Research Seminar: How to live a language-a group drama project for undergraduate students to ‘Step into the Shoes of Others’ with Mr Richard Warner

Students graduating in the twenty first century require a skill set probably greater than ever before as they seek to enter the workplaces of today and tomorrow.

With such skill sets in mind, this project outlines how an undergraduate group drama project is designed to develop a wide range of employability skills alongside the development of discipline-specific second language (in this case Japanese) skills. As such, this project is in alignment with graduate attributes stipulated by The University of Adelaide (2019). Within the project is a particular focus on how intercultural competence, teamwork and communication skills (amongst other transferable generic skills) are incorporated and scaffolded into the process of completing this project, in a language course characterised by a diverse student cohort. Moreover, the group drama project design also provides a medium for the extension of students’ research skills through the processes involved in crafting a drama scenario for presentation. Each group produces an original, research-informed drama scenario on self-selected contemporary Japanese social issues. This project allows scope, not only by asking individual students to play diverse roles in a Japanese socio-cultural drama scenario, but also by encouraging them to ascertain, value and draw upon their personal existing skill sets. Thus, the project empowers students to position themselves ‘in the shoes of others’ in different socio-cultural settings. To complete this presentation, I will outline how the theory-informed organisational design principles and scaffolds of this particular drama project could be applied and implemented in curricula in other disciplines beyond the parameters of a second language learning perspective.

Richard's research profile.