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The purpose of this paper is to consider the growing interest in oracy and to propose the pedagogy of process drama as an ideal model for the dialogic classroom.

This paper takes the form of an explanatory case study where the author draws on a successful drama/oracy project in a primary school in Brisbane, Australia, to illustrate the connections between Alexander’s five indicators of a dialogic classroom and the process drama in which the students participated.

The application of this process drama as pedagogy for the teaching and learning of oracy has contributed positively to students’ oral communication skills and intercultural awareness. In addition, parents provide positive feedback about student engagement in school and developing self-confidence because “they have something to say”.

There was no formal pre-post test for the oral communication skills on this study, instead the researchers developed a draft “oracy” checklist which deserves further interrogation and development.

There are implications for the use of process drama as a means of creating and sustaining the dialogic classroom. Teacher professional development would be required to assist the planning and delivery of dramas that allow for the deep and complex learning evidenced in this study.

This is an ideal vehicle for assisting in the development of empathy, collaboration, emotional intelligence and intercultural understanding.

This is an example of an extremely high-quality curriculum plan and implementation. The importance of engaging in implicit and explicit instruction of oral communication for the twenty-first century should not be underestimated. The process drama allows oral language to be foregrounded, with additional learning opportunities from a range of other learning areas, brought together in a coherent and complex model of practice.

The recent world refugee crisis has mobilized societies all around the globe and has led to the multiplication of initiatives calling for support to refugees. Given the fact that one-third of the displaced population were children, measures for their immediate integration into schools were taken in most European countries. Although in Greece children with refugee experience first attended schools in 2017, teachers were not adequately prepared to cope with students who had lacked schooling for many years and with whom they couldn’t easily communicate due to language barriers. New teaching methodologies were needed for pre- and in-service teachers to bridge the gap between existing knowledge and the needs of refugee students. In this context, the authors designed a project called “Literacy through Drama” in the reception class of a public school in Volos, Greece involving 12 pre-service teachers. The findings of the study highlight that drama-based informal learning may provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to develop valuable knowledge about learners in authentic settings and pedagogy in practice. Faculties of education could facilitate effective community partnerships with organizations that work with refugee families and children and the school system and propose holistic curricula which include refugee student experiences. Moreover, pre-service teachers could gain skills and knowledge in supporting refugee students, identify refugee students’ needs, communicate in creative ways, and overcome deficit beliefs about refugee students.

Japanese school teachers are facing challenges under the new curricula reform, and there is still a lack of preparation to guide them to a successful implementation. Dilemmas related to teaching English language in primary schools were seen among participant teachers in a program of professional learning. This study aims (1) to identify a feeling of anxiety and readiness to the new EFL curricula and (2) to offer a professional learning program for shifting their concerns to regain their confidence and agency as educators.

The study was conducted based on qualitative research. Qualitative data was collected from 40 participating teachers in the professional learning program, and later was critically analysed.

Initial findings revealed that the majority of participants felt concerned towards teaching EFL in their school, as they are homeroom teachers, not specialist teachers in EFL. Drama pedagogy helped shifting their language anxiety and repositioning themselves within the new EFL curricular implementation, as it became evident through the reflections of the professional development workshop.

The study highlights current educational issues that Japanese primary school teachers are facing. Failure to fully address their feeling of anxiety underlies the Japanese school culture. Drama pedagogy, despite being quite new to educational pedagogy in Japan, was effective in allowing the participants to freely express their voices.

This chapter explores an approach to instruction in pre-service classes called “goofiness pedagogy.” Embedded in teaching and learning theories, goofiness pedagogy is designed to model creative teaching to help emergent bilingual learners academically, linguistically, and socially. Currently in Arizona, highly restrictive language policies limit curricular and pedagogical choices for students acquiring English. As a result, pre-service teachers are often reluctant to work with them, and worried that their own creativity will be constrained. This chapter thus discusses a multi-year study of goofiness pedagogy – theatrical drama, play, and performance – that helps pre-service teachers develop an alternative vision of exceptional teaching for and with emergent bilingual learners. Data sources include student and author reflections on the practice of performed goofiness in Structured English Immersion classes at the University of Arizona, video-taped performances of students engaged in drama and improvisation, and analysis of student written artifacts. Findings indicate that while some pre-teachers hesitate to participate in “performed goofiness,” the majority believe that theatrical activities encourage them to try out innovative teaching strategies, take risks, make mistakes, and analyze those mistakes in a supportive community of practice. Equally important, pre-service teachers begin to understand that learning in general, and language learning in particular, are social pursuits and that teachers should create social spaces in their own classrooms to support the academic and language development of emergent bilingual students. Goofiness pedagogy also has transformed the author’s own teaching practices, and consequently represents a “pedagogy of hope” within a rigid state context.

The chapter outlines a collaborative project between colleagues within a New Zealand teacher education program who have an ongoing commitment to work together and grapple with issues of cultural relevance and emergent leadership within their preservice teacher education program. Here the authors revisit the form, content and delivery of an undergraduate course in curriculum drama to consider how to engage Māori student teachers, be culturally relevant, and yet challenge some preconceptions about drama as a learning area and a pedagogy. The chapter describes the conversations that took place, the strategies that were tried, the responses of students and teachers, and the shifts in understanding that were reported by those involved. Rather than offering any suggestion of objective “hard data,” this is a story told as honestly as possible, by participants in an exchange. It is a story, we suggest, of quiet nurturing (poipoia – supporting in growth) and unfolding (kia pūāwai – blossoming and unfolding) and the fostering of leadership at various levels.

