Combining foreign, native and national Languages through Theatre in Schools: an ‘enactive Approach’ to Education
Résumé
In this article, we are looking at the contribution of aesthetic and languaging (Varela) dimensions of the arts, and in particular of theater, to the teaching of foreign languages. In this respect we are considering the skills of mediation, which are neglected in French curricula. Neurosciences have shown that aesthetic responses are based on the activation of physiologically universal embodied mechanisms, which integrate actions, emotions and sensory perception (Freedberg and Gallese). Creative emergence would therefore be right at the root of human language as put forward by Lecoq, Brook and many other theatrical artists who have shown an interest in education. In this context we suggest that the socio-‐biological roots of learning and language should be taken into account through transversal skills, such as creativity, emotional competence and mediation or “relational intelligence” skills in language curricula.
The AiLES experimental project (Arts in Language Education for an Empathic Society) has been designed to test this hypothesis. It stands at the crossroads between innovative practical teaching and research. It is a longitudinal, four-‐year study (2011-‐2015) in a dual language class (German/English) carried out in a multicultural secondary school in a Parisian suburb. Two actors (one English-‐speaking, and one German-‐speaking), come into the classroom on a regular basis. The study analyses if and how theater, as a physical, cultural and linguistic means of expression, facilitates speech and how it can stimulate sensory, kinesthetic, emotional and linguistic forms of expression and perception. Given such a holistic view of the teaching-‐learning process, I hypothesize that the language of the theatre plays a role of mediation and facilitates “relational intelligence”, as it allows students to delve into all their language repertories in order to switch from one language to another (that of their family, of their school context, and of modern languages learnt at school).
This article is therefore an invitation to move from disciplinary language teaching to “translanguage” teaching without boundaries, so that tomorrow’s children will build together an empathic society.
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