Dear Readers,
An excerpt from Max Peter Ammann’s novel Die Gottfriedkinder (The Gottfried Children) starts off our 15th SCENARIO issue. It describes how a young and motivated teacher, faced with institutional and collegial resistance, still manages to make learning through theatre possible.
Inma Alvarez (Open University, UK) and Ana Beaven (C.I.L.T.A. Language Center, University of Bologna, Italy) report on the European Grundtvig Project Performing Languages (2011-2013). Their article Non-formal Drama Training for In-Service Language Teachers describes how seasoned British language teachers underwent informal training sessions in other European countries, and how specifically their participation in drama workshops proved to be enriching on both professional and personal levels. The authors call for stronger support of such projects that foster encounters between theater practitioners and language teachers.
In his article Drama in ‘Sprachpraxis’ at a German University English Department: Practical Solutions to Pedagogical Challenges, Jonathan Sharp (University of Tübingen, Germany) outlinines developments within British drama in education and German theatre pedagogy. He points to evidence for a growing interest in both these disciplines within Modern Foreign Languages. The integration of performative teaching and learning practices in the training of language teachers at the Department of English at the University of Tübingen is an example for innovative pathways in teacher education.
The two following contributions look at teaching and learning contexts outside of Europe:
With her article Process Drama in the Japanese University EFL Classroom: The Emigration Project, Eucharia Donnery (Shonan Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan) introduces a research project she conducted at the Department of English at a Japanese university. Throughout the drama project, students not only gained historical and cultural knowledge, but also clearly developed their linguistic and intercultural competencies.
The author team Erika Piazzoli and Claire Kennedy (Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia) describe in their article Drama: Threat or Opportunity? Managing the ‘Dual Affect’ in Process Drama a research project at an Australian university in a course aimed at conveying cultural knowledge about Italy. Their focus question was whether students, during drama pedagogy phases, experienced the alternation between real and fictitious contexts as learning opportunities or as personal invasion.
This is followed by two reports:
Alexander Riedmüller (Buenos Aires, Argentinia) gives an impression of the Viennese theatre group artig’s extraordinary journey through Central and South America (Feburary through June 2013). Their childrens’ play “K.B.M. – Kleine bunte Männchen“, specifially conceived and developed for this tour, was staged in different countries and varying places.
Friedhelm Roth-Lange (IFANT-Vienna, Austria, and TPZ-Cologne, Germany) writes about a theatre festival for young people at the Volksbühne Berlin (June 5-8, 2014). This festival was sponsored by the Goethe Institute, and ten student groups from Spain, Portugal, France, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Germany participated. He also points to an increasing interest in theatre among foreign language teachers.
The issue ends with an interview between Hanne Seitz (Fachhochschule Potsdam, Germany) and SCENARIO: Über Ästhetisches und Performatives.
We would like to highlight at this point that the next SCENARIO issue will be dedicated to contributions based on talks and workshops at the First International Conference: Performative Teaching, Learning and Research in Cork (May/June 2014). As far as conference documentation is concerned, we are happy to announce that more information will be uploaded in the next few weeks at http://www.ucc.ie/en/scenario/scenarioforum/scenarioforum-conference2014/.
August 2014
Your editors
Manfred Schewe and Susanne Even