Research project

Zoomprov

A syllabus with performative practices in synchronous online language courses 

Picture of Dr. Mona Eikel-Pohen
Dr. Mona Eikel-Pohen 

Dr. phil., Auf­bau­stu­di­um Dar­stel­len­des Spiel, Assistant Tea­ching Pro­fes­sor of Ger­man, Syra­cu­se Uni­ver­si­ty, NY.

Picture of Mona Eikel-Pohen
Mona Eikel-Pohen 

Dr. phil., Auf­bau­stu­di­um Dar­stel­len­des Spiel, Assistant Tea­ching Pro­fes­sor of Ger­man, Syra­cu­se Uni­ver­si­ty, NY.

Der fol­gen­de Bei­trag gehört zum Digi­tal­teil der Zeit­schrift für Thea­ter­päd­ago­gik, Aus­ga­be 78. 
Content 

Abstract

This rese­arch pro­ject descri­bes chal­lenges and poten­ti­als of tea­ching for­eign lan­guages online with Zoom and how per­for­ma­ti­ve prac­ti­ces (PP), sel­ec­ted from a hand­book the aut­hor com­pi­led for online lan­guage tea­ching, might over­co­me the­se by heigh­tening oral pro­fi­ci­en­cy and per­for­ma­ti­ve con­fi­dence online. The paper rela­tes Dra­gan Miladinović’s eight prin­ci­ples for per­for­ma­ti­ve lan­guage tea­ching to the online envi­ron­ment and details PP for a Ger­man IV cour­se at uni­ver­si­ty level. The cour­se syl­labus is scaf­fold­ed with incre­asing­ly more com­plex PP; data is coll­ec­ted with voice recor­dings to mea­su­re learner’s impro­ve­ment of oral pro­fi­ci­en­cy (fluency/pronunciation) and with ques­ti­on­n­aires to gage increased lear­ners’ con­fi­dence in oral production.

The pro­ject is made pos­si­ble by the Inno­va­ti­ve tea­ching initia­ti­ve award the aut­hor recei­ved along with Cathe­ri­ne Nock, Syra­cu­se Uni­ver­si­ty: Using per­for­mance-based methods to rein­force oral skills. A holi­stic metho­do­lo­gy based on neu­ro­sci­en­ti­fic rese­arch (2020).

Challenges and potentials of online language learning

Sin­ce COVID-19, lan­guage ins­truc­tors (LI) and lear­ners (L) in online lear­ning envi­ron­ments like Zoom get lite­ral­ly spot­ligh­ted, but only two-dimen­sio­nal­ly: in a tiny box with more or less good light­ing. Per­for­ma­ti­ve com­pe­tence thus, defi­ned as “bund­le of com­pe­ten­ci­es an indi­vi­du­al has to under­stand in the enact­ment of all social inter­ac­tion, to initia­te and con­duct social inter­ac­tions as well as to reflect on one’s role the­r­ein” (Hal­let 2015, quo­ted in Mila­di­no­vić 2019: 9, trans­la­ti­on Mona Eikel-Pohen) has beco­me even more rele­vant sin­ce the COVID-indu­ced switch to online pedago­gy. An obser­va­ti­on of my syn­chro­no­us online Ger­man beg­in­ners class attests to that: L, asked to iden­ti­fy the under­ly­ing emo­ti­on other L cho­sen from a list for rea­ding out a dia­lo­gue, were often unable to name what see­med clear to the per­for­mers. The two-dimen­sio­na­li­ty of the screen did absorb but not radia­te back the non­ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. Though the L tried to per­form well, they appeared mono­to­no­us, flat, unau­then­tic, boring.

Non-ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on is pre­va­lent in human com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, but in online cour­ses, lar­ge parts of it is redu­ced by the two-dimen­sio­na­li­ty of the screen. LIs the­r­e­fo­re need to edu­ca­te them­sel­ves and their L how to estab­lish a com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ve, trust­wor­t­hy syn­chro­no­us class­rooms cul­tu­re (so L wil­lingly open their came­ras in Zoom) and show how online lear­ning offers dif­fe­rent dimen­si­ons than the phy­si­cal class­room, like chat-func­tions for ton­gue-tied and intro­vert L, 1‑mi­nu­te-brea­kout-rooms for each L to men­tal­ly prepa­re a com­plex ans­wer, or uplif­ting music on their return from the breakout-rooms.

