UCC Journals (Univ. College Cork)
Not a member yet
1278 research outputs found
Sort by
Multimodal Scaffolding Teaching: Role-Taking or Role-Creating in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Oral Communication Class in Japan
Get PDFThis study is an investigation of the impact of multimodal scaffolding teaching through in-class drama workshop tasks among a group of first-year English education major students studying English in an EFL oral communication class at a national university in Japan. Students’ role-play dialogues were video-recorded and transcribed to identify oral communication challenges so as to make informed interventions in a series of drama workshops that were again video-recorded and transcribed after the intervention to assess progress made in addressing the original communication problems. Questionnaires and interviews at the start and end of the study were used to measure students’ enthusiasm and analyse their self-assessment. The findings indicate that scaffolding drama workshops in which students create role-play dialogues engages them in the subject, facilitates their learning, and brings out multimodal features that are necessary for effective oral communication. This study evaluates the effect of role-creating and role-playing on student interaction and oral communication improvement through the assessment of the efficacy of “multimodality” and “scaffolding”. Multimodality is “the phenomenon in texts and communicative events whereby a variety of semiotic modes are integrated into a unified whole” (Van Leeuwen & Kress 2001: 107). Scaffolding, first described by Wood et al. (1976) involves tailored ..
Performative in a nutshell
Get PDFContributors to this new rubric draw attention to terms that are frequently used when we speak or write about our pedagogical practices. The idea is to engage Scenario readers in a discussion of key terminology in the area of performative teaching and learning. Through Scenario Journal and various Scenario Forum initiatives, including conferences, symposia, colloquia, the term performative has become a key term in the modern languages debate.2 Many readers will remember the 2014 conference entitled Performative Teaching, Learning, Research, the 2017 conference on Performative Spaces in Language, Literature and Culture Education; and the 2020 conference, which carried the title Going Performative in Education, had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 related lockdown. Like with any other term the meaning of the term performative very much depends on how it is used in a specific context. The photograph below draws our attention to a context that is particularly noteworthy against the background of the recent worldwide Black Lives Matter protests. Fig. 1: Underground station Mohrenstraße in Berlin Why is the streetname crossed out with a red line? From medieval times the German word Mohr was often used when reference was made to people with dark skin. Similary, in the ..
Eine Podiumsdiskussion zu den Künsten im Fremdsprachenunterricht
Get PDFNicht zuletzt aufgrund der Online-Fachzeitschrift Scenario, die seit 2007 die fachübergreifende Diskussion über dramapädagogisches Lehren und Lernen in den Fremdsprachen maßgeblich vorangetrieben hat, aber auch durch zahlreiche Forschungsaktivitäten in der fremdsprachlichen Literatur- und Filmdidaktik haben kunstorientierte Ansätze in der Fremdsprachendidaktik einen festen Platz. Allerdings führen sie immer noch eher ein Nischendasein: Versuche einer übergreifenden Einbindung der Künste – d.h. neben Theater, Literatur und Film auch von Musik, Bildender Kunst und Tanz – in den Fremdsprachenunterricht gibt es bislang nur vereinzelt (vgl. z.B. Bernstein & Lerchner 2014; Gehring 2017; Mentz & Fleiner 2018). Viele Fragen sind daher noch offen, z.B. die nach möglichen Transfereffekten von den Künsten zum Fremdsprachenunterricht. Forschungsarbeiten aus dem Bereich der Kulturellen Bildung weisen darauf hin, dass Musik, Tanz, Bildende Kunst und das Theater Einfluss auf die Persönlichkeitsentwicklung nehmen, und zwar insbesondere auf die Wahrnehmungs- und Empathiefähigkeit, auf die Kreativität und die emotionale Intelligenz (vgl. z.B. Rittelmeyer 2012).2 Doch welche Rolle spielt dies für den Fremdsprachenunterricht? Und in welcher Weise können die Künste darüber hinaus einen spezifischen Beitrag zur Entwicklung, Innovation oder Diversifizierung des fremdsprachlichen Unterrichts leisten? Während mögliche Schnittstellen zwischen den Künsten und dem Sprachenerwerb im angelsächsischen Raum bereits seit den 1990er Jahren in den Blick genommen ...Nicht zuletzt aufgrund der Online-Fachzeitschrift Scenario, die seit 2007 die fachübergreifende Diskussion über dramapädagogisches Lehren und Lernen in den Fremdsprachen maßgeblich vorangetrieben hat, aber auch durch zahlreiche Forschungsaktivitäten in der fremdsprachlichen Literatur- und Filmdidaktik haben kunstorientierte Ansätze in der Fremdsprachendidaktik einen festen Platz. Allerdings führen sie immer noch eher ein Nischendasein: Versuche einer übergreifenden Einbindung der Künste – d.h. neben Theater, Literatur und Film auch von Musik, Bildender Kunst und Tanz – in den Fremdsprachenunterricht gibt es bislang nur vereinzelt (vgl. z.B. Bernstein & Lerchner 2014; Gehring 2017; Mentz & Fleiner 2018). Viele Fragen sind daher noch offen, z.B. die nach möglichen Transfereffekten von den Künsten zum Fremdsprachenunterricht. Forschungsarbeiten aus dem Bereich der Kulturellen Bildung weisen darauf hin, dass Musik, Tanz, Bildende Kunst und das Theater Einfluss auf die Persönlichkeitsentwicklung nehmen, und zwar insbesondere auf die Wahrnehmungs- und Empathiefähigkeit, auf die Kreativität und die emotionale Intelligenz (vgl. z.B. Rittelmeyer 2012).2 Doch welche Rolle spielt dies für den Fremdsprachenunterricht? Und in welcher Weise können die Künste darüber hinaus einen spezifischen Beitrag zur Entwicklung, Innovation oder Diversifizierung des fremdsprachlichen Unterrichts leisten? Während mögliche Schnittstellen zwischen den Künsten und dem Sprachenerwerb im angelsächsischen Raum bereits seit den 1990er Jahren in den Blick genommen ..
