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DISCLOSURES IN APPLIED DRAMA By Ana María Rozzi de Bergel Applied Drama – A Definition Theatre has always depicted psychological, social, political, philosophical and even religious problems. It is within its very nature to explore human and social issues and get audiences involved both with the aesthetic aspect of performances and with their ideological content. Even those who believe in art for art’s sake and who reject the idea that theatre should have educational messages are stating their ideology through their work. At moments of revolution or evolution in world history, theatre has been an important agent of social and political change. However, this is not enough to turn theatre into an “applied” discipline. According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary/Thesaurus (1996), drama is “a composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance”. A definition of Applied Drama must necessarily consider the different ways and means in which theatre and drama are used for educational purposes. Our students may draw valuable teachings from a visit to the theatre, but attending a performance of a theatre play with our learners is not Applied Drama more than a visit to the Rural Exhibition would be Applied Agriculture. The staging of a school play, which might be called Educational Theatre, and the training learners receive at Drama lessons have a high educational value, but if we called this Applied Drama, we ought to attach the word “Applied” to all the other subjects in the curriculum, as they all have an educational value beyond their instructional purpose. Schools do not teach Mathematics only because people need to know how to add and subtract, but also because of the enormous contribution of the subject to the development of a person’s thinking and reasoning abilities. Yet, this does not make the discipline Applied Mathematics. The use of theatre principles and methods to design classroom activities, to train teachers to become better communicators or as a theoretical background to teaching appears as a clearer manifestation of Applied Drama , mostly because in this type of application there is no theatre performance of a finished work before an audience and drama is used for purposes other than staging a theatre show or training learners in drama arts, but if we were to take this application as the only one, we would be severely restricting the scope of Applied Drama. The identified field seems to consist of a large number of different dramatic-aesthetic practices, concerned with making an impact on specific socio-cultural contexts. These practices are drawn from theatre but acquire an identity as autonomous, professional practices not ruled by the same aesthetic principles. In theatre, aesthetic approaches are originated by artists creating a way to make an artistic impact on the social context; in Applied Drama, aesthetic approaches are enslaved to the needs of the context and have lost all their autonomy. Practitioners are not seeking to make an artistic impact but to produce a desired, describable effect, mostly, for changing or developing their target context. The field of Applied Drama appears, then, as defined by its purpose, its input cycle, its manner of evaluation and its addressees rather than by its methods. The purpose should always be to deliberately change or develop a social context: psychodrama (Moreno, 1969) is used in psychotherapy, the Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 1976) sought to raise awareness of social issues among marginal communities, role-play is used to improve learners’ communication in a foreign language (Di Pietro, 1989), among other applications. The purpose is never theatre-based but community-based. Applied Drama is thus subordinated to other fields, to which it makes a contribution by undergoing an adaptation process. In this adaptation, it loses part of its independence as an art form. This definition of purpose has a direct bearing on evaluation, which can only be carried out by measuring the extent to which the context-related goals have been achieved, so it is vital to find clear indicators of these goals, indicators that may be ostensible and measurable. The goal of “improving motivation” may be measured through observable indicators such as number of learners who volunteer participation in class, instances in which learners contribute materials or ideas, or any other type of behaviour the teacher may wish to originate or modify. Theatre professionals not involved with Applied Drama measure the impact of their performances by the audience’s reactions, but they are mostly concerned with the artistic quality and success of their own work than with the changes brought about in the spectators’ behaviour. In fact, these changes are usually impossible for performers to assess or even know, assuming they exist at all. In theatre, outcomes are good or bad according to aesthetic standards; in applied drama, they are either good or bad according to values external to the aesthetic process (Rasmussen, 2000). The input cycle for Applied Drama starts with an analysis of the social context it seeks to act upon and the results of this exploration conditions not only the subject-matter but also the methods and style to be used. The practitioners’ views on theatre or their aesthetic styles make an important contribution to Applied Drama, but