also stated that the students enjoyed more in the lessons with creative drama. Shand (2008), investigating the impact of creative drama on English language learners, concluded that creative drama reduced the students' anxiety towards speaking English remarkably and fostered their motivation. On the other hand, in a study carried out by Aldağ (2010), it was revealed that creative drama improved the EFL students' motivation and speaking. Güzelsoy (2018) concluded in his study that creative drama method developed the students' English vocabulary acquisition significantly. Creative drama was also found to be effective in improving the students' speaking skill in a study (Göktürk, Çalışkan & Öztürk, 2020). Creative drama is highly beneficial for learning a foreign language as there is a strong relationship between learning by experiencing and language learning. Individuals can learn a foreign language only if they have the chance to practice it. That is why people living in a foreign country can learn the native language of that country in a shorter time. The current study aimed to find out whether creative drama would promote the young EFL learners' achievement and motivation because of its significant contributions to language learning. This study is significant as no studies analysing the impact of creative drama on 7 th grade EFL learners' achievement and motivation have been found in the literature. It is also outstanding since it is an experimental study. Experimental studies are significant as they test cause-and-effect relationships and provide strong evidence (Sullivan-Bolyai & Bova, 2014: 183). With this study, it was aimed to test impact of creative drama (causal) on student achievement and motivation (effects).
Answers to the following research questions were searched in line with the aim of the study: (1) Is there any statistically significant difference between the English Course Achievement Test (ECAT) mean scores of the experimental and control groups in learning the topics in the units of "Tourist Attractions", "Our Natural Heritage" and "Computers" in the 7 th grade English course book? (2) Is there any statistically significant difference between the Motivation Scale mean scores of the experimental and control groups in learning the topics in the units of "Tourist Attractions", "Our Natural Heritage" and "Computers" in the 7 th grade English course book? (3) What are the opinions of the students in the experimental group about creative drama method in learning the topics in the units of "Tourist Attractions", "Our Natural Heritage" and "Computers" in the 7 th grade English course book?

Research Model
Quasi-experimental design is applied when it is aimed to explore cause-effect relationship between variables and it is not possible to assign participants randomly to the groups (Büyüköztürk, et al., 2008). Participants are assigned either to the experimental group or to the control group after a certain classification. This study also adopted an outlook on cause-effect relationship since it aimed to investigate the effects of teaching materials prepared in accordance with creative drama method on the students' academic achievement and motivation towards English language courses. The participants were randomly assigned to the groups by taking their classroom names into consideration. For this reason, the study was designed as quasi experimental design with pretest -posttest control group.

Sample
Sample of the study consisted of seventy 7 th grade students (31 female and 39 male) studying in two different classrooms, at a state school located in a city centre, in 2012-2013 academic year. Two different classes were selected via convenient sampling from a secondary school. One of those classes was randomly assigned as the experimental group (n=36; f=18; m=18), and the other as the control group (n=34; f=13; m=21). The same teacher who had eight years of teaching experience taught in both groups, which is believed to help the researcher control external factors.

Data Collection Tools
English Course Achievement Test (ECAT) and Motivation Scale (MS) were used as pretest and posttest for the study. Furthermore, "Student Interview Form about the Implementation of Creative Drama Method" was used as posttest for the students in the experimental group.

