Drama und theater in der fremd- und zweitsprachenlehre: Blick zurück nach vorn

Zwischen dem Bereich Drama/Theater und dem Bereich Fremdsprachenvermittlung gibt es seit jeher Verbindungslinien. Zumindest war der Lehrer immer schon ein Akteur, der den Schülern etwas so ‘vorzuspielen’ versuchte, dass die Aufmerksamkeit des Lernerpublikums gebannt blieb; und eigentlich haben Lehrer und Schüler im fremdsprachlichen Unterricht immer schon ‘Theater’ gespielt, indem sie so taten, als ob die Unterhaltung in der fremden Sprache für sie natürlich sei. Der folgende Beitrag zeichnet wichtige Entwicklungsetappen des Brückenbaus zwischen den Bereichen Drama/Theater und Fremd-/Zweitsprachenlehre seit Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts nach. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass ‘Drama und Theater in der Fremd-/Zweitsprachenlehre’ sich nunmehr als eines der vielen Anwendungsfelder etabliert hat, die mit dem Fach- und Sammelbegriff ‘Applied Theatre’ erfasst werden. Der Begriff bezieht sich auf das breite Spektrum von Individuen, Gruppen und Institutionen, für die das Theater als Kunstform nicht reiner Selbstzweck ist, sondern zentraler Bezugspunkt und Inspirationsquelle für drama-/theaterbezogene Aktivitäten. Durch solche Aktivitäten sollen im jeweiligen Anwendungsfeld ganz bestimmte Ziele erreicht werden, im Falle des fremd- und zweitsprachlichen Unterrichts z.B. sprach-, literatur- und kulturbezogene Ziele. Dieser Beitrag versteht sich als kompakte Bündelung und insbesondere Aktualisierung von Überlegungen, die erstmalig in meinem Buch Fremdsprache inszenieren (1993) erschienen sind. Zur Ergänzung dieses kompakten Überblicks sei auf die umfangreiche Forschungsbibliographie auf der Homepage dieser Zeitschrift verwiesen. Zum Konzept ‘Applied Theatre’ vgl. z.B. Ackroyd 2000; Taylor 2003; Nicholson 2005

Literatur verstehen und inszenieren: Foreign language literature through drama, a research project

Based on the experience that today's students find it more difficult than students of previous decades to relate to literature and appreciate its high cultural value, this paper argues that too little is known about the actual teaching and learning processes which take place in literature courses and that, in order to ensure the survival of literary studies in German curricula, future research needs to elucidate for students, the wider public and, most importantly, educational policy makers, why the study of literature should continue to have an important place in modern language curricula. Contending that students' willingness to engage with literature will, in the future, depend to a great extent on the use of imaginative methodology on the part of the teacher, we give a detailed account of an action research project carried out at University College Cork from October to December 2002 which set out to explore the potential of a drama in education approach to the teaching and learning of foreign language literature. We give concrete examples of how this approach works in practice, situate our approach within the subject debate surrounding Drama and the Language Arts and evaluate in detail the learning processes which are typical of performance-based literature learning. Based on converging evidence from different data sources and overall very positive feedback from students, we conclude by recommending that modern language departments introduce courses which offer a hands-on experience of literature that is different from that encountered in lectures and teacher-directed seminars.

Ethnomathematical research and drama in education techniques: developing a dialogue in a geometry class of 10th grade students

Ethnomathematical research, together with digital technologies (WebQuest) and Drama-in- Education (DiE) techniques, can create a fruitful learning environment in a mathematics classroom—a hybrid/third space—enabling increased student participation and higher levels of cognitive engagement. This article examines how ethnomathematical ideas processed within the experiential environment established by the Drama-in-Education techniques challenged students‘ conceptions of the nature of mathematics, the ways in which students engaged with mathematics learning using mind and body, and the ̳dialogue‘ that was developed between the Discourse situated in a particular practice and the classroom Discourse of mathematics teaching. The analysis focuses on an interdisciplinary project based on an ethnomathematical study of a designing tradition carried out by the researchers themselves, involving a search for informal mathematics and the connections with context and culture; 10th grade students in a public school in Athens were introduced to the mathematics content via an original WebQuest based on this previous ethnomathematical study; Geometry content was further introduced and mediated using the Drama-in-Education (DiE) techniques. Students contributed in an unfolding dialogue between formal and informal knowledge, renegotiating both mathematical concepts and their perception of mathematics as a discipline.

Dynamic load-balancing of finite element applications with the DRAMA library

The DRAMA library, developed within the European Commission funded (ESPRIT) project DRAMA, supports dynamic load-balancing for parallel (message-passing) mesh-based applications. The target applications are those with dynamic and solution-adaptive features. The focus within the DRAMA project was on finite element simulation codes for structural mechanics. An introduction to the DRAMA library will illustrate that the very general cost model and the interface designed specifically for application requirements provide simplified and effective access to a range of parallel partitioners. The main body of the paper will demonstrate the ability to provide dynamic load-balancing for parallel FEM problems that include: adaptive meshing, re-meshing, the need for multi-phase partitioning.