Tag: Pedagogy
Drama as method : recontextualizing project learning for HK secondary schools
This doctoral study is grounded in the work of cultural studies and its concern for pedagogy and education. The study investigated a local pedagogical issue— Independent Enquiry Study (IES)—a specific form of social inquiry in the core subject Liberal Studies (LS) in Hong Kong senior secondary schools. It took a designated IES classroom as the point of intervention and as the basis for exploring transformed pedagogical practices in Hong Kong secondary school education.
The ‘Unthinking Thinker’: the Reflexive Teacher for Integrated Drama Education
The whole purpose of writing a PhD thesis on drama education in Hong Kong is to develop relevant academic discourse for promoting the introduction of drama into the formal school curriculum with the necessary teacher development methods.
Teaching and learning through drama: in search of a dialogic classroom in Hong Kong
The objective of this dissertation is, to raise awareness concerning the importance of “talking to learn”, which is neglected by teachers in Hong Kong. Reflecting on her past schooling experience, the author attempts to explore the fundamental relationship between talking and learning. Talking is the most effective mode that can be used to engage students in their learning process. The talking space provided for students by teachers affects the way students view their role in the classroom. In order to foster students learning to learn, the author argues that the traditional one-way teaching classroom should be replaced by a dialogic classroom where students’ voices are valued. Drama, in its dialogic nature, has a great potential to create this kind of classroom. Through the literature reviews and the author’s experience in this year, she demonstrates that drama as a powerful teaching and learning medium could be of help to students learning to be active learners. Based on her inquiry, she wants to give vigorous support to the introduction of drama, as an alternative pedagogy, in Hong Kong schools. She believes that drama is more than an extra-curricular activity; it can help to achieve the aims of the current Hong Kong Education Reform which emphasizes teaching students “learning how to learn”.
Exploring the Moral Values of Trust and Care through Process Drama in a Chinese Primary School: The Case of Workshop A Lion in Paris | DaTEAsia Vol. 10
Based on an in-depth case study of a workshop adapted from the picture book A Lion in Paris, this paper explores the possibilities of introducing drama to promote primary children’s moral values of trust and care in the Chinese educational context.
Advance Teaching Methods and Materials for Performing Arts Junior High School Teacher Education in Taiwan: A Case Study (Chinese)|DaTEAsia Vol. 9
The research purpose is to explore how to apply Rasaboxes into the junior high school performing arts teacher education and professional development to build a competence-based instruction module. Rasaboxes originates from the Indian performance theory, particularly emphasizing on body experience and emotion expression. Integrated with the Western Performance Studies and Drama Therapy, it has been applied into acting training, counseling, and education.
Motivation and Second Language Learning: How Stanislavski’s System Motivates Learning as a Motivational Teaching Practice in Chinese Narrative Writing as a Second Language (Chinese) | DaTEAsia Vol. 9
This paper examines how drama works as a motivational teaching practice and how it enhances students’ learning motivation. Data is collected from eight students, an observer and the teacher-as researcher through action-based research. All sorts of research data sets are triangulated for enhancing the reliability of the study. Interviews of the participants and researcher’s reflective journals are analysed according to the Motivated Strategies for learning (Pintrich et al., 1991) and the Model of Motivational teaching practice (Dörnyei, 2001). The findings show that drama is an effective motivational teaching practice of Chinese narrative writing as a second language for non-Chinese speaking students, and at the same time it also increases students’ learning motivation in terms of self-efficacy, extrinsic goal orientation, intrinsic goal orientation, task value and diminishes learning anxiety.
The Development of Drama Education in the Early Childhood Program in Malaysia: Embarked from the Life History of three Malaysian Chinese Drama Teachers (Chinese)|DaTEAsia Vol. 9
Drama education from the West has been developed in Taiwan and Hong Kong for many years. It has been introduced into Malaysian schools through Taiwan by Malaysian Chinese for 20 years. The study in the paper analyzes the drama-learning processes of three Malaysian Chinese kindergarten drama teachers. In examining the individual personal histories, the paper aims to review the development of drama education in early childhood education in Malaysia. Through interviews and the analysis of teaching plans and classroom observations, the research finds that three teachers’ early encounters with drama were somewhat related to the Chinese culture or school drama events. With their own personal interests, followed by informal or formal training and the need of their professional development, these three teachers have developed their own teaching styles. All of the three played crucial roles in the advancement of drama education in Malaysia. With the initiative of the new national ECE (Early Childhood Education) curriculum, there are needs to combine resources from different sectors, to promote dialogues among drama teachers or artists, or to make reference to curriculum models in ECE teacher-training programs in other Asian countries. These are necessary effects for solving problems encountered in the kindergartens and teacher training institutions.
