Why choose between Spanish or Drama when you can have both? It’s easy to fit drama into your homeschool when you integrate two subjects together by performing a drama play in Spanish.

After homeschooling my kids from Pre-K through high school, I've learned a lot of creative ways to fit drama into our homeschool and now want to share them with you.

Incorporate Drama into Your Spanish Curriculum

When you have to choose between Spanish and Drama, usually Spanish wins out because foreign language studies are very important especially during high school. I say you can have your Spanish and Drama too by just adding drama to your Spanish curriculum.

Some of the most important skills in learning any foreign language are to learn how to write in that language and to carry on a conversation. We don’t often learn the conversational part well because everyone is struggling together to learn the language and therefore tend to revert to their native tongue. 

Why Your Spanish Skills Improve with a Drama Play

When I was a junior in high school, I had the best Spanish teacher ever. Every year prior to that, we were told we would only be allowed to speak Spanish in class, no English. However, every year our class sounded like a mix of both - Spanglish. But, this year finally we had a teacher who actually required us to only speak Spanish. We had conversations, played games and even helped translate a play into Spanish. I learned the most Spanish ever that year.

The Spanish musical was a tradition every year for this teacher. She would choose the play and figure out the music during the summer. Then, during the school year the students would be responsible for translating a famous musical into Spanish to perform at the end of the year. It was only for fourth and fifth year students in her class, and you had to audition for the major roles.

As much as I love drama and can memorize lines, I am not talented when it comes to singing, so unfortunately I always missed out on the opportunity to try out for one of the lead roles when it was a musical. However, since we were all involved in writing the play, there was a lot to do and a lot of fun minor roles to play. 

Writing a play and performing the roles improves your language skills tremendously. You have to really think about what you are writing, or translating, and as you are practicing your lines and listening to others you are hearing how conversation works in that language. Therefore, you are accomplishing the goals of the Spanish curriculum and getting an opportunity to learn about the world of theater and how to perform in a play.

We performed Los Horroritos, a.k.a. Little Shop of Horrors, which is based on a man who works in a struggling flower shop who just wants his boss to stop treating him badly and to find love. He gets a lot of positive attention when this alien plant that looks like a Venus Flytrap mysteriously shows up in the shop. One day when he accidentally cuts himself, he finds out that it eats blood. It eventually grows to be quite large and the shop starts to do very well. He feels he has no other choice but to continue to “feed” the plant to keep his job and his employer happy. Unfortunately, the fame is not bringing him the happiness he truly desires because his boss and the plant keep demanding more.

Meanwhile, he is in love with his coworker who is dating a guy who does not treat her very well. He lacks the self-confidence to stand up for himself and the girl until her life is threatened by the plant (The plant is huge by this point). This story could definitely go a couple different directions. Thankfully, we chose to go the more comedic route with the happy ending. This option is a strangely funny musical, but certainly not the only option for a Spanish musical.

Picking a popular story is helpful to the students who are translating and the audience who will view it. Consider the age and the vocabulary knowledge of the students. It can be a full length musical or a regular play. Translating in this method gives students a connection to what they are translating and an incentive to continue, knowing they will actually use it at the end of the semester or school year for a fun performance. Often students have to translate random passages in their studies which is hard to get excited about. This option makes it more interesting as it all connects together.

Don't Have a lot of Time? Fit in a Little Spanish

I know what you’re thinking… I can’t put on a large musical. I’m not fluent in Spanish and I don’t have the budget or the resources to put on something like that. Don’t worry! This is a great idea, but it is not the only way to incorporate Drama with Spanish.

One year when my students performed a play we involved the entire co-op. Now, it wasn’t realistic for every student to take Drama class because there were a lot of other great classes for them to take. Since different grade levels were signed up for different classes, I found a way to combine their class with drama. We all worked on the same theme for our classes. For the students taking Spanish, we translated some of the lines from the play into Spanish.  

Throughout the semester they worked on their Spanish as they normally would, then as it got closer they started to memorize the lines for the play, and therefore work on dialogue, as they continued to focus on Spanish. They never skipped a beat with their Spanish studies, but also prepared themselves to be a part of our play. These students were some of our younger students, so they just came up on stage for a scene and then were done. It was really easy for them to practice on their own and just show up at the end for full rehearsals. One year the Spanish class simply learned a song related to our play and sang it in Spanish during one of the scenes. It's as simple as that.

I didn’t have to be fluent in Spanish because I had moms around me that spoke Spanish and were teaching the Spanish class. When it came to translating, I went to them for advice so that it would be translated correctly. A wonderful bonus was to find out how thankful our Spanish speaking families were to watch the play and hear their native language as a part of the conversation. It was so much fun for our kids and such a blessing to the families. So, if you feel overwhelmed at the thought of doing an entire play in Spanish, this is a great way to fit it in and have your students experience Spanish and Drama. 

If you want or plan to be the drama teacher, incorporate some Spanish into the script or invite the Spanish class to be in a scene of your play. If you are the Spanish teacher, then ask if the students can be a part of the play your co-op may be doing and help translate some lines. If there are no plans for a play, then have your students perform a short skit or one-act play in class. You can also just take some of the dialogue that is already incorporated in your curriculum and have the students act it out. It does not need to be a full-length play or a musical. It also can be done with simple props and costumes keeping it affordable when you may not have a budget to work with.

Another option is to choose a play already written in Spanish, then as you work to rehearse the lines, discuss what is being said and how it should be performed. Practicing proper pronunciation and the appropriate reactions and responses is a great way to learn another language. 

Benefits of Performing a Drama Play in Spanish or any Foreign Language

You don’t have to choose between taking a foreign language and drama when you can do both. Adding drama to your foreign language studies improves the skills your students learn in that language:

• Helps kids work on their grammar to create the script

• Gives students the practice they need in everyday conversation

• Builds confidence in the students’ ability to speak the foreign language to others

• Gives students the opportunity to be creative and get into character while learning a foreign language

You can start small and just have students translate a few lines from any one of these scripts, then have fun acting it out together! If you don't have time for a full play, just act out a scene.

Want to make life easier and be the first to know when the next blog is posted? Sign up below for our email newsletter to get the latest news!

Thanks for joining us!

Danielle at homeschooldrama.com