The Play’s the Thing
How can I use drama texts like “Hong Kong, Canada” as a tool to engage ELL students in my classroom?
Now that I’ve recovered from my initial rant regarding “Hong Kong, Canada:” (https://blogs.ubc.ca/lled360/2013/11/27/mixed-messages/) – I’m able to reflect on what a valuable tool a text like this can be in my drama classroom. Many of the plays that are celebrated in Western theatre education could be viewed as a “white boys club.” There are considerably less plays that celebrate female voices, and even fewer that feature positive representations of racial minorities. As a drama teacher, I feel that it is my responsibility to make texts available to my students that represent the same levels of diversity that exist in our classroom community.
A text such as “Hong Kong, Canada” would be a good place to start. It is the ideal length for a scene study project – or could even be put up as a class play. But I now understand that it isn’t enough to just touch on the issues that are presented in “Hong Kong, Canada” with one project. Diversity needs to be represented in the classroom on a more regular basis.
It’s my goal to discover other plays that explore a variety of cultures without stereotyping them. I’m also keen to explore types of theatre from outside of the Western influence. Once I (hopefully) have my own classroom, I might be able to bring in theatre experts from different regions to do workshops with my students. I realize that I can’t expect my students to grasp the complexities of a type of theatre they’ve never been exposed to before with one workshop – but at least I would be able to introduce them to a more authentic experience than I would be able to provide myself.
I also plan to give my students the opportunity to present work in their home languages. I witnessed a monologue exercise that was performed by one of my classmates during the UBC BFA in his home language of Spanish – and it was incredible how the entire class was able to understand the nuances of his emotions without knowing what the monologue was about. It was profoundly moving, and I hope that such an exercise in my own classroom would not only benefit the performers, but also my English-speaking students as well.
This is merely a starting point – but I plan to go further from here.