English Course Achievement Test (ECAT)
It was developed by the researcher to gauge students' success levels in the units of "Tourist Attractions", "Our Natural Heritage" and "Computers" in the 7 th grade English language course syllabus. In the process of creating the items, a book on assessment and evaluation written by Demirel (2004: 203) was studied to follow the steps of developing the multiple choice test. Then, the researcher analysed the Primary School English Course (for 4 th , 5 th , 6 th , 7 th and 8 th graders) Curriculum (MEB, 2006) and determined the learning outcomes about the relevant units. A table of specifications was prepared with this purpose. Some of the items would measure one learning outcome while some others would do so for more than one outcome. The test contained four answer choices. Thus, the reliability between the coders was provided. The researcher benefitted from the related literature about creative drama, too. In addition, four teachers who had 6 -10 years of experience were asked as experts for reliability and validity of the draft multiple choice test consisting of 34 items. Necessary editions, such as changing some words and editing some questions, were made in line with the feedback provided by the teachers. Afterwards, two teachers were asked to answer the questions, and their answers were compared with the answer key developed by the researcher. Then, the pilot scheme was carried out with 185 students studying at 2 different secondary schools selected via convenience sampling. Following the pilot study, the data collected were analysed via Henryson method. As a result of the analysis, 4 items having difficulty and discrimination indices below 0,30 were eliminated (see Appendix A for difficulty and discrimination indices of all questions). However, two items having indices below 0,30 were not eliminated from the test in order not to diminish content validity. The final form of the test had 30 questions, which were analysed by four teachers before the implementation in order to provide content validity. The final form of the test was found suitable. The final form of the test was grounded on some principles because some facts ought to be taken into consideration while giving a test its final form. For instance, if the difficulty index of an item is close to 1,00, it is regarded as easy. If it is around 0,50, it is medium. If it is close to 0,00, it is difficult. An item with discrimination index of 0,40 and above is considered to be good. If the index is between 0,30 and 0,39, it is rather good. An item with index between 0,20 and 0,29 is suggested to be improved (Karaca, et al., 2008: 284).
Following these analyses, final reliability coefficient of the test (KR-20) was calculated and found as 0,824. This shows that reliability of the test was high. In addition to this, mean difficulty index and discrimination index of the test was 0,47. This value shows that the test had moderate difficulty and it was rather discriminative. A sample question in the test was as follows: *Please answer the following question according to the conversation.

Motivation Scale (MS)
In order to gauge the students' motivation towards English language, the motivation scale which was developed by Keller and Subhiyah (1987), rearranged by Keller (2006), and adapted into Turkish by Acar (2009) was used. The five-point Likert scale consisted of Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction (ARCS) components and 34 items. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the Turkish-adapted scale was found to be 0,93.

Open-Ended Student Interview Form about Creative Drama Method
"Student Interview Forms about 5E Learning Model" that was developed by Coşkun (2011) was adapted for English language course by the researcher to determine opinion of the students in the experimental group. Coşkun (2011) announced that he had obtained 2 experts' opinions for content validity. The open-ended interview questions are as follows: (1) Please, write the things you did in each step of creative drama method for the related units. The open-ended interview questions were given to the students and they were asked to write their opinions following the implementation.

Data Analysis
The obtained quantitative data were analysed by independent samples t-test for comparing the groups, and by dependent samples t-test (repeated) for pretestposttest comparison. Qualitative data obtained through student interview forms were evaluated by applying content analysis technique. Each question in the forms was separately coded. Answers given to the questions or expressions were written to the evaluation form, and a frequency was added for repeated answers. A separate frequency table was created for each question.

Implementation
The courses lasted for 24 class hours (6 weeks) in both groups. The data collection instruments were conducted as pretest before the implementation and as posttest after the implementation.

Implementation in the experimental group
Creative drama materials including 12 cycles (4-cycle per each unit) were developed by the researcher before the implementation. Each cycle consisted of five steps to be followed during two class hours. The most appropriate activities were tried to be created to help students gain acquisitions aimed for the study, and they were planned in a way that students were able to follow easily. The activities were also appropriate for their age and cognitive levels. Harmless materials were used since the target group consisted of children. The activities were planned in a way to keep the students active. Two experts and two 7 th grade English language teachers were asked to check the creative drama-oriented materials if they were appropriate for the students' age levels, and necessary revisions were made based on the suggestions.
A meeting was organised to give information to the teacher about creative drama method, the steps to be followed, and materials to be used. Each step of creative drama method and the things to be done by the teacher and the students were explained to the teacher in detail. The teacher was also asked not to employ any creative drama activities in the control group. Moreover, the students in the experimental group were informed about creative drama method and its steps, and a sample application had been followed before the intervention. Some steps of the implementation process were observed and assessed by the researcher. The teacher's demands were covered by the researcher.

