Frimberger, Katja (2016) Towards a well being focussed language pedagogy: Enabling artsbased, multilingual learning spaces for young people with refugee backgrounds, Pedagogy, Culture, Society, Volume 24, Issue 2, pp. [285][286][287][288][289][290][291][292][293][294][295][296][297][298][299] Link to publication: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/ AbstractThe following article explores the conceptual background and pedagogical realities of establishing a well-being focussed language pedagogy in the context of an informal educational event called 'Language Fest'. The event was organised as part of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded large grant project 'Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State' -for the UK's 'Being Human Festival' 2014. The event aimed to celebrate the multiple languages present in the city of Glasgow in Scotland. Participants consisted of 40 teenage ESOL learners with asylum and refugee backgrounds. Based on autoethnographic reflections and short interview excerpts, the article focuses on one particular situation of 'shared singing' which took place as part of one of the event's music and drama-based workshops. The author reflects on her act of learning how to sing the Chinese children's song 'Two Tigers', from Chung, a Mandarin speaker and ESOL college student in Glasgow. The article explores the valence of the author's linguistic incompetence in this learning situation and argues that arts-based language learning is a situated practice that prioritises ethical, relationship-based objectives over static notions of language competence. Introduction Katja:On our second day we were 'entertaining' over 40 college students (all multilinguals, newly arrived in Glasgow and ESOL-learners) making them try out musical instruments, sing and act. We counted 36 different languages in the room. The nicest thing for me was when one of the ESOL teachers, who had accompanied the group, came up to me afterwards to say that he was surprised to see one of his weakest and shyest learners in the class all of a sudden light up, become expressive and confident when singing in her native French and acting in front of the whole group. She seemed so very proud of herself. Just a small story feedback from language fest. (Email from 25.11.2014/11:20am) Carla:What you say chimes with comments at an event we arranged with the British Academy last night on community languages and bilingualism. One speaker talked about the perceptions of speaking a language other than English as a deficit and impairment, and about how some teachers even talk of pupils with languages other than English in terms similar to those used for special educational needs ('severe EAL case', 'student has no language', etc.). She told some stories similar to yours about how pupils considered reluctant, timid and otherwise challenged have blossomed when allowed to speak their own language and to recognize its worth. (Email from 25.11.2014/ 14:07pm)
This article discusses an action research study that involved the design and delivery of an online training course for teachers of Arabic to speakers of other languages in the Gaza Strip (Palestine). Grounded in Freirean pedagogy, the course aimed to respond to the employment needs of university graduates by creating opportunities for online language teaching. The action research study explored the dynamics at play within the online educational environment, to evidence elements that challenged and/or facilitated effective collaboration between trainers and trainees. This article retraces and discusses the processes through which the course moved from didacticism to engaged critical pedagogy.
If I didn't know you what would you want me to see?':Poetic mappings in neomaterialist research with young asylum seekers and refugees Abstract:The following article puts to work an affirmative approach to critical theory through poetic mappings of the process of crafting identity boxes with ESOL students from refugee and asylum backgrounds in a Glasgow-based college in Scotland (UK). The article takes as its starting point the work of feminist and neo-materialist thinkers who argue for an ontological re-orientation of our practices of inquiry. This involves the questioning of positivist research orientations, which regard language as mere second-order representations of a primary reality. We argue that such representationalist logic can implicate research participants in deficit orientations, especially when their embodied and often contested ways of being in the world defy purely linguistic or other 'fixed' cultural representations. With the aim to embrace epistemological uncertainty and prioritise our participants' embodied self-articulations over our "rage for meaning" (MacLure 2013), we experimented with poetic mappings as neomaterialist, arts-based research tools.
