Learning Words to Talk Back: Using Drama to Teach Academic Language

• In Event: 33.046 - An Exploration of the Dialogical Possibilities for Drama and Performance for Diverse Learners

Abstract

Objectives or purposes

This presentation explores the affordances of drama as a pedagogical tool to support the language and literacy development of a diverse group of ELs in an urban middle school newcomer program. I explore issues surrounding the teaching of academic language (and vocabulary words), thought to be a critical gatekeeper for ELs school success and illustrate how drama acted as a powerful bridge for students to appropriate official academic discourses in personally relevant, engaging ways.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

Drawing from Bakhtin’s (1984) theoretical perspectives, I discuss the social nature of language and its relationship to the maintenance of power in the drama based ESL classroom. Bakhtin (1984) divides language into two kinds of discourses: authoritative discourse, the language of officialdom, often tied to the maintenance of social hierarchy and structure and internally persuasive discourse, the language or personalized vernacular of the people. Using Bakhtin’s ideas, techniques gleaned from Fairclough’s (2010) Critical Discourse Analysis and the empirical perspectives of education scholars of language and literacy (Ball & Warshauer Freedman, 2004; Landay, 2004), I examine the often problematic, authoritative role academic language played in the middle school classroom. I also present a case of how dramatic teaching techniques facilitated learning so that students saw the “internally persuasive” value of learning academic discourses.
Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
This presentation comes from findings of an instrumental case study (Stake, 2000) of a drama-based classroom in a newcomer program located in a diverse middle school in the Bay Area of California.

Data sources, evidence, objectives, or materials

Data was gathered using participant observation techniques over the course of one academic year. Both teacher and student participants were interviewed throughout the research period. Additionally, classroom sessions were video taped and students were shown and interviewed about select video taped clips using a process known as Interaction Analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995). In addition to involving research participants in the process of analysis, data were analyzed using rigorous, iterative methods (Saldaña, 2013).

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/points of view

On the one hand, this study illustrates the perils (in terms of student engagement and learning) of teaching academic language in authoritative, didactic ways. On the other hand, the data illustrate that creative, drama-based instruction gave students a space for dialogue where students can creatively infuse words with their own voices and nuance. I explore how similar practices might be used in drama-based ESL instruction to make teaching more oriented to critical pedagogical approaches that have the aim of teaching awareness of the multiple languages necessary for school success (Hawkins, 2004).

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work

As Chappell and Cahnmann-Taylor (2013) argue, arts based (including drama) pedagogy encourages students not to simply learn skills but facilitate skills of expression and interaction. This close investigation of practice in a drama-based class illustrates the powerful and positive affordance of using drama with linguistically diverse youth, not only to learn individual words, but also to acquire a rich vocabulary to express their ideas and infuse them with personal meaning.

Author

• Anneliese Cannon, University of Wisconsin - Madison