they should, again, lose their autonomy and become subordinated to the needs of the context. If these needs are met, artistic flaws or concessions made to style or aesthetics are fully justified. The context shapes the practice and the practice affects the context, so there should be an empathic relationship between them (Rasmussen, ib.id.). The addressees of Applied Drama are the members of the well-defined social context previously studied by the practitioners and that is to be modified or developed: a class of learners of a foreign language, in the case in hand. The participation of professional artists cannot be ruled out, but the active involvement of the addressees in the construction of the Applied Drama activities should be the key element in the application. Therefore, a particular instance of Applied Drama is hardly ever transferable to various contexts and is exhausted once it has attained its aims. When defined from the point of view of its purpose, evaluation, input cycle and addressees, Applied Drama becomes a comprehensive field which can accommodate visits to the theatre, the staging of school plays, drama teaching or the use of dramabased methods in the foreign language classroom. We cease to focus on the form of the implementation to concentrate more on its ruling principles. This change of focus is extremely relevant if we are to explore the theoretical framework of Applied Drama, a necessary undertaking in the study of any academic discipline. It is regrettable that foreign language teaching has been discussing “drama techniques” for years, not paying enough attention to the fact that techniques are parts of methods and methods derive from theoretical principles. Applied Drama is a field where authors of materials for language teaching have found it viable to supply menus of “techniques” devoid of theoretical content. This has come to happen because Applied Drama is not a part of teacher education and teachers lack knowledge and insight to analyse the materials they are fed. At the same time, it is precisely the reduction of Applied Drama to a set of techniques what has made it lose its academic status and banned it from the teacher education curriculum. Until this vicious circle is broken, the discipline will not make a significant contribution to foreign language learning and teaching. Evaluation Target context Modified target context shows determines Addressees Purpose Evaluation change Addressees involving APPLIED DRAMA PRACTICES shape determines New characteristics of addressees, new purpose and manner of evaluation for more Applied Drama practices resulting in further modifications of the target context. In the late XX century, the focus of foreign language teaching shifted from methods and procedures to learning and communication. Studies in learning styles and strategies, the notional-functional description of language and the awareness of the importance of context and communicative activities created the conditions for learner-centred foreign language teaching. The present-day foreign language syllabus includes models of social interaction, the acquisition of knowledge of different topics, the development of study skills and opportunities for metacognition. Materials are mostly task and topic-based, with project work and cross-curricular associations, and great attention is paid to cultural issues. (Nunan, 1998) The teacher is regarded as a facilitator, a consultant and a leader rather than an instructor or lecturer. The “jug and mug” metaphor, which purported that the student was an empty mug that the tutor had to fill with knowledge, has been set aside in favour of views of learning which consider the learner’s previous experience as the foundation for the acquisition of more knowledge. It is widely accepted that this acquisition will take place within the context of social interaction and that the learner is not just a brain, but a person whose feelings, principles, convictions and emotions also have to be addressed for learning to be successful. We may say that teaching EFL has been inserted into the broader concept of educating in a foreign language, and that learners are considered whole persons and developed as such. The teachers who carry out this foreign language education need, besides their professional skills as language tutors, the capability to help in the development of their learners as whole persons, in physical, intellectual, ethical, artistic and social aspects. provide an education in practical skills for work or study purposes. favour creativity. help learners in their adaptation to the social medium past and present by providing a link between the school and the socio-cultural environment, its culture, history and traditions. In this concept of teaching and learning, traditional teacher education, with an emphasis on language and methodology, appears insufficient. Applied Drama could well be the missing link, the discipline which would help in the exploration of cultural roots and offer the framework to construct meanings and model behaviour. It would also help teachers develop creativity and a deep understanding of the dramatic nature of human interaction. The relevance of Applied Drama for TEFL may be accounted for by exploring the principles of constructivism (Vygotsky, 1988), the theory of the mind (Humphrey, 1986)and the narration theory(Bruner, 1991). Constructivism explores the construction of new knowledge