Teaching Artistry

In our exploration of Applied Theatre in Teacher Education, our workshops brought to the forefront a significant revelation: the multifaceted challenges that teachers face fall into three distinct categories – internal, external, and contextual oppressions. These oppressions, which encompass self-doubt, external pressures, and the dynamics of the educational context, call for a transformative approach in teacher education.

Internal Oppressions: Awareness of Self

In our workshops, participants candidly shared their internal oppressions, which ranged from self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and fluctuating moods to issues related to energy and personal empowerment. These personal revelations prompted us to delve deeper into the skills that participants found relevant in addressing these internal challenges.

Following the initial workshop, several participants noted a heightened self-awareness. They spoke of how the activities facilitated a more profound understanding of their bodies and emotions, enabling them to express themselves more effectively. Concepts like sensory awareness and emotional intelligence emerged as vital components. As one participant aptly described, the workshops taught them to “read emotions in the room,” an invaluable skill in the classroom. This emphasis on being in the present, clearing the mind, and heightening sensory perception aligns with Peter Brook’s idea of “the infinite possibilities of emptiness.”

It’s important to note that these embodied skills, despite their significance, are often overlooked in traditional teacher development programs. Research suggests that sensory and affective experiences play a decisive role in shaping a teacher’s behavior. The integration of embodied practices, therefore, becomes pivotal in fostering teachers who can truly act in the moment and navigate the complexities of the classroom.

External Oppressions: Awareness of Others

The external oppressions that teachers face often involve external pressures from various stakeholders, including administrators, parents, students, and colleagues. Recognizing and enhancing awareness of the needs and presence of others emerged as a vital skill among participants. They stressed the importance of interpersonal skills, including assertiveness, empathy, and the ability to seek assistance when needed.

Collaboration and interaction were valued, with one participant highlighting the need for teachers to possess “people skills” and “self-skills.” Learning how to say “no” when necessary, developing empathy for learners, and being able to ask for help all emerged as crucial competencies in dealing with external oppressions.

Contextual and Systemic Oppressions: Awareness of Context

The largest category of oppressions that emerged was contextual and systemic challenges. These encompassed issues such as low pay, large and mixed-level classes, inappropriate methodologies, rigorous curriculums, and communication barriers. Participants recognized the importance of situational awareness, acknowledging that teachers must constantly be attuned to their surroundings.

Participants highlighted how the activities helped them understand the necessity of maintaining a work-life balance, effective time management, and diplomatic negotiation with institutions. These examples demonstrate the development of “embodied knowledge” – the practical wisdom that comes from direct experience and engagement. This knowledge is not merely theoretical but is rooted in the teacher’s ability to navigate complex, real-world situations.

Implications for ELT Teacher Education

Our exploration of Applied Theatre in Teacher Education underscores the need for a paradigm shift. Traditionally, teacher education has focused on theoretical knowledge that is disembodied, conveyed through words and numbers. This propositional knowledge, although essential, often lacks practical value. It’s akin to knowing the grammar of a language without being able to speak it fluently.

In contrast, the performing arts, including theatre, emphasize the development of embodied skills through practice. These skills are crucial for “in the moment” decision-making, a quality highly sought after in effective teaching. As Schön describes, teachers need the ability to reflect in action, to make spontaneous, intuitive choices during instruction. This type of knowledge, sometimes referred to as “tacit knowing,” is challenging to articulate but is fundamental to effective teaching.

Traditional teacher education tends to focus on reflection on action, examining past teaching experiences. However, the embodied and performative skills we’ve discussed here are often overlooked. For instance, many teacher assessment criteria place limited emphasis on these skills.

In our workshops, we identified a wealth of developmental objectives related to performative skills and intuitive processes, in contrast to the limited number of criteria recognized in traditional teacher education. Drama games and theatre activities provide a unique opportunity to develop these skills, empowering teachers to engage with the “here and now” of the classroom environment and act spontaneously, making pedagogical decisions in the moment.