Miladinović’s eight principles for performative foreign language teaching

Lan­guage cour­ses hold such an immense poten­ti­al for com­bi­ning lin­gu­i­stic and cul­tu­ral com­pe­tence with PP that aspi­ring LI now recei­ve rese­arch-based trai­ning in PP (Mages 2020: 24). Dra­gan Mila­di­no­vić descri­bes eight prin­ci­ples for per­for­ma­ti­ve for­eign lan­guage tea­ching (Mila­di­no­vic 2019: 17–20) that also app­ly online: (1) PP are no panacea but post-metho­di­cal­ly embrace various approa­ches and focus on holi­stic methods (cf. Sam­ba­nis 2013:118f.). They do not replace but com­bi­ne methods and pro­mo­te project/product ori­en­ted lear­ning. Many PP, e.g. cir­cle exer­ci­s­es, can be adopted for online lear­ning (Ls put a num­ber befo­re their names), and Zoom spot­light­ing deli­vers the stage. (2) PP are based on real-life con­tents and meaningful inter­ac­tions while gran­ting a safe space for rehe­ar­sing real-life sce­na­ri­os, e.g. in online brea­kout groups or when L prac­ti­ce pro­nun­cia­ti­on on mute or, out loud cho­ric. (3) PP aim at an awa­re­ness for the inter­play of intellec­tu­al, aes­the­tic, and phy­si­cal com­pon­ents of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on in any envi­ron­ment, e.g. in tableaus and espe­ci­al­ly through reflec­tions built into syl­la­bi, les­son plans, and dai­ly Goog­le exit tickets. (4+5) Input-based and out­put-ori­en­ted, PP allow L to learn in a ligh­the­ar­ted way, e.g. if online L crea­te an addi­tio­nal cour­se mem­ber through the impro­vi­sa­ti­on acti­vi­ty Yes, and, and in rela­ti­on to that fic­tion­al cour­se mem­ber, ava­tars for them­sel­ves, so they can choo­se to do PP as eit­her them­sel­ves or their ava­tar throug­hout a cour­se. (6) PP demand both per­cep­ti­ve (rea­ding, lis­tening) and pro­duc­ti­ve lan­guage skills (spea­king, wri­ting), and working online, when alig­ning Zoom with Goog­le docu­ments, covers tho­se four skills in each dai­ly les­son almost bet­ter than in the class­room. (7) As inte­gral part of the lear­ning expe­ri­ence, PP, when scaf­fold­ed to pro­mo­te L’ con­fi­dence, fur­ther com­pe­ten­ci­es like pre­sen­ting in front of groups (Eikel-Pohen 2017:27), respon­ding to other L’ con­tri­bu­ti­ons, or lear­ning to accept fail­ure as chan­ce for lear­ning and growth (Ala­na 2020). To date, most LI and L are still online lear­ning beg­in­ners, and PP can help fos­ter this new cul­tu­re with its more playful for­mats. (8) PP reach bey­ond goal mea­su­re­ment and stan­dar­diza­ti­on through holi­stic and aes­the­tic approa­ches. L expe­ri­ence that online lear­ning holds non-mea­sura­ble Eure­ka moments that anchor new know­ledge in the long-term memo­ry (Howard 2014: 661; Sam­ba­nis & Wal­ter 2019:34). As online lear­ning requi­res dif­fe­rent com­pe­ten­ci­es (focus, tech know­ledge), PP unite LI and L in an new envi­ron­ment and thus might sup­port buil­ding dyna­mic lear­ning communities.

PP in an online syllabus with “Zoomprov”

The syl­labus I pre­sent includes weekly PP, scaf­fold­ed around a Ger­man IV cour­se (LINK). The PP sel­ec­ted stem from a cor­pus gathe­red and adopted for Zoom, tes­ted in Ger­man I and III in the Fall 2020 online and revi­sed for Ger­man IV for spring 2021 online. The PP were coll­ec­ted in a the Hoch­schu­le für Bil­den­de Küns­te, Braun­schweig Keith John­stone impro­vi­sa­ti­on cour­se, but also from Lacy Alana’s work­shop (Ala­na 2020), and the AIN Open Spaces (AIN Oct-Dec 2020). The hand­book was self-published in the first week of Janu­ary 2021 to ser­ve as an open resour­ce for lan­guage LI tea­ching at the A1 to B2 level (CERF) around the glo­be, and has 440 views as of Janu­ary 14, 2021 (LINK).

The syl­labus will be appli­ed to a Ger­man IV (B2) and two Spa­nish IV cour­ses (B2) in spring 2021. L’ voice recor­dings will be coll­ec­ted at the cour­se out­set to accu­mu­la­te data on oral lan­guage pro­duc­tion (spea­king fluen­cy, pro­nun­cia­ti­on), and ques­ti­on­n­aires gage L oral lan­guage pro­duc­tion confidence.

