Ujszászi Zsuzsanna
Alison, Cliff, Captain and Steward leading to change
I propose to
consider drama as an activity in language teaching whose main purpose is to
effect change, using Neelands’ term, both in the students understanding of the
play and in the development of their language skills. Drama is also an
important instrument of self-discovery for the students, who can learn more by
it about their own social, intellectual and linguistic potentials. While it is
true that every form of learning is directed at change in the learner’s
attitude, the change that drama can foster has its own specific character. I
would like to highlight the value of drama as an activity which
1 Drama for deeper understanding
What is the place of acting in
learning about drama in an English majors’ drama syllabus? In a broader sense
drama for students is of two major types: 1 informal drama, which is not based
on a script but engages the participants’ experience, therefore personal, and 2
traditional drama. This latter type of drama is closer to theatre, which is
interpretative, as it is based on a script and is therefore impersonal.
(Dougill, 1) Unlike the theatre, however, which is addressed to an audience,
this traditional type of classroom drama is addressed to its participants.
Besides serving as a teaching instrument of developing language skills in a
teacher training course, the primary aim of this activity is to stimulate
interpretation in the literary seminar, without imposing meaning on the
students. The teacher is merely an organizer who sets assignment, provides
background information and acts as moderator during the follow-up discussion.
The students select their scene and perform it in class, with the chief
intention to show their own interpretation of it.
How does the task of acting out a scene
from a play compare with the ordinary form of learning in literary seminars? In
content-based second language instruction the traditional activities concentrate
on the students’ analytical approaches. In a traditional seminars working with
dramatic texts engages the conscious, rational part of the student’s
personality, whereas the acting of drama involves a student’s emotion,
intuitions and experience. In the selected scenes the students are confronted
with experience full of tension and conflict, situation unknown before and
strange, which affect them in other than a purely intellectual way. Their
insights into the complexity of the situation in the selected scene are more
easily expressed through acting and only then in the traditional way of
discussing ideas.
1.1 Selecting a scene
The key element in drama is not
action but crisis. Crisis may precede action or may coincide with it but always
remains distinct. Dramatic crisis is defined in
Hevesi’s theory of drama as a situation in which the character is
confronted with fate. It is a situation of highest tension when the freedom of
choice of the individual and the exigency of fate are condensed in a single
moment. Crisis is always internal, its true scene being the human soul.
(Hevesi, 50-51) It is in these situations that interpretation can be shown
through acting most easily, because in moments of tension non-verbal means of
communication gain special importance. Mere comprehension and discussion of the
dramatic text might not reveal the true nature of tension.
In Act I of Look Back In Anger,
when Cliff is bandaging Alison’s arm kneeling beside her, the text is the
following:
Alison: (staring at her outstretched
arm). Cliff –
Cliff: Um? (Slight pause.) What is
it, lovely?
Alison: Nothing.
Cliff: I said: what is it?
Alison: You see – (Hesitates.) I’m
pregnant.
Cliff: (after a few moments). I’ll
need some scissors.
(Osborne,
28)
The relationship of Alison and
Cliff, the friend of Alison’s husband is an intricate one, made up from
affection, friendship, gentle sympathy for the sufferer and perhaps some secret
emotion of tender love, fear for the other person and jealousy. In the
follow-up discussion after the performed scene students said that they believed
that Cliff felt secret love for Alison. The dramatic text alone does not reveal
this directly, yet the scene allows this interpretation. It is a scene of
silent emotions and this is what enhances its tension. There is a secret
triangle between Alison, Cliff and Jimmy, and in the students’ interpretation
Alison rejects both men and leaves the triangle. The students use space and
direction in the acting area to show this meaning of the scene. In their
performance Alison turns away from Cliff, walks a few steps downstage and
utters the words “I am pregnant” with her back to Cliff. As a spatial signal,
this has some symbolic meaning as well, as it anticipates Alison’s choice later
to break with her present situation and quit, and so this becomes the moment
that starts a dynamic turn in the action. Alison’s walking away from Cliff also
suggests the delicate complexity of her feelings about the new situation:
pregnant by Jimmy and also destitute of his support she is in need of Cliff’s
caring affection for a moment, but also feels compelled to make her own choice
for her future. Alison has only Cliff to share the news with but also rejects
the intimacy of the situation and modestly turns away from Cliff. All this
becomes visible in the students’ scene. Their interpretation is emotional,
based on recognition helped by intuition, which in fact answers the question
“What is it like being in a situation like Alison’s?” This is an activity that
involves the personality of the student more fully than the explication of the
text of the drama.
2 Drama for language development
As a form of learning, the overall
purpose of drama might be stated as to effect change, says Neeland. Change as a
result of drama experience may occur in a number of dimensions. Not only in the
level of understanding the play, but also in social behaviour and in existing
language experience.
