Creating Space for Creating: Drama as Dialogic Practice in the Adult Classroom
Session Abstract
What can art offer adult language education? A brief presentation will share findings of a yearlong study in which adult immigrant ESL students created plays based on their lives for performance in the community. Participants will then engage in drama activities, reflecting on their challenges and potentials across different contexts.
Target Audience
Drama has been used across a variety of educational contexts. The presentation portion of this session will focus on how drama has been used in language education contexts, making it relevant to language teachers. However, the techniques explored in the interactive portion are of interest to educators in any field who are looking for new ways to engage students in meaningful dialogue. Any attendee with an interest in incorporating drama into their curriculum, whatever that curriculum may be, has the opportunity to participate in drama activities and explore how they might be adapted to their
Session Description
This session consists of two parts. In the first, attendees will be presented with findings from a yearlong study in which adult immigrant language learners created plays for performance in the community. These findings indicate that engaging students with drama first led to increased anxiety, then increased feelings of pride and empowerment that extended beyond the classroom; further, students perceived drama to augment their language skills. Immigrant language learners in the US are often viewed from a deficit perspective. Giving students a platform to share their voices is a means of reversing this deficit model with the potential to lead to meaningful change in the community.
In the second (and lengthier) part of the session, attendees are invited to participate in drama activities that can be adapted to a variety of educational contexts. It is hoped that by participating in drama activities in the workshop, attendees will explore ways to adapt them for use in their own contexts and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. There is currently a trend in US education and education research towards valuing art and creativity in the curriculum. In this session we will explore what drama has to offer the broad spectrum of adult education.