Ages 8–17 · B1+ English · Pera & Kadıköy
ENGLISH DRAMA FOR KIDS & TEENS
For children who already speak English and need somewhere to use it. English Drama Youth runs in English from October to May, one day a week, in Pera and Kadıköy, and ends with a fully English performance in front of a live audience.
Who it is for
Children aged 8 to 17 who already speak English at around B1 level or above: pupils at international schools, children of expat and mixed families, bilingual children, and Turkish children whose English is strong but who rarely get to use it outside the classroom. There is no level test. If your child can hold an everyday conversation in English, that is enough. No acting experience is needed.
The gap we built it for
Once a child reaches a working level of English, most of what Istanbul offers stops fitting. Language courses keep teaching what they already know. Most drama and theatre courses for children run in Turkish. The English drama options we found for this age group are either open to every level or designed to introduce English through play, which suits beginners but not a child who already speaks it. English Drama Youth starts from the other end: English is simply the working language, and the work itself is theatre.
What the year looks like
October to May, one session a week. Each month runs the same way: three weeks of drama (creative drama, improvisation, solo and ensemble work) and a fourth week with a guest artist, rotating between creative writing, design and jazz dance. October to December is play, trust and improvisation. January is character and text, with a scene-writing workshop. February to April is rehearsal, using scenes built from the children's own writing, designs and movement. In May come the dress and technical rehearsals and a fully English show for families and an audience.
Creativity, not just conversation
In the guest workshops children write short stories for their characters, design characters and masks, and build rhythm and ensemble movement with a dancer. Everything they make goes into a shared pool that becomes the material of the May show. They are not handed a finished play to memorise; they perform something they helped to write, design and choreograph, in English.
What changes in their English
The Council of Europe's CEFR describes a B1 speaker as someone who can keep going comprehensibly, though pausing to plan and repair is very evident; at B2, speech runs at a fairly even tempo. Much of the step from B1 to B2 is about speaking without stopping to plan every sentence. That is exactly what improvisation and rehearsal train: answering in the moment, repeating lines until they flow, speaking to an audience. Research points the same way. In a TESOL Quarterly study (Galante & Thomson, 2017), 24 Brazilian teenagers learning English followed either a four-month drama-based programme or communicative classes; 30 native-speaker listeners rated the drama group's speech as more fluent and easier to understand. A meta-analysis of 47 studies (Lee et al., Review of Educational Research, 2015) found positive effects of drama-based teaching on achievement and on psychological and social outcomes. We do not test or grade, so we will not promise a jump in level. What the year targets is the part of fluency grammar lessons rarely reach: speaking without translating first.
Two age groups, two sides of the city
Ages 8–14 and 15–17 work in separate classes; a twelve-year-old and a seventeen-year-old need different material and a different pace. Groups are capped at 12. The Pera group (European side) meets on Sundays at 13:00; it started on 4 October and joining is still open. The Kadıköy group (Asian side) started on Saturday 17 October at 15:00, and joining is open. Classes take place in partner studios.
For parents who do not speak Turkish
Everything can be done in English: questions, enrolment and updates during the year. Our online booking form is currently in Turkish, so the easiest route is to email or message us in English and we will book your child into a free introduction session on a Sunday in Pera or a Saturday in Kadıköy.
sources
- Council of Europe, CEFR Table 3: qualitative aspects of spoken language use (B1, B2)
- Galante & Thomson (2017), TESOL Quarterly 51(1): drama and L2 fluency. Summary: Brock University News, 4 April 2016
- Lee, Patall, Cawthon & Steingut (2015), Review of Educational Research 85(1): meta-analysis of drama-based pedagogy
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programmes
WHAT YOU CAN JOIN
questions
BEFORE YOU ASK
What English level does my child need?
Around B1 or above: your child can follow an everyday conversation and answer in full sentences. There is no test; your own judgement is enough. If your child is not there yet, a language course first is the better choice, and we will tell you so.
My child is at an international school and already fluent. Will this be too easy?
The challenge here is not vocabulary. It is improvising with a partner, writing a scene, holding a character for eight months and performing for an audience. Children who already speak English easily tend to have the most room to play, which is the point of the programme.
Will my child's English improve?
We do not grade or test, so we do not promise a level. The work is built around the skill that separates B1 from B2 in the CEFR: speaking at an even tempo without stopping to plan. Studies of drama-based English teaching with teenagers have found larger gains in fluency than standard communicative classes (Galante & Thomson, TESOL Quarterly, 2017).
Are younger children mixed with teenagers?
No. Ages 8–14 and 15–17 work in separate classes. This separation is deliberate.
Is the final performance compulsory?
The performance is part of the programme and the whole group prepares it together. How prominent your child is on stage depends on their own pace; nobody is pushed further than they want to go.
Where and when are the classes?
Pera (Beyoğlu, European side) on Sundays at 13:00, and Kadıköy (Asian side) on Saturdays at 15:00 (started 17 October). One session a week, October to May.
Can my child join after the start?
Yes. The Pera group started on 4 October and joining is still open; the Kadıköy group started on 17 October. The first months are about play and trust, so a late start is easy to absorb.
Can we try a session first?
Yes. Free introduction sessions run weekly: Sundays at 13:00 in Pera and Saturdays at 15:00 in Kadıköy. Email or message us in English and we will book you in.
Do parents need to speak Turkish to enrol?
No. We handle enrolment and all communication in English if you prefer.
Questions in English are welcome. Tell us what you are looking for and we will point you to the right group.