Book Review – The Discourse of Environmental Collapse: Imagining The End, Edited by Alison E. Vogellar, Brack W. Hale and Alexandra Peat
No full textPunyashree Panda from the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar reviews The Discourse of Environmental Collapse: Imagining The End, Edited by Alison E. Vogellar, Brack W. Hale and Alexandra Peat. [Read more on PDF
Moonlight in Miami: The Split Sociopolitical Reality of South Florida As Told By Barry Jenkins
No full textAbstract: This paper seeks to explore the sociopolitical implications and reflections of the 2016 film Moonlight. By looking at the film with these considerations, and by contextualizing themes and moments from the film with contemporary scholarship and social data, I hope to garner a clearer look both at the film and the city it takes place in—Miami. As sociological literature from the past 30-odd years suggests, Miami has often been the site both of tense racial relations, as well as progressive ideals in the face of mass migration of which Miami has been a key site and apparent model of inclusivity. While this research indicates one sort of social history in Miami, Moonlight provides an additional perspective, from a marginal standpoint that has often been overlooked by academic research. By taking both of these perspectives into account, this paper hopes to illuminate how Miami as the progressive city of the future has so far failed to live up to these expectations, while also illustrating that such expectations are still within the realm of possibility
Educational Drama and Theatre Pedagogy: An Integral Part of Training English-as-a-Foreign-Language Teachers
Get PDFThis mixed-methods research documents the integration of educational drama and theatre into a teacher-preparation program for Austrian teachers-in-training who plan to teach English-as-a-foreign-language to Austrian school children. Observations were conducted of the plays developed and performed in English by two cohorts of Austrian teachers-in-training who participated in the teacher-preparation program. Observations were also conducted of the second cohort’s process developing a script based on an English young adult novel, as well as their process of producing and performing the play in English for middle-school and adult audiences. In addition, a survey of participants’ perceptions of the program was conducted. This study investigates how the teachers-in-training responded to the process of creating and performing a play in English, and their perceptions of its benefits and challenges for themselves, as well as for their future students
Palliative Buddhism: Exploring Corporate Mindfulness as a Crisis-Management Mechanism
No full textAbstract: In 2014 at the annual Wisdom 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, several people interrupted a panel hosted by Google on mindfulness and technology in order to protest economic inequality and displacement in the area. After the protesters were forced to leave, the panelists instructed their audience to re-center themselves and utilize mindfulness techniques in order to move past the distraction and return to productive discussion. This moment encapsulates the interaction between the growth of corporate mindfulness and the ongoing crisis of neoliberal exploitation, in that the panelists sought to deploy mindfulness as a strategy for smoothing over the contradictions of capitalism. This paper analyzes the turn by an increasing number of people and corporations in the West to corporate mindfulness as a method for coping with uncertainty, stress, and anxiety associated with neoliberal crisis. I analyze the 2014 incident at the Wisdom 2.0 conference, as well as two guided mindfulness programs: Headspace and Buddhify. In particular, I argue that these corporate mindfulness programs are characterized by the appropriation, exoticization, and whitewashing of Asian Buddhist practices that serve as a crisis management strategy in the contemporary neoliberal era
Crisis and Transformation: The Aftermath of First Contact in Mid-20th Century Science Fiction
No full textFirst contact scenarios or hypothetical encounters between humans and alien civilizations have been a hallmark of science fiction since the inception of the genre. Despite the fluidity of this trope, in the middle of the twentieth century it briefly stabilized into a distinct shape that found its way into some of the most popular sci-fi novels of the period. Its main feature is that first contact always follows a great crisis with existential consequences. Critical analyses have long neglected the uniqueness of these first contact narratives – especially their clear “mentorship-like” rather than “invasion-like” nature and the invariable transformation of humanity that follows the event. Moreover, this trope has been ignored by proponents of cultural evolution and theoretical paradigms that fit under the “cognitive” moniker, despite its potential to shed light on the interaction of nature and nurture in the creation and reception of such narratives. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the research on this topic, by comparing how the aftermath of first contact is treated in novels by the “Big Three” of science fiction – Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood\u27s End), Isaac Asimov (The Gods Themselves), and Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land). The paper argues that the structure of first contact in these narratives is deliberately crafted to pander to contemporary cultural (mainly Cold War related) anxieties. Moreover, the success of these narratives hinges on the depiction of a post humanist perspective, focusing either on aliens or on “altered” humans, which acts as an MCI (minimally counterintuitive) bias that enhances the ability of the respective narratives to capture the readers’ attention. The result of the transformation is always change towards the likeness of the aliens and hyper-sociality – for better or worse (hyper-sociality can be viewed in a positive or negative light depending on the context, due to aporic attitudes towards communality and individualism that relate back to the nature vs. nurture debate)