TEFO x Chris Cooper: The Art of Facilitation — A Bridge Between Two Worlds 【Activity Report】
Facilitation as a Worldview By Valerie Jane Kwok “Faci [...]
The Integration of Drama Education in the Subject of Modern Greek Language in Greek Primary Education|DaTEAsia Vol. 8
The use of dramatic conventions for educational purposes has a long history. However, in the Greek educational system it is only during the last decade that a clear-cut effort has been actually made to incorporate dramatic methods into the teaching of various subjects and in particular into the subject of language. The present study examines ways and approaches of incorporating dramatic methods into the subject of language in the elementary education in Greece.
The Use of Drama Pedagogy in Teaching Chinese Landscape Poetry(Chinese)|DaTEAsia Vol. 8
Today, the younger generation in mainland China is losing interest in studying classical Chinese, especially classical Chinese poetry. This article is trying to explore the possibility of introducing classical Chinese poetry through educational drama, an approach different from the mainstream pedagogy used in most Chinese schools. By analysing a particular drama lesson series, this article discusses the meaning and practicability of the drama pedagogy.
Students’ Perceptions of Collaborative Playwriting Projects Undertaken at a High School in Japan|DaTEAsia Vol. 8
This paper explores the activity of collaborative playwriting for theatre performance as a mode of language learning within a task-based framework. It describes a quasi-experimental study in which a pair of similar but distinct playwriting theatre tasks was implemented in a first-year English oral communication course at a senior high school in Japan. This paper briefly discusses the background, rationale and design of the playwriting tasks. It then reviews relevant data obtained from post-task student feedback questionnaires. Despite the evident lack of theatrical experience amongst the student participants, their feedback was markedly positive. In addition, a number of students reported improvements in various areas of their language abilities. They also recognised the opportunities for learning that both the devising process and the performance outcomes afforded them.
Drama as Pedagogy for English Language Education in Neoliberalist Hong Kong: Reflections from Students’ Learning English Through Drama|DaTEAsia Vol. 8
The authors have observed from related literature and their own front-line English teaching experiences that neoliberalism is posing adverse effects on English language Education (ELE), affecting English teaching and learning at the classroom level in Hong Kong. To address the adverse neoliberalist influence on ELE, this paper examines the relations between drama pedagogy and ELE in Hong Kong. It discusses findings from students’ experiences with learning English through drama as delivered by their teachers who experienced the drama pedagogy for the first time through an in-service teacher development programme organised by Hong Kong Arts School (HKAS, 2016). The discussion is informed by the Freirean notion of critical pedagogy and drama as “relational pedagogy”. At the end of the paper, the authors reflect on the possibilities of a dialogical and humanising approach to ELE for drama practitioners, English teachers and educators in Hong Kong.
Japanese Students Re-engaging in English through Dramatised Digital Storytelling|DaTEAsia Vol. 8
Through the deconstruction of a collaboratively constructed srudent-devised dramatised digital story, this article examines how a group of Japanese university students engaged in their English language learning in a meaningful and creative way. The digital story was an outcome of a three-week intensive elective that drew on process drama and digital storytelling to foster and develop srudents' applications of English language. The article provides the contextual background and the authors' research of the intensive course. Later, a detailed description of the digital story with analysis through a multimodal framework will be discussed thoroughly.
