Drama techniques for learning foreign languages

Athens, 24/11/2018, Workshop, Marita Loli, George Mardas

 Drama techniques  for learning foreign languages

Athens, 24/11/2018

Marita Loli, French language and literature teacher, Greece
George Mardas, French language and literature, high school teacher, theatre theoretician, Greece

Workshop 2,5 hours
 Part of the 2018 ATHENS GREECE INTERNATIONAL THEATRE/DRAMA & EDUCATION CONFERENCE
organised by the Hellenic Theatre/Drama & Education Network (TENet-Gr)

Language: French  Greek

Our workshop proposal will use as its guideline a teaching approach based on drama and its techniques. Participants will come in contact with various drama strategies (games for warming-up and activating the five senses, ice-breakers, body and vocal training), which will gradually lead to the creation of short scenes based on texts by well-known French playwrights. The teaching objectives of such an approach are linguistic (consolidation of foreign language structures, development of communication skills), but they also concern drama and pedagogy.Drama strategies are directly related to pedagogical practice since they activate emotion and help our students to get in touch with both imaginary worlds and the real world. Therefore, they prepare our students to be ready and open to receive stimuli, identify, assimilate and synthesize the new knowledge in an original and creative way. Communication in the classroom environment is usually artificial, because it is not based on the real needs for communication, but on specific teaching needs regardless of the surrounding world.Through theater/drama, students are given the opportunity to go through the emotions, which they can experience in real communication with French speakers, (for instance, the body participates in a holistic way when in contact with foreigners, and authentic feelings are generated). In the same way, drama provides participants with hypothetical or real-life circumstances, and facilitates students to come into contact with themselves, to get to know and express themselves better. Consequently, students have the opportunity to actively engage themselves in the learning process, and communicate effectively in the foreign language, while developing their personality.In this workshop French language will be our example of a teaching approach. The main languages of communication will be Greek and French with the possibility of translating into English.

The workshop is addressed to foreign language teachers, mainly French Language teachers.

Marita Loli was born in Athens. She is a French Language teacher and has graduated from the Department of French Language and Literature in Athens University. She has a Master’s Degree in Didactics of French (French as a foreign language). She has a teaching experience in the private sector where she had been teaching for many years. She has been teaching in public education as a permanent teacher since 2003. She has attended seminars on didactics and drama workshops. At the same time, she has completed her studies on acting and drama games. She has, also, facilitated workshops for French Language teachers concerning drama strategies, used in foreign language teaching, as well as organized theatre groups with teenagers at the “Theatre Club” of her school. As a part of her didactic method, she often includes art, especially theater, in order to encourage her students get involved in the learning process. 

George Mardas is a graduate of the Department of French Language and Literature as well as of the Department of Theatre Studies (Athens University). He has also completed a postgraduate seminar on Cultural Management Training at the Panteion University, Greece, and the postgraduate program of the School of Fine Arts of the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Peloponnese, Greece (Dramatic Art and Performing Arts in Education and Lifelong Learning). He has attended drama workshops in France (Avignon Festival) and Germany (International Seminar of the Remscheid Academy of Arts). He has also studied acting, and participated in performances as an actor or assistant director. For five years, he has presented papers and participated in cultural events and workshops. For twenty years he has been a permanent teacher of public secondary education, where he has prepared stage performances and organized workshops as a teacher of French and drama.