Speaker bio: Eucharia Donnery is one of the coordinators at the World Language Center (WLC), Soka University. Her main research areas are drama in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), intercultural communicative competence (ICC), Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), as well as colonial and feminist discourses in literature. She graduated from National University College Cork, Ireland with a BA in English literature and sociology, an MA in drama and theatre studies, and a PhD in process drama in second language acquisition.
Abstract: As teachers, we all conduct problem-solving research in our respective EFL classrooms. This presentation-workshop describes how drama can help address these issues by demonstrating creative problem-solving through collaborative and creative methods. When students are expressing themselves in a dramatic role, they experience ownership over English, and therefore are motivated to speak and write. This is important because it goes against the grain of Japanese culture to speak out, even in Japanese.
The initial short presentation addresses the challenges of shyness and demotivation in the classroom. It then moves into the workshop, which actively demonstrates how collaborative learning in the form of drama activity can help students both socially and linguistically.