In teacher
training programs English is taught first of all through content-based courses.
Besides objective theoretical and descriptive courses such as Syntax,
Phonetics, Applied Linguistics, students need to feel involved in the subject
subjectively, as Elliott argues .Like creative writing exercises, drama
activities help students develop a feeling for the language as something
living. (Elliott, 197) What is the value of acting in the language learning
process?
The answer to this question involves
such factors as script and the ways of working with it.
2.1 The value of scripts
Methodologists stress the value of
the language of drama, in comparison with textbook dialogues, in terms of
style, humour and naturalness. The general opinion is that textbook dialogues
are uninvolving as opposed to drama dialogues, which have all the true
ingredients of successful dialogue: comedy, conflict, conviction. (Dougill, 22)
When dialogues of such values are used for learning by heart, the activity has
several assets:
o
vocabulary
acquisition is helped by the visuals and physical reinforcement as effective
elements of drama (Dougill, 39)
o
it
provides motivation
o
it
helps students become more confident in their use of target language as it
allows to experience the language in operation (Dougill, 7)
o
vocabulary
acquisition is helped by the power of context: characters, images, associations
(Dougill, 39)
o
the
language is used in action, accompanied by paralinguistic features (Dougill,
24)
In a drama activity the target language is used and physical action
is performed at the same time.
Learning a language through action is not only the theoretical basis of Total
Physical Response methodology, which focuses on beginner level. (Richards and
Rodgers, 87-97) Motor activity in TPR methodology is limited to performing
commands, but physical action is also
necessary, used in combination with many other techniques, at a higher level of
language instruction, where it functions a means of memory association in
vocabulary and pattern acquisition.
2.2
Memorizing the lines means repetition
Repetition as one of the drills exercises has an acknowledged value
in acquisition of vocabulary and sentence patterns. Learning by heart, however,
is not in the foreground incommunicative language teaching. Today justice seems
to be done to the traditional forms of learning, and the value of repetition is
also stressed in learning by heart.
Repetition
and memorization, however, are not only instruments of direct vocabulary
extension and pattern practice. Cook, for example, who would like to see the
value of repetition restored in the language learning process, states that by
bringing with it the comfort and security of the intimate situation “knowing by
heart makes it possible to enjoy speech without the burden of production. ….
And as the known-by-heart is repeated many times, it may begin to make sense.
Its native-like structures and vocabulary, analyzed and separated out, become
available for creative and original use”. (Cook, 139)
3 Drama
effecting change in social attitude
Acting out extracts from a play strengthens cohesion and cooperation
in a group. Students have to work together and they show the product of their
cooperation to others in the group, so this activity reveals abilities of
students unknown to the group before.
3.1 The
value of scripts
When using the foreign language the efforts of the learner are so
heavily engaged in producing content that the means of formulating its overall
shape cannot receive enough care: intonation, pauses, facial gestures and body
language. Working with a script, however, undemanding in terms of linguistic
production, therefore it reduces learner stress. (Lazar, 138) Because in
traditional drama activity the script offers psychological security to the
student, the skills of presenting what is provided can be developed.
3.2 Drama as a source of joy
Joy as an effect of repetition is in close connection with the
non-communicative functions of language. Speaking is not only a form of
communication, but also a source of joy, comfort and a way of forming an image
of the speaker, says Cook. (Cook, 139)
The same
student who is usually very reticent in the language class, often finds working
with a written text a less threatening exercise. The student who is reluctant
to contribute to discussions in seminars is willing to talk for joy in the
drama activity. Performing the task of acting out a scene may contribute to
finding his voice and creating his image as a person speaking the target
language.
In the next
video clip two students of this reluctant type perform the opening scene of G.
B. Shaw’s St. Joan. To show what is behind the apparent meaning of the
dialogue, the Steward is wearing the blue coat of a technical servant of the
college, indicating the timelessness of the comic pattern of the scene: servant
and master arguing about an unrealizable command.
Works cited
Cook, G. (1994) “Repetition and learning by heart: an aspect of
intimate discourse and it as implications”, ELT Journal 48,2
Dougill, J. (1984) Drama
Activities for Language Learning, Modern English Publications
Elliott, R. (1990) “Encouraging reader-response to literature in ESL
situations”, ELT Journal 44,2
Hevesi, S. (1961) “Dramaturgia” , in
A drámaírás iskolája,
Lazar, G. (1993) Literature and Language Teaching, CUP
Neelands, J. (1984) Making Sense of Drama: A Guide to Classroom
Practice, Heinemann
Osborne, J. (1982) Look
Back In Anger, Penguin Books
Richards, J. and Rodgers, T. S. (1986) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, CUP
© Ujszászi Zsuzsanna, 2002