Inviting performance into the English foreign language classroom

Ulrike Sievers

doi:10.33178/scenario.16.1.9

Authors

Ulrike Sievers Waldorfseminar Hamburg

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33178/scenario.16.1.9

Keywords:

Waldorf, L2 learning, Middle and Upper school, Performative methods, Creativity

Abstract

In this article the foreign language classroom in a Waldorf school is described as a space inviting active performative participation. It gives examples spanning the lower, middle and particularly the upper school, in which performative methods and creativity are specifically encouraged. The aim is to involve the whole child and young person not only in reproducing but in producing actions in and through the foreign language, using methods such as enacting stories and pictures, producing and playing scenes, translating prose texts into scripts for plays, radio plays and story boards for film.

Author Biography

Ulrike Sievers, Waldorfseminar Hamburg

Ulrike Sievers studied Anglistics at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany, and currently teaches upper school students English as a foreign language at a Waldorf school in Hamburg. She was introduced to creative language teaching approaches through the English Week Conferences and has explored the field of language teaching and learning in theory and practice for many years. Performative activities and the integration of analogue as well as digital media have long been a focus of her practice. On the basis of her teaching and her international experience in teacher education, she wrote her book Creative teaching, sustainable learning: a holistic approach to foreign language teaching and learning, in which she has explored the wide range of possibilities teachers have to create open spaces in which their pupils can encounter the world, the other and the self, explore various ways of expression and develop their own voices. In 2016, she started the online platform www.e-learningwaldorf.de.