Dear SCENARIO Readers,
We are pleased to introduce our SCENARIO 2016 summer issue.
The issue starts off with three articles with a focus on Teaching English as a Second and Foreign Language.
Anne Smith (Redbridge, UK) presents a British Applied Theatre project based on forms of improvisation. Her contribution, Creative English: Balancing Creative and Functional Language Needs for Adult Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants, targets functional as well as creative needs of adult learners in order to support communication skills in the second language.
In the third part of her article series1 in SCENARIO, Eucharia Donnery (Shonan Institute of Technology, Japan) explores with Process Drama in the Japanese University Classroom: Phase Three, The Homelessness Project both the opportunities and limitations of process drama for foreign language education at Japanese universities.
In her article. Step into Drama and Teach English Affordably, Konstantina Kalogirou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece) addresses the impact of the Greek economic crisis upon foreign language education in that nation's school system. She argues that, given the current sociopolitical situation there, drama pedagogy could provide significant impulses for both education and educational policy.
Robin Reid (Baiko Gakuin University, Japan) introduces practical exercises designed to make the analysis of theatrical plays more accessible to students. His contribution, Performative Script Analysis for Additional Language Classrooms, appears in the rubric Window of Practice.
In „Oser dépasser les frontières“ – Fronten aufbrechen im DaF-Unterricht durch kooperative Arbeit zwischen mehrsprachigen SchülerInnen und Studierenden im Oberelsass, Nina Kulovics & Aline Vennemann (Université de Haute-Alsace, France) describe a multilingual arts project in the context of German as a Foreign Language. This project is the result of a cooperation between secondary schools and higher education, featuring the examination and exploration of original German and French texts (in part unpublished reports by soldiers and civilians) from World War I. Performative approaches are meant to dissolve “not only geographical … but also mental and social, i.e. internalized, invisible fronts.”
Simone Hein-Khatib (University of Regensburg, Germany) contributes an essay entitled Ohne Panzerhemd der Gewohnheiten – Über das Wahrnehmen der Stimme und den Stellenwert von Spracherfahrungen im Fachbereich ‚Deutsch als Zweitsprache’. Following Fischer-Lichte’s claim that the human voice is an important element in an aesthetics of the performative (2004), the author reflects on the extent to which her auditory perceptions of voice are influenced by her language competencies in German, Arabic, and Czech.
This issue also launches our new rubric, Student Voices. A journal with the main focus on performative teaching and learning of languages, literatures, and cultures certainly lends itself to also include the student perspective. In his contribution, Of Empathy, Imagination and Good Gloves, the Erasmus student Marvin Schildmeier gives an account of his personal experiences with drama and theatre at University College Cork and illustrates how drama and theatre pedagogy methods afforded him new ways to approach literary texts. SCENARIO would hereby like to explicitly invite students to share their experiences with performative forms of teaching and learning at their respective institutions.
This issue closes with three book reviews. Barbara Schmenk (University of Waterloo, Canada) discusses Helga Tschurtschenthaler’s Drama-based Foreign Language Learning. Encounters between Self and Other (2013), Florian Vaßen (Leibniz University Hanover) the volume Auftritte. Strategien des In-Erscheinung-Tretens in Künsten und Medien, edited by Annemarie Matzke, Ulf Otto & Jens Roselt (2015), and Dragan Miladinovic (University College Cork, Ireland) reviews the recent publication, Sprache durch Dramapädagogik handelnd erfahren. Ansätze für den Sprachunterricht, edited by Anica Betz, Caroline Schuttkowski, Linda Stark, and Anne-Kathrin Wilms (2016).
On the topic of publications, we would like announce two new volumes in the SCENARIO book series (http://www.ucc.ie/en/scenario/scenariobooks/): Performancekünste im Hochschulstudium by Micha Fleiner (2016) and the bilingual anthology, Performatives Lehren, Lernen, Forschen – Performative Teaching, Learning, Research, edited by Susanne Even and Manfred Schewe (2016).
In closing, we would like to notify our readers of the 2nd International SCENARIO Forum conference, Performative Spaces in Language, Literature and Culture Education, which takes place at University College Cork, May 25-28, 2017. For more details see http://www.ucc.ie/en/scenario/scenarioforum/scenarioforum-conference2017/. You will also find the Call for Papers at the end of this issue.
Wishing all SCENARIO readers a restful end to the summer!
Manfred Schewe & Susanne Even