Other People's Stories. Researching Perspectives through Literature and Drama (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Pedagogy - General, grade: A, University of Warwick (Institute of Education), course: MA Drama and Theatre Education, language: English, abstract: The teaching of foreign languages, and especially that of English as a Foreign Language, has undoubtedly undergone massive changes in Romania during the last decades. A general openness towards innovation and transformation is to be noticed in the post-revolutionary Romanian education system. The study of a foreign language is to be accompanied by elements of literature, culture and civilization, to which students are widely exposed.

If, on the one hand, teenagers are encouraged to become active learners, teachers, on the other, are supposed to keep up with all major transformations and find the best way to help their students engage with their studies.

My practical attempts to stimulate teenagers' involvement with the study of a different culture via literature have proved to me that drama is an extremely valuable method to be employed, as it is immediate and engaging, it allows for questions to be raised and thus it will infinitely enrich classroom discussion. It makes paths open out into roads not even thought about before, it makes written texts come alive, it colours perspectives and brings depth into our viewpoints. It contains in it the capacity to make us continuously (re)consider and (re)shape ourselves and the world that we share.

The aim of this research paper is to bring into discussion a case study developed in a Romanian upper secondary school and observe what the theory it was inspired by looks like in a practical environment. Thus, the first chapter focuses on a variety of concepts such as cultural identity, the exploration of alternatives, as well as drama and literature as tools in the search for new, fresh perspectives. The second chapter discusses the paradigms that influenced my research design, the data gathering methods I employed for my specific purposes, problems encountered and practical considerations that were taken into account. I also see this chapter as the bridge linking the theory referred to (Chapter 1) and the practice it continuously informed and reshaped (Chapter 3).

As a study, it is meant - at its turn - to open new perspectives towards the teaching of English literature. My hope is that it can be of any interest to my colleagues, or to anybody attempting to challenge the youth of today to listen carefully and purposefully to somebody else's stories.