on the basis of previous knowledge with the aid of social interaction, which plays a central role in education. Vygotsky also states the need to provide numerous opportunities for learners to play in order to expand their conceptual and creative capabilities and to model cultural patterns and behaviour. He asserts that the imitation of cultural conventions generates opportunities for intellectual development, pointing out that children first reproduce in their games very concrete situations but later, through their imagination and the apprehension of the non-written rules for social interaction, acquire full command of abstract thinking. Language plays a central role in this development and school should provide plenty of opportunities for learners to access what he terms the third stage of language, internal language, the motor of the higher mental processes. Applied Drama has a strong ludic component, evidenced in activities such as role-play, drama games, improvisation and the necessary play at social interaction required by these activities. Through Applied Drama, learners test their hypotheses about social life and examine their behaviour within a safe environment, as they can feel they are not themselves but the characters they impersonate. They are also working within the permissive framework of play and creation, where everything is possible as long as it is socially accepted. An added advantage is that learners can give up their roles and regain their identity to discuss their performance as spectators, thus engaging in self-evaluation under the protective shield of role switch. The same person, but in different roles, feels more like an outsider to his/her own performance and can evaluate it more objectively. The possibility to shift from the performer’s to the spectator’s or critic’s role helps in the development of several abilities: The ability to transfer knowledge from one context to another, as it is possible to reflect upon similar circumstances or to draw general conclusions from the examination of concrete cases. The understanding of cultural differences, as playing a role entails playing it within the social environment where it occurs. According to the tenets of constructivism, cultural tools are not acquired by mere examination but it is necessary to experiment with them in real social interaction. This concept is particularly relevant for the acquisition of a foreign language with no real cultural relevance for the learner. Drama provides an adequate framework for this process. The capability for playing an active part in cooperative learning.. Constructivism considers cooperation and social interaction as the vehicles for learning. Drama fosters team spirit and the integration of different talents and abilities. The use of language as a fundamental tool for the process of social integration, learning and the apprehension of culture. Bruner’s narrativiy theory and Humphrey’s theory of the mind provide an even more solid conceptual background to the use of Applied Drama for TEFL. Bruner (Ib.id) places human psychology in interaction with the social environment, with culture as a component of the mind. Man can only produce, interpret and construct meanings within his culture, and it is also this culture which restricts his interpretation of meanings to those that are socially coherent. People’s success at interacting by making a series of moves to achieve their aims depends largely on their ability to predict and interpret the interlocutors’ beliefs, expectations, ideas and reactions, and not knowing their cultural background will greatly hinder this process. Drama is always grounded in the culture and traditions of social groups and relying heavily on the individual’s capability for producing strategic interaction leading to the achievement of personal goals. In Bruner’s narration theory, narration provides a nexus between the social environment and the personal world of intentions, wishes and hopes. It provides a useful metaphor to explain human psychology, with man as an agent and receptor of culture. In this context, people create their version of the world and their place in it through narration, where there has to be an actor, an objective, a scenario and a means of communication. These are necessary components of human psychology and we are all generators of imaginary worlds, like the authors of novels, plays, short stories, biographies or chronicles. We are born into a world which has a past, events in progress and other people who came here before us and already have a system of social rules, cultural conventions, a legal system and, among other things, a language. To find a place in this environment, man has to link his individuality to the canonical reality. This is done through intentional, objective-oriented behaviour. He is like a stand-in replacing a sick actor in a play with an experienced cast. Children learn the stories of their community, its laws, history, myths and conventions while at the same time building a personal history and carving a niche for themselves within their society, using their games to rehearse, correct and analyse the behaviours and conflicts of the adult world. The theory of the mind (Humphrey, ib.id) is relevant to the theoretical background for Applied Drama in that it describes the human beings’ capability, as born psychologists, to get into other people’s minds to predict their emotions and