In summary, our exploration of Applied Theatre in Teacher Education calls for a re-evaluation of how we prepare educators. By adopting embodied approaches and prioritizing performative skills, we can better equip teachers to navigate the dynamic and complex landscape of the classroom. This shift from static competences to dynamic, embodied knowledge holds the potential to revolutionize teacher education and empower educators to be more effective, adaptable, and attuned to the ever-changing needs of their students.

In May 2022 a group of 12 teachers came together to participate in exploratory workshops to find out what benefits Applied Theatre techniques could bring to Teacher Education. The workshops employed a methodology designed to both enhance participants’ understanding of their situations and facilitate actions to address them. In essence, this methodology served as both the object of research and the means to probe reflection and gather data. The primary objectives of these workshops were fourfold:

Diagnostic: To offer participants an opportunity to engage with Applied Theatre (AT) methods and provide participant-led feedback on their applicability in teacher education.

Methodological: To assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of AT methodology in teacher education settings, ensuring it aligns with its claimed benefits.

Pedagogical: To encourage dialogue and reflection, enabling participants to articulate their learning experiences.

Transformational: To instigate action and change by equipping participants with facilitation skills they can apply in their own educational contexts.

The workshops were structured around two main components:

A. Theatre Games and Activities

We selected theatre games and activities based on specific criteria, including problem-solving activities that promote collaboration, rapport-building activities, exercises focusing on physical self-awareness and concentration, and trust-building activities. These activities were designed to foster personal growth, skills development, and enhance interpersonal relationships among participants. You can access film footage and demonstrations of these activities here.

B. Community Forums

The workshop structure was influenced by Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre (FT), which has proven to be particularly suitable for teacher education (TE) settings. FT emphasizes active participation and draws on participants’ personal narratives and experiences. This approach aligns with the notion that sharing personal stories can be a potent catalyst for teacher development. Furthermore, FT encourages critical thinking and self-awareness, supporting a “bottom-up” approach to change—a concept well-supported in the literature on educational innovation and transformation (McCabe, 2002; Fullan, 1982, 1993, 2001).

The Forum Theatre was structured over three workshops, and you can view the process here:

Workshop 1 – Tilling the Soil: Participants embarked on a journey of self-disclosure by taking their partners on an imaginary tour of their birthplace. We explored the rewards of teaching and shared stories of positive achievement, which served as the basis for reenacting these stories through image theatre. In the final hour, we repeated the cycle, but this time we brainstormed the challenges, obstacles, difficulties, and concerns faced by ELT teachers.

Workshop 2 – Sowing the Seeds: Participants focused on devising scenes for our Forum theatre scenario. We employed techniques like ‘Step forward if you have…’ to elicit personal narratives. Participants were encouraged to recall moments of stress and challenge, associating them with specific sounds. These stories were shared within their respective groups. By the end of this workshop, we had six scenes, each with a designated facilitator/director.

Workshop 3 – Blooming: This session concentrated on developing facilitation skills and rehearsing the forum scenes. Participants became facilitators/directors for their respective scenes, honing their skills further. The scenarios were later presented to an audience in the Community Forum, aiming to stimulate discussion, reflection, and debate among the participants, who were also invited to contribute solutions to the issues presented.

Approach

Data collection aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of participants’ perspectives on the research questions. We administered written feedback questionnaires and conducted focus group interviews after each workshop. The culmination of the workshops was a performance that depicted the essence of a teacher and explored the primary hopes, fears, and challenges faced by teachers in their personal and professional development. This performance sought to stimulate discussion, reflection, and debate among the audience, who were also invited to complete a reflection questionnaire.

These workshops represent a potential framework and methodology for participant-led, solution-oriented teacher professional development. Applied Theatre, with its participatory approach, offers a means of shared decision-making, fostering dialogue, reflection, and community cohesion. The adaptation of Forum Theatre, termed Community Forums, served as an effective tool for teacher professional development in a series of workshops conducted at our teacher training center in Istanbul.