Kingsbury Brunetto, K. (2015). Performing the Art of Language Learning: Deepening the Language Learning Experience through Theatre and Drama. Blue Mounds, WI: Deep University Press.

Abstract

In this book, Kingsbury Brunetto describes her research on the language learning experience through theatre. Doing so, she analyses interviews with undergraduate students, which she collected from two theatre-based language courses (French and Spanish as L2) at different survey dates. The focus lies on the use of language as a social act that demonstrates the multifaceted nature of theatre-based language learning. Language is not only seen as something shown in evident linguistic objects here; rather it is a result of activities in complex contexts. The author wants to find out how learners of a second language function within a theatre-based language learning environment. She tries to understand the complexity of language learning as a socially situated human activity by looking at the perspectives of the participants. The particular charm of the book is that it is structured like a theatre play. Kingsbury Brunetto refrains from classic terms such as "theoretical background" or "research method", and instead entitles the chapters analogously to the procedure for a theatre performance, such as "Playbill", "Before the Curtain Rises" or "The Critics’ Reviews". In the beginning, Kingsbury Brunetto presents her approach to this research by briefly sketching her own background and providing a short insight ...