Dear SCENARIO Readers,
This new edition starts yet again with our rubric Texts around Theatre (TaT). We are presenting an excerpt from Gottfried Keller’s (1819-1890) autobiographical novel Green Henry. It puts forward the thought that certain people – or learner types – most effectively approach classical literature through becoming active themselves, and that experiencing improvisation can have a lasting effect on one’s personality.
Following this, the article Heaven by Bärbel Jogschies (Theatre Heilbronn) and Doris Krohn (University of Hamburg) reports how international students who study at the University of Hamburg experienced a theatre-pedagogical workshop at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. They were familiarized with Fritz Kater’s contemporary play Heaven (to Tristan) through a variety of practical activities, and also to the centuries-old legend of Tristan and Isolde, the background for the play.
This edition features for the first time a contribution from the Far East perspective: Testing the Waters: Drama in the Japanese University EFL Classroom. The author Eucharia Donnery (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan) explores ways in which drama can be meaningfully integrated into the English as a Foreign Language curriculum, with an emphasis on cultural specifics.
In her article Towards a Pedagogy of Strangeness: Exploring the Potential of Strangeness for Foreign Language Education, Katja Frimberger (Colegio Humboldt, Caracas, Venezuela) examines theoretical and practical concepts from theatre, particularly Brechtian forms of theatrical work. She describes how these can be employed for foreign language instruction and meaningfully prepare competencies for the encounter with the foreign culture.
Daniel Feldhendler’s (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University, Frankfurt) contribution Das Leben in Szene setzen is based on his concept of ‘relational dramaturgy’. This concept encompasses practical approaches to Playback Theatre that are being dealt with here in more detail (following up Feldhendler’s general theoretical outline in SCENARIO 2/2007).
The fifth edition ends with Sean Aita’s article The Theatre in Language Learning (TILL) Model. Aita, (Art Institute at Bornemouth, U.K.) focuses on language learning motivation through Theatre in Education projects, specifically the English Theatre Goes into Schools programme. Examples are given from Vienna English Theatre, a Theatre in Education troupe who has been in cooperation with the Austrian Ministry for Arts and Culture since 1966.
In addition to the above contributions Birgit Oelschläger reviews a publication by Klaus Hoffmann/Rainer Klose (eds) (2008): Theater interkulturell: Theaterarbeit mit Kindern und Jugendlichen, Berlin/Milow/Strasburg: Schibri Verlag and Manfred Schewe reviews Benedikt Kessler (2008): Interkulturelle Dramapädagogik. Dramatische Arbeit als Vehikel des interkulturellen Lernens im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Frankfurt/Main, Peter Lang.
An announcement: those who intend to participate - or who are only thinking of participating - in the 23th DGFF (German Society of Foreign Language Research) Conference for Foreign Language Didactics in Leipzig, Germany (September 30 to October 3, 2009), might be interested in Working Group 9 with its focus on “Drama Pedagogy for Foreign Language Teaching and Learning.”
We would like to thank Monika Schlenger (Goethe Institute Dublin) who helped us find the English translation for Gottfried Keller’s excerpt (in our rubric TaT), as well as our tireless technical team Peter Flynn and Maria Sinnecker.
And last not least, we ask our readers to be patient when certain articles, due to technical intricacies, still will not download in pdf format. We are working on it, and wishing you a relaxing summer 2009,
The Editors
Susanne Even / Manfred Schewe
August 1st , 2009