Implementation in the control group
The teacher in the control group (same teacher in the experimental group) gave the lectures according to the methods and techniques decided randomly by her during the study. She had been asked not to use any creative drama activities in the control group before the implementation. The researcher also followed the lessons to become sure that no creative drama activities were used. The students were sitting back to back. The teacher taught the subjects in the units and asked the students to take notes, to do the exercises, and questioned if they got the main idea of the topics taught. She encouraged the students to do some of the exercises in the classroom, and gave the others as take home assignment. The term of "teaching in accordance with the current curriculum" was used for the classes in the control group.

Results
ECAT and MS were applied as pretest and posttest in both groups. Statistics about scores that the students in the experimental and control group obtained were shown in Table  1. The results showed that there were no differences between achievement scores of the experimental and control groups before the implementation (p0.05). This finding ensured that both groups were similar in terms of achievement before the implementation. Although achievement levels of both groups increased significantly following the implementation (ES=-1.66 and -1.95 respectively), the difference between achievement levels of the experimental and control groups was not statistically significant (F( 1, 66) = 0,159, p> 0,05).
Statistics related to the scores that the students in the experimental and control groups obtained from the Motivation Scale (pre-test and posttest) were presented in Table 2. The findings indicated that there were no significant differences between the experimental and control groups before the intervention (p0.05). They also showed that both groups were similar in terms of their motivational levels. After the intervention, the findings revealed that motivational levels of the experimental group students improved significantly (p<0.05; ES=0.68 respectively); however, there was not a significant improvement in motivational levels of the control group students (p>0.05; ES=0.04 respectively). It was also found that there was a statistically significant difference between motivational levels of both groups (p<0,01; ES=0.39 respectively).
Posttest scores of the experimental and control groups in the components of the motivation scale were analysed via independent samples t-test, and the results were given in the Table 3.  Table 3, there was a statistically significant difference between the scores obtained from confidence and satisfaction components of the motivation scale in favour of the experimental group (Xcon= 33,36>29,65; Xsat= 36,83>32,53). However, no significant difference occurred in attention and relevance components of the scale.
The opinions of the students in the experimental group about the implementation of creative drama method were given under Table 4. In Table 4, not all of the students' opinions were presented in order not to wear the readers out. However, all frequencies were given exactly. Frequencies do not reflect the number of students because one student can have more than one opinion about an issue. Except for three students, the others stated that they wanted other units to be taught with creative drama. They suggested cognitive reasons such as "We learn the course more easily.", "The course is more creative.", "We can actively participate in the course.", and affective reasons such as "The course is more enjoyable and fun.", "The course is very good.", "The course is more fruitful.". The students provided 97 different cognitive and affective opinions about the differences of creative drama-oriented courses with the other courses such as "The course is more enjoyable.", "We understand the topics we couldn't learn better.", "The course is more flowing.", "Information is more permanent.", "It is not boring.", "There is a big difference between a course from daily life and a usual course.". On the other hand, the students expressed positive sides of creative drama method with statements such as "It is good/enjoyable.", "It has no negative sides.", "Things we learnt are more permanent." and "It is more flowing.". The mostly claimed negative side of the creative drama method by the students (f=20) was that "It was noisy because we have a crowded classroom.". The qualitative data showed that the students liked the method.