reactions and thus play the “social chess” by “reading” the minds of others in order to carry out social interaction. This ability is described as biological and innate, a true inner eye (Rivière A. & Núñez, M.,1996). To read other people’s minds, humans have an Intentions Detector, according to Baron Cohen (1995), which allows the identification of an agent of social interaction, another person, to whom intentions, goals or wishes are immediately attributed. It contains the Eye Contact Detector, which follows the stare and tries to decode it, the Shared Attention Mechanism, which detects the relationships between agents and objects, and other devices to interpret beliefs, thoughts, deceit and intentions. When we talk about agents we are drawing a distinction between behaviour and actions. Agents perform intentional, purposeful actions which always have a concrete objective. This is a basic principle of acting (Stanislavski, 1959) Actors cannot perform fear or love. They can only perform fear or love of something and their performance is drama only if it triggers more action and is coherent with the objective of the scene. Behaviour, on the other hand, is mechanical or functional, like brushing one’s teeth or doing pushups. Creations of imaginary, fantastic worlds occur when interaction and scenarios depart from socially accepted conventions. We will never question why the doorman says “Have a good day” to us in the morning, but if this happens in the evening we will start wondering why he has done this. Human beings can also purposefully depart from accepted courses of interaction to generate fantasy, humour, irony or simply to achieve their goals in the intricate network of social transactions, particularly in what concerns ulterior motifs or hidden intentions. It is highly necessary to have a good command of “tactic deceit” to move within this domain, the capability to lie creatively, not to cheat or harm other people but to create imaginary worlds and use our fantasy and creativity. The impossibility to handle tactic deceit or creative lying is a serious limitation in interpersonal relationships because it restricts interaction to the concrete, literal level. This is almost never sufficient and does not allow the person to enjoy or even interpret humour, figurative meanings and symbols or to make abstract generalisations from concrete cases. What the narration metaphor and the theory of the mind have in common is their conception of man as a part of a culture and as a creator of his own reality on the basis of the others’ conception of their realities and his interaction with the social environment. There is no narration without a theory of the mind, as the stories we create are always aimed at social integration and therefore heavily influenced by the other human beings in our community. We create the stories – even our personal histories – that best match our objectives within our environment, be they the desire to be accepted, to conform or to challenge or provoke. Both theories have great relevance for classroom practice. Teaching is largely based on reading the learners’ minds to find better ways of approaching them. The problem might be the match between the life stories that the teacher has created for himself and how he uses his role to condition the learners’ behaviour so that they will fit into them. Humphrey (Ib.id), in his research with chimpanzees, notes that if chimpanzees had a mind, it would anyway be a chimpanzee mind. The assertion, stated a little metaphorically, states our impossibility to attribute to others those feelings, intentions and wishes we do not experience ourselves. What happens, then, if a teacher has a chimpanzee mind? It might be a requisite for successful teaching to take it for granted that our learners have a receptive, creative and intelligent mind. If the teacher believes this, he will try to find these traits in the learners and tune in to them, but this depends on his conception of his own mind and the world around him. A chimpanzee teacher will only be prepared to find chimpanzee minds. In this highly conditioning relationship, we may distinguish two extremes: the stances “from without”, which conceive of the learner as somebody whom the teacher has to inform and educate, or the stances “from within”, where teachers concentrate on what learners can do, what he thinks they are doing and the aims that propel the learning process. As all extreme positions, these two stances on teaching and learning are not sustainable alone and should rather supplement each other. We cannot deny the teacher’s role to put the learners in contact with pre-established knowledge, with proven skills and validated theories, but he can do this and also make room for experimentation, discovery, deduction and independent, self-monitored learning. Task-based learning seems to provide a suitable framework for a balance of guidance and autonomy. The concept of products , put forth by Meyerson (1948) and related to task-based learning in Nunan’s conception (1998) goes hand in hand with learning by doing or producing work that is then shared with the community, in an enriching exchange of experiences. In task-based learning, we not only establish what learners are going to learn but also what roles they are going to play while they carry out their tasks and what the teacher’s role will be (Wright, 1987). Interpersonal relationships are planned in such a way