Job Discussion Forums

[windsofchange]

Has anybody out there in 'teacherland' been involved with teaching drama/English at any Universities in Japan? Does anyone know of anyone who has?

[taikibansei]

[windsofchange]

Thanks for your reply(yes,I guess I'm tiresome)
By drama I mean acting, acting for the use in teaching English, effective roleplay, drama to improve public speaking, etc
Not so much lectures on theatre,playwrights etc-however that still would make another option.
I've also been informed that there are groups of people putting on theatre productions inJapan(In English of course)
So any info on any of those areas would be fab.

[canuck]

[windsofchange]

I love your optimism Canuck.
Funnily enough I caught up with a friend this afternoon who(with less qualifications than me) taught at Uni's, used drama in English and performed in his first theatre production in Japan.
I always wondered why I hadn't been to Canada.

[taikibansei]

[canuck]

[windsofchange]

My original question was perfectly valid!
Anyways, I've changed my mind aout moving to Japan. I'm relocating to Canada. Any room at your huse Canuck?

[PAULH]

[Glenski]

Teaching acting is, as mentioned earlier, a small market.
However, using drama to teach English is possible, and some (very few) schools actually advertise for teachers to do this. I don't have any names right now. I'm sure many of us in Japan have had students do skits or similar projects for various reasons. I have, from 1st year to 3rd year high school. You can even call Charades a form of skit, if you like, and that works a lot in eikaiwas. Do a Google or Yahoo! search to see various links on what to do in class. Here are some to get you started.

Here is an article on "Overcoming the Fear of Using Drama in English Language Teaching" from a teacher in Korea if you're interested.
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Royka-Drama.html

And here is something called "The Ultimate Collection of Drama-in-ESL Links". I have not looked at any of them, but offer this as some help in learning how to teach English with drama, of that's your point.
http://www.msu.edu/user/caplan/drama/links.htm

Plus,
http://www.britishcouncil.org.tr/klc/learning_zone/files/ELT_Info_Pack_13.doc
and
http://www.geocities.com/garycarkin/

[windsofchange]

Thank you Glenski for the links. I will have a surf about and see if there is applicable.
I must apoligise to Paulh. I obviously haven't explained myself.
The theatre scene in Japan would be very limited, of course, I was interested to see if any teachers were involved. Many teachers seem to get involved with theatre productions-wherever it maybe.
The Masters degree I have is maily based around theatre directing. When I started teaching EFL I found there were very few resourses that explained about drama in English, although many of the Efl 'gurus' I met ethusiastically admitted that drama teaching has strong links with Efl.
I have used drama exercises tailored to EFL from beginner classes up. Obviously the better command that students had of English the more sophisticated their work was.
Being able to set up real life situations and have the students write and 'perform' their own dialogue was challenging and fun and there was always a specific language focus.
Example, I would organise students into groups and they would roleplay a 'flat sharing situation'. I would tell them that there is tension in the flat between the flat mates, they would then write dialogue to discuss and solve the problems. The specific language we were focussing on could be perhaps, modal verbs.
Nine times out of ten these excercises worked well.
The lectures that I gave to other EFL teachers were well received and well attended.
Drama is about people, situations and life. I've always found it is fun, especially with a class of students that bonded well. Sometimes it could be an absolute riot, those times where you were glad you became a teacher.The skill is to be able to set it up correctly and help them through it. Other situations were;
problem solving - at work
- in relationships
- in anything
telephone calls
job interviews
social situations
I hope to write a text book on this subject(Don't we all!)
I hope I've gone someway in explaining my situation.

[PAULH]

I have only met one teacher in japan who has made something of a specialty in teaching drama. he runs workshops and often presents at JALT on teaching drama workshops. i think he also has a textbook out. His name is Leo (somebody) and teaches at a university in Kansai. That said, that is all well and good if you have these skills and background, but what you miss is that this is not always what universities are looking for. they are looking for English speakers to teach oral communication classes. I will sometimes use role-play in my classes.

This year i think i have a 3rd year elective class where students can sign up for the class with a native speaker. The actuall class topic is still undecided and its up to the teacher to decide what he will teach. In a class like that students dont want a textbook, but simply 'speaking'. this can be drama, debate, discussions, doing acting or role-plays in english.

This is the kind of situation you would be looking at, but you would not teach more than one or two classes at one time. Trying to turn an oral conversation class into an acting or a theater class may be frowned upon by your university if thats not what students are supposed to be doing.

Yes, you can do roleplays and you can show students how to act out situations. I do 'restaurant' and 'hotel' and shopping' role play with my students, but they first have to come to grips with vocabulary, syntax, grammar, usage, (sociolinguistic and sociocultural) before you can rip their textbooks away. ad libbing and free improvisation is a fairly foreign concept to students in Japan and simply getting students to 'let go' and have a go can take some time. they can do theater, as long as they lose their inhibitions, not worry about making mistakes. It depends on your class,the level of students and where you teach.

Students enjoy role-playing and acting, no problem there. The problem is you are trying to make the lesson fit your specialty, rather than the other way around. rather than try and look for jobs teaching drama, look for ELT teaching jobs where you can include or incorporate acting and role-play. Saying you wont teach eikaiwa or English classes is simply restricting yourself. You wont get them doing Shakespeare or acting out Stoppard but you can get them doing 3 minute skits. Even teahcing students how to do a debate is useful.

I had a class a few years ago called "English expression" which wasnt teaching English but included things like Drama, giving a narrative, describing things. doing a debate with teams. Skits and roleplays. It worked quite well when students understood what you want them to do.

[windsofchange]

PaulH,
I enjoyed your message about the 'big' schools in Japan. It sounds awful, but I guess if that is the only way you one can get a visa and get started in Japan, well so be it.
As a teacher who has worked for a GEOS school in NZ for four years I can see where you are coming from.
The bottom line is how badly you really want to live and work in Japan. I've got to be honest, I'm not sure if I can be bothered

[Henry_Cowell]

[windsofchange]

Hello Henry!!
Are you qualified to tell me I'm unqualified??