Conclusion and Discussion
The results of the current research showed, both quantitatively and qualitatively, that creative drama method promotes student achievement and motivation. When the first finding was studied, it was understood that the creative drama method was effective on the students' ECAT scores. Although the improvement in the experimental group having learned the topics with creative drama was higher than in the control group, the difference was not significant. This may stem from some factors such as the method's being new for the students and the teacher. In addition to this, ECAT developed for evaluating the students' success may have been the reason since it consisted of multiple choice items. If open-ended questions had been used, statistically significant difference could have been observed. On the other hand, students' opinions towards the method may also have been the reason. For instance, some students expressed their opinions in interview forms through sentences such as "I get a bit bored during the course (f=1)" and "courses without creative drama are better (f=1)", and these sentences revealed that some students were reluctant to be engaged with the method. The students having these opinions expressed that the classroom was too crowded, and there was a lot of noise during the courses. Furthermore, one student thought that the classes were not appropriate for them since they were not treated seriously. This may be the reason for their reluctance. Similarly, Güven and Adıgüzel (2015) interviewed with more than 30 drama teachers and learned that teachers considered crowded classrooms as a big barrier for drama method. Thus, it can be claimed that fewer negative opinions about creative drama method would have been obtained if the classrooms had been less crowded.
Researchers claim that a learning environment where students can join the classes in peace and comfort improves their achievement. Various studies validating significant positive effects of creative drama method on students' achievement have been carried out in different disciplines (Albalawi, 2014;Aykaç and Adıgüzel, 2011;Freeman, Sullivan and Fulton, 2003;Gorjian, et al., 2010;Hendrix, Eick and Shannon, 2012;Kahyaoğlu, Yavuzer and Aydede, 2010;Karapınarlı and Görgen, 2014;Özçelik and Aydeniz, 2012;Poulsen,1998;Sharma, 2015;Timothy and Apata, 2014). Furthermore, some studies (Albalawi, 2014;Anderson and Berry, 2015) have revealed positive effects of creative drama method on students' linguistic skills. This study also concluded that creative drama method was effective on students' achievement levels; however, difference was not statistically significant.
As for the second finding, a significant difference was found between the experimental and control groups in favor of the former one in terms of improvement in motivation towards English language course. It was concluded that creative drama method which is one of the active learning methods in increasing students' motivation towards English language course was more effective than the current instructional method. There was a statistically significant difference between the students' mean scores received from confidence and satisfaction components of motivation scale in favor of the experimental group. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the students' mean scores in attention and relevance components of the scale. Existence of significant difference in the component of confidence in favor of the experimental group showed that creative drama method improved the students' confidence of and motivated them. Clement et al. (1994) stated that there is a relationship between confidence and motivation. Additionally, existence of a significant difference in the element of satisfaction revealed that the students were satisfied with the acquisitions they gained at the end of the learning-teaching process inherently or they were awarded. In several studies (Aldağ, 2010;Baraldi, 2009;Gaudert, 1990;Gül & Gücüm, 2015;Hyacinth, 1990;Ormancı & Özcan, 2014;Shand, 2008;Smith, 2006;Uzer, 2008;Yang, 2007), it was revealed that creative drama method contributed to motivation significantly. When the result of the present study and the previous studies were analyzed, it was understood that creative drama method can be used as an effective instructional tool in language learning. As it is a well-known fact that high motivation helps individuals learn new things more easily, creative drama method can be used for teaching a foreign language since it fosters motivation.
Regarding the qualitative data, the students' opinions such as "the course is more enjoyable, nice and pleasant with creative drama (f=41)", "we learn complex subjects better with creative drama (f=14)", "the things we learn become permanent (f=7)", "the course is more flowing (f=5)", "the courses are not boring (f=9)" and "the courses are taught in a very pleasant way (f=4)" supported our findings, too. Most of the students expressed positive ideas about the courses taught with creative drama method. They suggested that other units in the course book be taught with creative drama activities. This fact ensures the significance of creative drama method for young EFL learners.
To summarize, the present study having aimed to gauge the impact of creative drama method on the 7 th graders' achievement and motivation levels in English language classes indicated that creative drama method promotes achievement and motivation in foreign language learning. Some suggestions for future research are as follows: (1) In the present study, few students offered negative opinions as the classrooms were a bit crowded, and there was some noise. Thus, further studies can be conducted in less crowded classrooms to get better results.
(2) The sample of the present study was 7 th graders. Further studies can be carried out with students from different educational levels. Thus, effects of the creative drama method can be analyzed more thoroughly.
(3) Achievement test in the study consists of multiple choice items. However, it is supposed that applying open-ended questions may be more useful to gauge effectiveness of the method. Hence, this should be taken into consideration in future studies.