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Effective drama teaching and learning needs physical space: space for performance, expression, interaction and exploration. However, the Sri Lankan classroom environment remains largely unexplored in terms of investigating the relationship between the physical classroom environment and the teaching and learning of drama when process drama is the method of instruction. This article is based on the findings of a non-randomised control group intervention study, which involved forty classroom observations in secondary schools in Sri Lanka. The observations showed that students who were able to use the school’s open-air theatre for the entire intervention period engaged in far more collaborative, energetic, performative and creative behaviours than other classes who were in a confined classroom space with desks and chairs crammed closely together. Implications for the teaching of drama by different methods are discussed in the Sri Lankan context.

Arts subjects such as drama provide an effective context for developing 21st century skills, yet drama teaching in Sri Lanka is still mainly delivery through traditional, lecture-based methods. This article presents evaluation results of a drama-based intervention program that was designed specifically to develop junior secondary school students' creative thinking capacity and adaptability skills in the Sri Lankan context. The participants were 128 students aged 11-12 years in Year 7 drama classes. The program was implemented over twelve consecutive weeks in weekly two-hour sessions by regular drama teachers who had been trained in a process drama teaching approach. Results evidenced a positive effect emerging from the intervention: creativity and adaptability test scores of the students in the intervention group increased significantly compared to those of the students in the control and active control groups. This paper identifies implications of these findings for Sri Lankan drama teaching and learning and beyond.

The teaching of drama in Sri Lanka is presently only conducted by the traditional lecture method, which is not conducive to preparing students for the modern globalised world. To ascertain whether teaching by process drama techniques improved creativity in secondary school students, a non-randomised control group design with an intervention group, a control group and an active control group, was conducted. This article describes the perceptions of teachers in the intervention group who taught process drama. We describe the obstacles which the teachers experienced when teaching process drama and the challenge to bring changes to drama education in Sri Lanka.

This thesis has shown the importance of developing creative thinking and adaptability skills through a drama-based teaching approach in junior secondary school students in Sri Lanka. Findings will help teachers enable and encourage the development of creative thinking and adaptability skills in junior secondary school students, teaching them how to be open to new ideas and think outside the square through process drama techniques, enhancing 21st-century skills.