Engage or Entertain? The Nature of Teacher/Participant Collaboration in Process Drama for Additional Language Teaching

Abstract

This paper was presented at the conference ‘Plot me no plots: Theatre for University Language teaching’ held at the University of Padua in October 2011. The presentation included a practical demonstration of the teacher-in-role strategy and a discussion. Process drama is an experiential approach that has been gaining momentum in the field of language teaching; it is a genre of applied theatre in which the participants, together with the facilitator, engage in the co-construction of a story. As an improvised dramatic form, it encourages negotiation of meaning through the process of experience and reflection. In this article, I reflect on the nature of the collaborative process between teacher and participants in process drama, drawing on my doctoral research on the aesthetics of process drama for teaching additional languages. In this research, I worked with three cohorts of adult language learners, studying Italian as a Second Language (L2), and three cohorts of teachers of Italian (L2) new to drama. I draw on classroom data to illustrate two of the main dramatic strategies of the form: ‘teacher-in-role’ and ‘mantle of the expert’. I introduce these strategies, situate them in a theoretical context and discuss issues and implications when teaching to engage, rather than to entertain.

Artistry as a Factor of the Professionalism of the Future Teacher

“…Amonashvili Sh. (1990), Piatsoli E. (2012) considered the professional skills formation of teachers in terms of their artistry and ability to reincarnate. Butenko V. (1995), Bolton G. (1984), Bawel & Heap (2017), Dunn Dj.…”

“…with the richness of personal manifestations and naturalness, freedom, beauty and sophistication of decisions, can assert itself in the experience of students, form a motivational and value attitude to the content of education and pass on the experience of previous generations. This is directly related to the transition from the function of "knowledge transition" to the function of "teacher of life" (Piatsoli, 2012).…”

“…Conditions for the effectiveness of teaching pedagogical artistry, in addition to a step-by-step approach and the use of different teaching methods, students" freedom in the classroom, were as follows: maintaining individual style and individual character in performing various educational tasks; individual manifestation of the personal component, which was not evaluated as correct or incorrect, but only as unique, specific to a particular student; lack of negative reactions from classmates, i.e. a generally favorable psychological atmosphere (Piatsoli, 2012).…”

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“…The "teacher's aim is not acting, nor entertaining, but engaging the participants" (Piazzoli, 2012, p. 33) so that they respond actively. In fact, if the teacher is too theatrical, it can be counterproductive as instead of encouraging student participation, it will make them a passive audience which is merely getting entertained and offers safe reactions such as giggles and applause or falling silent (Piazzoli, 2012;Prendiville, 2000).…”

Teacher-in-Role as a Tool for Scaffolding Role Plays in the English Classroom

“…She is credited with laying the foundation of process drama, TiR, and the core concept of the mantle of the expert (Cowburn, 2013). However, it must be noted that the term process drama was popularized by Cecily O'Neill, who is also responsible for developing process drama as a structured pedagogy (Piazzoli, 2012).…”