Few early childhood teachers engage in critical and anti-racist forms of pedagogical practice, primarily on the basis of developmental and political concerns. With the exception of a few studies, little has been documented relative to early childhood teachers’ experiences while enacting this form of pedagogical practice. The purpose of this article is to examine my teaching experiences engaging in critical, anti-racist pedagogy through the development and implementation of a critical action research study/unit on African American history. Data from this study reveal four levels of challenges that emerged throughout the development and implementation phases of this study/unit. Finally, I discuss several implications of this study for early child-hood multicultural practice

In this chapter, I explore embodiment as a multi-modal pedagogy for teacher education. I begin with a theoretical exploration of the concepts of embodiment and embodied pedagogy across a range of cultural, philosophical and research traditions and their significance in considering powerful pedagogies for contemporary teacher education. I then go on to present a lived example of ‘the image of the images’ as a drama-based embodied pedagogy for pre-service teacher reflection. Drawing on my research in Australia with a group of pre-service teachers, I unpack the potential benefits of embodied reflection as a pedagogical strategy for engaging pre-service teachers in deep, collaborative reflection on learning to teach. Finally, I offer suggestions for adapting and applying this pedagogical approach across different teacher education contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on reflective practice as a qualitative methodology, and reflection-in-action as a modus operandi to engage with the artistry of cross-language qualitative research.

The author draws on the doctoral research, a cross-language multiple case study aimed at investigating the author’s evolving understanding, as a reflective practitioner, of drama-based pedagogy for teaching Italian as a second language.

A reflective analysis of the author’s tacit decision making during drama improvisation unveiled a clash between covert beliefs and overt attitudes in the author’s practice. In this paper, the author examine this process and highlight the value of translingual writing (writing in two languages) as a method of enquiry that allowed me to become aware of this clash.

A limitation of this research is that the nature of this clash of beliefs is confined to the idiosyncrasy of one practitioner. However, the methodological implications are relevant to cross-language qualitative researchers fluent in two (or more) languages. Frequently, translingual researchers focus all writing efforts in one language only, because of the absence of methodological guidelines bridging cross-language research, reflective practice and translingual studies.

Strategies to investigate awareness of tacit beliefs in educational practice may help other second language/drama reflective practitioners to better understand their knowing in-action.

This paper represents a first step in disseminating knowledge about translingual writing as method, and is of value to all those translingual researchers who are interested in reflective methodologies.

This purpose of this paper is to describe a collaborative project from the University of Waikato, Hamilton New Zealand, in which the authors used process drama to engage final year teaching students with complex issues of cultural diversity, enabling them to “grow into” different kinds of leadership positions in an imagined educational setting. The paper describes the project and makes a case for process drama as a means of providing opportunities for leadership and as a potent tool for learning about issues of social justice.

The drama was based on a fictional scenario described by Hall and Bishop, where a beginner teacher (of European descent) unwittingly diminishes the experiences of Maori and other non‐European children in her class. Using a three‐phase process planning model and with facilitators in role alongside the students, the drama explored the scenario from all points of view. Students were encouraged to build empathy for the beginner teacher and for the children and also to explore the dilemma faced by the teacher's tutor in deciding whether, and how, to confront the teacher on the issue.

Through the drama, students built a sense of empathy for all sides of the issue and engaged in deep thinking about the experience of cultural exclusion. The safety and distance provided by the drama “frame” spurred students to take leadership roles and “stand up” for issues of social justice. The authors suggest that through such dramas students gain skills and perspectives that they may carry into their professional lives.

The paper describes a small project, over one lesson with a specific group of students. More research is needed into the effectiveness of process drama as a sustained strategy for teacher education.

This scenario explored in the drama has currency in Aotearoa New Zealand, where the population is increasingly culturally diverse, where underachievement of Maori students continues to be of concern, and where research has shown the centrality of teacher‐student relations in raising educational achievement for Maori. The authors believe this paper makes a compelling case for the value of drama as a tool for student teachers to encounter social justice issues in a meaningful way, and suggest that the paper is a valuable contribution to more than one discipline, as it straddles the fields of professional practice and drama as pedagogy.

To describe and discuss the use of educational drama in marketing education, including its relative advantages to both learners and trainers.

The paper involves exploratory qualitative research, using sentence completion and reflective diaries. The approach was to probe in an open‐ended way what students believed they had learnt and gained from the drama, and why; how did the drama affect them; how did they view marketing after the drama; and how did they compare the educational drama to traditional “chalk and talk” classes.

The interpretive qualitative results of the study indicated a very high student acceptance of drama as an educational experience, a widely held view that even though it was drama it had actually enhanced the realism of the learning experience, a greater appreciation of the array and complexity of the various roles in the marketing environment and the alternative perpectives possible, an expressed enhancement of their sense of empathy through the drama, a heightened sense of personal enrichment for the experience as an individual, and expressed enthusiasm for its career simulation benefits.

The study was exploratory and educational drama needs further testing under various contexts, constraints, and controls.

The student and instructor enthusiasm for the benefits, including the perception of enhanced realism, bodes well for practical applications. There is no obvious reason why it could not be used to good effect in commercial, industrial, public sector and not‐for‐profit contexts.

The researchers were not able to locate any other study examining the use and benefits of educational drama within a marketing setting such as this one. Used effectively, educational drama is seen to be a valuable learning and experiential tool.