Dear SCENARIO-Readers,
We are delighted that the fourth issue of SCENARIO casts a spotlight on various pedagogical contexts (primary, lower secondary, vocational school, and university) through contributions from German, Luxembourgian, and US-American perspectives.
This issue is again kicked off by the rubric Texts around Theatre. An excerpt from Frank McCourt’s memoirs Teacher Man very entertainingly describes the author’s first encounter with Shakespeare’s works.
This introduction is followed by three contributions that present diverse overviews of different areas of drama pedagogy.
In their article A Shared Mission: Dramapädagogik, interkulturelle Kompetenz und holistisches Fremdsprachenlernen, Benedikt Kessler (Karl-Rehbein-Schule Hanau, Hessen) and Almut Küppers (Universität Frankfurt) emphasize that even though aspects of intercultural learning have been gaining ground within the theory and practice of foreign language instruction, there have hardly been any convincing concepts for the development of intercultural competencies in more than 20 years. The authors present their concept of ‘Intercultural Drama Pedagogy’ as an answer to the discrepancy between goals and reality.
Bettina Matthias (Middlebury College, Vermont) conducted an extensive survey for the years 1992 – 2006, and investigated the importance of theatre productions at German departments in the U.S. and Canada. Her findings, laid down in her article German Theater at Northern American Colleges and Universities 1992 – 2006: A Survey, afford interesting insights: e.g., which German plays are favourites for theatre productions. On the basis of feedback from the participating institutions, she points to a general trend towards increased appreciation of aesthetic, product-oriented endeavours. Matthias also instigated the new professional network “Arbeitsgruppe Deutsches Theater in Nordamerika“ (ADTA).
In her report Dramapädagogik im (Fremd)Sprachenunterricht: Eine wertvolle Unterstützung im Deutschunterricht in Luxemburg – nicht nur für romanophone Sprachlerner, Natalie Fratini (Sekundarschule Lycée du Nord, Wiltz, Luxemburg) describes diverse challenges for the teaching and learning of foreign languages that result from Luxembourg’s trilingualism. She outlines ways in which drama pedagogy could play an innovative role for language, grammar, and literature instruction at schools and universities in Luxembourg.
These three overviews are followed by two detailed project descriptions.
The first contribution, Kristin Wardetzky’s und Christiane Weigel’s (Universität der Künste, Berlin) Sprachlos? Erzählen im interkulturellen Kontext: Ein Projekt zur Sprachförderung von Kindern mit Migrationshintergrund focuses on German as a Second Language. Their artistic-pedagogical project was awarded a special prize for the promotion and advancement of language development for children from immigrant backgrounds.
During this project, forms of narrative theatre were used to advance both linguistic and personal development of primary school children. This detailed report should be of particular interest to colleagues who welcome an artistic emphasis in language instruction as well as an explicit focus on ‘a poetic language beyond everyday speech.’
Jenny Passon (Alfred-Delp-Realschule Ubstadt-Weiher, Baden-Württemberg) argues in her article for the teaching of Shakespeare in lower secondary schools in Germany (“Realschule”), and exemplifies in the project description the creative learning processes unfolding during the production of Romeo and Juliet. This connects to Frank McCourt’s text in this issue of SCENARIO, as well as to articles on Shakespeare in the first issue (2007).
This issue is completed by Gerd Koch’s introduction of the Zeitschrift für Theaterpädagogik – Korrespondenzen (Journal of Theatre Pedagogy “Korrespondenzen”), which cooperates closely with SCENARIO, and two reviews. Gert Hofmann writes about Ingrid Hentschels (2007) Monographie Dionysos darf nicht sterben. Theater in der Gegenwart and Joachim Beug about Stephen Barr’s (2007) film version of a puppet theatre production of Goethe’s Faust.
Susanne Even / Manfred Schewe
December 1st, 2008