The Praxes and Challenges in Cultivating Applied Theatre Practitioners in Taiwan: Using the Creative Applied Drama Practicum Curriculum as an Example | DaTEAsia Vol. 6
This article discusses the rationales behind the design and implementation of the creative applied drama practicum curriculum in the Department of Drama Creation and Application (DDCA) at National University of Tainan (NUTN) as a case of nurturing applied theatre practitioners. It examines what effects and impacts students’ practicum in the form of community practices have on both the students themselves and the communities involved. The paper also analyses how the political economy and the culture of Taiwan interplays with the development of applied drama. It draws extensively from notions of ethics of care, relational aesthetics, dialogical creative theories and service learning to investigate how the design and implementation of the course has put theories into practice. Through the sharing of the curriculum practices, the paper attempts to invite and inspire more creative applied drama practices in Asia and around the globe.
Constructing Knowledge Together: A Reflective Practitioner Case Study on the Use of Ensemble Pedagogy to Shakespearean Text in a Y8 Drama Class | DaTEAsia Vol. 5
Most research on the teaching of Shakespeare in school settings has focused on how active approaches can foster learners’ motivation and confidence. While this point is essential, the value of collaboration among learners remains a relatively neglected area of study despite its significance in determining the quality of the learning process. This article explores how ensemble-based learning can enable the process of knowledge construction through collaborative work among learners. In doing so, I designed and facilitated six drama lessons exploring Shakespeare’s Macbeth in a Y8 drama class in England as my pilot study. Adopting Vygotskian socio-cultural approaches to the development of knowledge and Jonothan Neelands’ principles of ensemble, the study draws on analysis of qualitative data. Overall, the preliminary findings suggest evidence to support the conclusions of previous studies that ensemble-based learning can (1) generate an “open space” which fosters an inclusive environment through mutual trust and collaboration among learners; (2) bring learners to the centre of collaborative sense making with teacher serving as a facilitator to support autonomous learning; and (3) create a stimulating dialogue through collaborative work and creative exploration.
Story, Play and Enchantment: The Importance of Drama for Children in the Early Years of Education | DaTEAsia Vol. 5
This article is based upon a keynote address I was invited to give at the “International Conference for Drama Education for Young Children” which took place at Nanjing Normal University in June, 2014. In addressing the theme of the conference – Drama, Dream and Children – I chose to refer to two practical examples. My intention was to provoke some thinking about specific ways that drama can contribute to children’s social, moral and language learning, not in any exhaustive way but by drawing attention to some important considerations. In particular I wished to focus on the kind of drama work young children enjoy and are capable of and the crucial role of pedagogy in enabling this to happen.
Launching into Drama as a Pedagogy of Hope | DaTEAsia Vol. 4
The presentation draws on Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of hope (1992) and his belief that we need hope in the way “a fish needs water”. In this book Freire charges us with the task to “unveil opportunities for hope, no matter what the obstacles may be”. Living through the first part of the 21st century has included us in many experiences that we may consider challenges to hopefulness. Madonna proposes drama as a pedagogy of hope and suggests our role, today and tomorrow, is to work in drama alongside our students to imagine, to hope, to empathise, and attempt to understand ourselves and others.
What Artistic, Pedagogic and Therapeutic Challenges can Arise with a Community Based Theatre Project?|DaTEAsia Vol. 3
This paper focuses on and discusses the strategies to solve different Artistic, Pedagogic and Therapeutic challenges in a staged musical based on local life, language and history with a diversity of people in a small town in Norway. Using a graphic model comprised of three intersecting circles, where each circle represents the Artistic, Pedagogic or Therapeutic challenge, I analyze both the overlapping and the distinct areas where these challenges occur. This analysis covers the process from the project’s inception through to the fnal performance.
Learning to Write Critically: Drama as Pedagogy and the Implications for Cultural Criticism|DaTEAsia Vol. 3
This paper analyzes the role and use of drama in engaging students with the work of cultural criticism, as it is practised in the educational settings of critical writing under the Liberal Studies curriculum within Hong Kong senior secondary schools. Drawing on action research conducted at the site of a local secondary school, we explore the pedagogic potentials of dramatic intervention for the exercise of cultural analysis and critical writing in class, and examine students’ dialogic thinking, engagement and communication among themselves, and with their target readers outside of the classroom. By mediating the process of critical composition we review the multiple dimensions and uses of criticism in the pedagogic space opened for and through writing. At the end of this experimental study on the work of drama in cultural criticism as writing, we discuss the implications such pedagogy may have for critical writing education at schools.