The following article explores the potential of Bertolt Brecht's theatre pedagogy for intercultural education research. It is argued that Brecht's pedagogical views on theatre connect to those interculturalists who prioritise the embodied dimensions of intercultural encounters over a competence-driven orientation. Both share a love for aesthetic experimentation as the basis for learning and critical engagement with a complex world. The article outlines how a Brechtian theatre pedagogy was enacted as part of four drama-based research workshops, which were designed to explore international students' intercultural 'strangeness' experiences. It is described how a participant account of an intercultural encounter was turned into a Brechtian playscript by the author and then performed by participants. The analysis is based on the author's as well as the performers' reflections on the scripting process and their performance experiences. It is argued that a Brechtian pedagogy can lead to collective learning experiences, critical reflection and an embodied understanding of intercultural experience in research. The data produced by a Brechtian research pedagogy is considered 'slippery' (aesthetic) data. It is full of metaphoric gaps and suitably resonates the affective dimensions and subjective positionings that constitute intercultural encounters.
This article is a reflection on what reflexive documentary scholars call the ‘moral dimension’ ( Nash, 2012 : 318) of a participatory film-making project with refugee young people who wanted to make a film to support other new young arrivals in the process of making home in Scotland. In the first part, we highlight some of the challenges of collaborating with refugee young people, in light of the often dehumanizing representations of refugees in mainstream media and the danger of the triple conflation of authenticity–voice–pain in academic narratives about refugees. In the second part, we show how honouring young people’s desire to convey the hopeful aspects of making home emerged as a key pedagogical strategy to affirm their expert position and encourage their participation in the project. Revisiting key moments of learning and interaction, we demonstrate how young people’s process of ‘finding a voice’ in moment-by-moment film-making practice was not a linear, developmental process towards ‘pure’ individual empowerment and singular artistic expression. Their participation in shaping their visual (self-)representation in the final film was embedded in the dialogical process and pragmatic requirements of a collaborative film production, in which voice, autonomy and teacher authority were negotiated on a moment-by-moment basis. We conclude that it is vital for a reflexive practice and research not to gloss over the moral dilemmas in the name of progressive ideals, for example, when representations are co-created by project film-makers/educators, but to embrace these deliberations as part of the ‘fascinating collaborative matrix’ ( Chambers, 2019 : 29) of participatory film-making.
The following paper maps a migratory research aesthetic within four arts-based research workshops, which explored international students' intercultural 'strangeness' experiences. Using a neo-materialist framing, the article argues that an emphasis on social-aesthetic 'production' in social science research allows for a rhizomatic knowledge topography that accounts for the materially entangled nature of intercultural experience and prioritises relationship-building, collective learning experiences and aesthetic experimentation over the researcher's epistemological mastery of the topic. The article takes as examples two movements of multimodal translation in the drama workshops. 1) The first data example shows how a 'real' experience of sensory awkwardness-of burning your hands under British taps-triggered other performative modalities by research participants 2) The second data example shows how a more 'fictional' creative writing piece triggered a pragmatic discussion around street trash and 'real' problem-solving strategies. It is argued that a rhizomatic knowledge production in arts-based research necessarily oscillates: between semiotic and embodied modalities, individual and collective experience, as well as between 'real' and 'fictional' modes of philosophising. Whatever the movement of 'translation' however, these acts of aesthetic making and philosophising around intercultural 'strangeness' are always 'becoming' within a wider map of interactions between human and non-human agents.
This article explores the educational philosophy of Asja Lācis' proletarian children's theatre. Taking her post-First World War encounter with Russian street children as a starting point for my inquiry, I argue that L ācis regards the theatre as a rehearsal space for life. Here, children are to be absorbed into the craft of theatre, with the aim of honing their moral and aesthetic sense as a (self-guided) reorientation of their attention and desire towards (the possibilities of) the Good. Demarcating a porous educational theatre space that provides practical artistic opportunities for this education of attention, Lācis hopes to structure children's aesthetic, social, material and sensory engagement with their surroundings, whilst also ensuring their individual freedom as moral agents. Respecting children's ways of engaging in the world, L ācis posits theatrical improvisation as the key activity. Here, children create their own stories and metaphors about how life might be lived, thereby practising attention to, 'testing' and reflecting upon, the (possible) Good Life. The educator's pedagogical gesture is hereby that of observation: She pays attention to the social-artistic tensions that occur, as potential heralds of the child's unique way of embodying (and conceptualising) the Good Life. Theatre is hereThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
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