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

APA Citation

Feng, M. (2021). Exploring the moral values of trust and care through process drama in a Chinese primary school: the case of workshop a lion in Paris. The Journal of Drama and Theatre Education in Asia, 10, 75-98.

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. It points out that process drama may offer an ensemble-based and playful pedagogy to complement the rigid and didactic teaching in the existing moral curriculum Moral and Legal Education2. It then argues for the potential of story-based drama as an innovative pedagogy that may help the pupils develop the virtues such as trust and care. The fieldwork was undertaken in a public primary school in Beijing, in which the workshop was taught to 16 children on a voluntary basis. The evidence suggests that the incorporation of educational drama as an extra-curricular activity of a primary school is workable, and this new approach can be seen to some extent to assist pupils in establishing trustworthy and caring relationships in a drama classroom. The author hopes the study might stimulate more and deeper research on the use of the drama pedagogy in similar contexts.