that they will lead to the achievement of learning goals. Part of learner autonomy is self-evaluation and the capability to plan future learning on the basis of the results obtained. However, receiving rewards and praise from teachers or experts fosters self-esteem through social acceptance. A school which relied exclusively on self-evaluation might be depriving its learners of a dose of expert and social support that might lead to discouragement and lack of motivation. In the process of self-evaluation, students look for references to assess their relative position in the group. They make comparisons and decide they are “better” or “worse” than their peers. The teacher must intervene as a guide and to advise the class about parameters and criteria for self-assessment. As performers in a play, students need the audience’s applause but also the critic’s more enlightened opinion. Their final selfevaluation, however, will inevitably be in agreement with their personal opinion of themselves and the life-stories each of them is creating. Summing up, the communicative approach (Brumfit & Johnson, 1978), the natural approach, (Krashen, ibid), task-based learning (Ellis, ibid), the total physical response method (Asher, 1986) and cooperative learning (Curran, 1986), all belonging to the late XX century, contain classroom activities which model social situations and train learners in “mind-reading” to achieve concrete goals through interaction. These activities require the identification of subtleties, feelings, mood, nuances of meaning, cultural patterns and other aspects of messages, both linguistic and non-linguistic. (Howatt, 1994) They also call for a favourable classroom environment for their development and the establishment of teacher-learner rapport. These characteristics point out the relevance of drama training in teacher education, to enable teachers to create strategic scenarios in which participants interact within a common conflict and hidden agendas, each person trying to achieve an overt and a covert goal (Di Pietro,Ib.id.) This is the essence of dramatic action. It offers the possibility to reproduce behaviour found in the environment, in a kind of rehearsal of social life. To develop and resolve the dramatic conflict, it is essential to read the other’s mind, to acquire an inner eye and to adjust one’s strategies to these perceptions. According to Rivière y Núñez (Ib.id.) , this capability for strategic interaction enables human beings to: succeed in their strategic and purposeful interaction, since they will be able to predict reactions, detect mood, intentions, etc. and better plan their responses adapt to the social medium, and share ever deeper and enriching experiences. learn from other people’s experiences and also enrich them. understand others better and their own behaviour, through an analysis of the other people’s reactions to it. detect and enjoy metaphor. This will lead to the enjoyment of art and literature, which is a mentalist activity: the spectator establishes a dialogue with the artist, capturing the latter’s emotions and intentions. gain acceptance from the social medium, by learning and respecting codes of behaviour, social convention and customs. understand, justify, forgive, admire and generally acknowledge the others and behave ethically towards them. Learners who have not internalised these capabilities will be limited in their communications even if they have learnt vocabulary and syntax in an academic context. The big challenge is for teachers to create conditions for language to develop and grow in the learners’ minds together with their communicative competence. Bibliographical references Asher, J. en Richards, J. & Rodgers (1986) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, pp.87-98. Cambridge,UK:Cambridge University Press. Baron Cohen, S. (1995) Mindblindness. An essay on autism and theory of mind. Cambridge, Ma: Cambridge University Press. Boal, A. (1976) Theatre of the Oppressed, London: Pluto Press. Brumfit, C.J. & Johnson, K. ed. (1978) The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press Bruner, J. (1991). La educación, puerta de la cultura. Madrid: Visor Curran, C. en Richards, J. & Rodgers (1986) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, pp.113-127. Cambridge,UK:Cambridge University Press. Di Pietro, Robert (1989) Strategic Interaction, Oxford: OUP. Ellis, J. (1992) A Framework for Task-Based Learning. Londres: Longman Howatt, A.P.R. (1994) A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Humphrey, N. (1986). The Inner Eye. Faber and Faber. Madrid: Alianza. Krashen, S. (1993) The Natural Approach. New York: Pergamon Meyerson, I. (1948) Les Fonctions Psychologiques et les Oeuvres. Paris:J.Vrin. Moreno, J. (1969) Group psychotherapy and psychodrama. In W. S. Sahakian (Ed.), Psychotherapy and counseling: Studies in technique (pp. 437_463). Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Nunan, D. (1998) The Learner-Centred Curriculum. Cambridge (UK):Cambridge University Press. Rivière, A. y Núñez, M. (1996) La mirada mental. Buenos Aires: Aique. Stanislavski, C. (1959) La preparación del actor. Mexico: Editorial Diana Vygotsky, L.S. y Cole, M., John-Steiner, V., Scriber, S. & Souberman, E., ed. (1988). El desarrollo de los procesos psicológicos superiores. Barcelona: Grijalbo. Wright, T. (1987) Roles of Teachers and Learners. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press