Yes-And-ing Teacher and Student Talk: Exploring the Affordances of Dramatic Improvisation to Support Dialogic Teaching

• In Event: Dialogic Practices in Learning Contexts

Abstract

This study investigates how practices of dramatic improvisation (“improv”) might encourage dialogic repertoires of teacher talk and student “learning talk,” as theorized by the framework of dialogic teaching. Following analysis of 1) teacher-educators’ autoethnographic experiences in improv classes, 2) interviews with improvisers who are also educators, and 3) a group interview and workshop with teachers and improvisers, alignments between the improv praxis of “yes-and” and the principles of dialogic teaching are identified, particularly improv exercises that encourage “expository,” “imaginative,” “expressive,” and “evaluative” speech. The investigation reveals tensions between the framework of dialogic teaching and improv practice concerning different emphases on affirmative listening and embodied activity and explores how these tensions suggests possibilities for the theory and practice of dialogic instruction.

Authors

• Laura Carter-Stone, Vanderbilt University

• Heather M Meston, Vanderbilt University

• Kevin M Leander, Vanderbilt University

• Emily Phillips Galloway, Vanderbilt University