Workshops English

Garret Scally

Universität Kiel, Germany

Flocking: an exploration of devising and being the Ignorant Facilitator for additional language development

[This abstract was submitted for the face-to-face version of the conference, so the workshop might be subject to some changes to adapt to the online setting.] This session has the dual purpose of being a workshop with an artistic process and product and, also, to stimulate a discussion on how to dissolve dichotomies and hierarchies in the formal language learning environments, such as teacher/student or native/non-native, and to develop a more emancipatory approach to additional language development. Here the notion of the “stepping forward and dropping back” is used both metaphorically and literally throughout the workshop drawing on somatic and gestural features combined with choreography and music. This also serves as a guide for the notional negotiation between educator and learner, drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière and his notion of the Ignorant Schoolmaster (and in turn, the ‘Ignorant Facilitator-teacher’) and the striving towards “a community of equals”.

This adheres to ideas from the Complexity Theory approach to language learning that the process should be viewed as an emergence. Here, emergence is used in the sense of something being constantly in the process of being formed and re-formed. Dianne Larsen-Freeman offers the analogy of a flock of birds which is ‘a new, higher order pattern created from the interaction of individual birds in interaction with their environment’ that cannot be explained in terms of specific and discrete elements (2017: 15). These patterns and shapes of language emerge ‘without direction from external factors and without a plan of the order embedded in any individual component’ (Mitchell qtd. in Larsen-Freeman 2017, 15). The workshop plays on this notion with the “migration of gesture” (Noland and Ness, 2008: x) being played out in the choreography of the flock of participants.

max. number of active participants (see below): 15

Nicola Abraham, Melanie Phillips, Sylvan Baker

London Central School of Speech and Drama, UK

CR38TUR3 Workshop (Keynote workshop, will be held 2x)

Maurizio Bertolini, Elena Cangemi

Social and Community Theatre (SCT) Centre of Turin

“Mathemart”: Playing with mathematics in the theatre workshop

Nowadays mathematical competence is addressed as one of the most important issues for social and personal self-fulfilment as are numeracy skills, which are considered one of the priorities in the field of education for EU cooperation. The math lesson is often characterized by the use of the textbook and by the teacher dominating the conversation by asking questions and evaluating the students. This setting makes students passive and frightened listeners. However, educational research confirms that learning is greatly supported by a cooperative learning environment and the students’ active participation. In 2018 the Erasmus+ Project “TIM – Theatre in Mathematics” was launched, with the aim of contributing to the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning, by providing a new methodology to teach mathematics using drama and the theatre workshop. The  project aims to develop the TIM methodology by deepening and combining two existing approaches: “Mathemart – Playing with mathematics in the theatre workshop” by STC Centre |University of Turin and “Process Drama – change of roles, perspectives and role aspects in teaching mathematics” by the Western Norway University of Applied Science in Bergen.

In this workshop the speakers will present the approach “Mathemart”, created in 2011 by Maurizio Bertolini. Mathemart uses activities from the theatre workshop to create sessions with a setting and a structure that allow teachers and students to address mathematics in a creative, playful and trusting environment. It aims to develop mathematical competencies as well as soft skills, taking into account the cognitive, physical and emotional sphere of the learner, while addressing curricular goals. In fact, in Mathemart sessions, participants do not talk about mathematics, but play with mathematical relations and rules experiencing concepts throughout metaphors and games, to later formalize them in the classroom.

During the workshop the participants will be involved and experience the activities and techniques that are used in Mathemart. They will experience how Mathemart sparks reflections on the students’ learning processes and their relationship with mathematics; and reflect on the structure of a Mathemart lesson and on how to create new activities using the approach of Mathemart to address curricular topics.

Eva Göksel

Pädagogische Hochschule Zug, Schweiz

Painting a Still life: Unpacking Moments in Time through Drama

Due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 has so far been a most unusual year, with many countries experiencing lockdowns and practicing social distancing.  Teachers around the globe have had to grapple with the challenges of teaching online and redesigning courses accordingly. This has been particularly challenging for those of us who work holistically, i.e. by incorporating physical drama work in our lessons.  

In this 30-minute workshop we will experiment with the possibilities of using still images (tableaux) in a digital medium. What is possible using the zoom platform? Participants will experiment with still images to share and discuss their experiences of teaching remotely during the 2020 lockdowns. 

max. number of active participants (see below): 12

Linda Petterson and Janya Cambronero Severin

Teater Aros, Sweden

SPRAK in motion – immersive language learning in the classroom and online
[This abstract was submitted for the face-to-face version of the conference, so the workshop might be subject to some changes to adapt to the online setting.]Teater Aros is a non-profit organization that works with changing and improving society through theatre. Since the foundation in 2009, we have taught Swedish through theatre to
refugees and immigrants of various ages, both in school and in volunteer programs. We have developed our method over a decade, and we’ve seen amazing results. When our participants experience the language through multiple venues, the learning is accelerated. Creating safe spaces where bonds and friendships can flourish builds trust, and working together towards a performance creates an urgency in the group, which raises the stakes to learn.
We would like to hold a workshop on the topic “SPRAK in motion – immersive language learning in the classroom and online”, presenting the participants with our method SPRAK
and a few of the exercises we use. We are currently in a three-year long project digitalizing our method to be able to share it on a larger scale. We are also collaborating with a researcher from Malmö University, Mozghan Zachrison, who wrote her PHD thesis on the subject of adult migrant’s second language learning, thus combining academic research with a sound base of practice based experience.

max. number of active participants (see below): 12

Erika Piazzoli

Keynote workshop Sunday

max. number of active participants (see below): 15

Stefanie Giebert

HTWG Konstanz, Germany

Angels on a cloud of exhaust? – exploring “Dieselgate” performatively in GFL-class

(This workshop is offered bilingually German-English for this conference, but would normally be applied to a monolingual class setting.)

According to clichés the car is the Germans’ darling child and the land of thinkers and poets is nowadays is actually more the land of automotive engineers. How can we approach this topic in a GFL (or EFL) class?

“Dieselgate” – German automotive companies cheated on consumers for years selling cars that were much dirtier than legally permitted. The scandal is first uncovered by researchers in the US and what follows is a long and definitely dramatic story. The ideal of the reliable German engineer has certainly been tarnished by these events. I asked the international students in my GFL class (B2-C1 level): What do they know about this? What do they think about it?

“Why did they do it even though they knew it was wrong?” and “why wasn’t there more of an outcry about it in Germany?” – questions that have certainly been asked before in regard to German history, but we want to look at this current example. In the workshop I would like to explore how we could approach ethical dilemmas with performative approaches, especially process drama (and if this is even recommendable within a foreign language class?)

In the workshop we are going to try and get a picture of what may have happened “inside Volkswagen”. Why did engineers and managers cheat and lie to the public? What can we learn about power structures within a company? How did consumers (in the US) feel? What role did media and advertising play? What about (German and American) values and stereotypes? How can we handle open questions, for there will certainly be many?

linguistic and cultural learning objectives: talking about values and clichés, describe and evaluate human behaviour, talking about conflicts and power structures, analysing advertising, understanding technical processes, understanding connections between technology and business.

max. number of active participants (see below): 20

„active“ means that participants are expected to have the camera and microphone on and take an active part in the workshop. We will also admit a number of observers in addition to the active participants if more than the maximum number of active participants sign up. When you have registered for the conference we will inform you about the sign-up modalities for the workshops.