The syl­labus fea­tures 14 main PP: in week 1+2, L deve­lop one fic­tion­al “cour­se cha­rac­ter” based on L’ Yes, and con­tri­bu­ti­ons; in week 2, each L deve­lo­ps a cha­rac­ter in rela­ti­on to that cour­se cha­rac­ter from week 1, their ava­tar. In week 3, the text­book sug­gests a role­play. L can act it out from their per­so­nal or their avatar’s per­spec­ti­ve. This allows them to compa­re what step­ping into a role and play­ing with it feels like. Weeks 4 and 5 use the same PP Who what whe­re: L are given a set­ting in week 4 but deve­lop a col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve one in week 5 and compa­re the dif­fe­rent effects for play­ing sce­nes in them. Week 6 fea­tures the topic body awa­re­ness through the PP Ali­en trans­la­tor: L com­mu­ni­ca­te in Zoom with muted micro­pho­nes to explo­re non­ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, while their part­ner L inter­pret the body lan­guage. Week 12 uses the same PP, but unmu­ted, so L pay atten­ti­on to both body and tar­get lan­guage. In week 7, focu­sing urban life, L deve­lop a vir­tu­al city and per­form sce­nes in it. In week 8, L read a novel excerpt, build tableaus and per­form from the cha­rac­ters’ point of view. In week 9, the­med around nut­ri­ti­on and men­tal health, L use the basic acti­vi­ty Yes, and to rein­force basic prac­ti­ces, as the PP get more com­plex. Per­forming idi­oms as cha­ra­des in week 10 is a com­mon PP in lan­guage pedago­gy. The last four cour­se weeks hold the most com­plex PP. L app­ly what they reflec­ted about and lear­ned from the PP to making an adver­ti­se­ment for a ser­vice com­pa­ny they deve­lop (week 11), hold an Ame­ri­can dis­cus­sion (L repeat pre­vious L’ argu­ments), and con­duct final  pos­ter ses­si­ons.

Reflec­tions take place in time slots allot­ted to the 14 les­sons inclu­ding PP, exit tickets, and evaluations.

Expected outcomes

L who took Ger­man III in fall 2020 were intro­du­ced to warm-up PP, role­plays, cha­rac­ter crea­ti­ons, and cha­ra­des, and fore­see­ab­ly embrace the PP included in Ger­man IV as more enga­ging acti­vi­ties com­pared other online clas­ses (as stu­dents shared in anony­mous cour­se eva­lua­tions). Their per­for­ma­ti­ve com­pe­tence to con­scious­ly use body lan­guage with the tar­get lan­guage, awa­re­ness for tone and volu­me, and pro­fes­sio­nal online appearance should increase. Some intro­vert or L new to PP might need more time to take to the inter­ac­ti­ve, holi­stic PP or tho­se requi­ring Zoom spot­light­ing. I sur­mi­se the cour­se atmo­sphe­re forms a com­mu­ni­ty pro­vi­ding L room to expe­ri­ment and explo­re safe­ly. L’ fluen­cy and pro­nun­cia­ti­on should pro­gress gra­du­al­ly, and reflec­ti­ve dis­cus­sions about the per­so­nal growth and lear­ning impact, espe­ci­al­ly of oral lan­guage skills through PP use, might make a posi­ti­ve dif­fe­rence to online lan­guage learning.

Outlook

As I alre­a­dy use PP in Ger­man I and III cour­ses and becau­se one ses­si­on at the course’s end brings all L from my cour­ses tog­e­ther, it would be pos­si­ble to hold a “best of ses­si­on” whe­re L per­form for other L. Howe­ver, such ses­si­ons only suc­ceed with L’ wil­ling agree­ment. I will let L deci­de. If suc­cessful results tran­spi­re from cour­se feed­back, exit tickets, in-class reflec­tions, voice recor­dings, and ques­ti­on­n­aires, work­shops for LI broa­de­ning the use of PP online can be offe­red at our insti­tu­ti­on, and a paper or a con­fe­rence pre­sen­ta­ti­on inter­pre­ting the com­pa­ra­ble data bet­ween Spa­nish IV and Ger­man IV can ensue.

Sources

AIN (Appli­ed Impro­vi­sa­ti­on Net­work) http://www.appliedimprovisation.network/open-space-offers/ [Octo­ber to Decem­ber 2020]

Ala­na, Lacy (2020): Faci­li­ta­ting inter­ac­ti­ve and enga­ged lear­ning spaces in a vir­tu­al world. For trai­ners, tea­chers, faci­li­ta­tors, mee­ting lea­ders, and anyo­ne who wants to level up their vir­tu­al skills https://yesandbrain.com/onlinetrainings/innovativevirtuallearning [May 2020]

Com­mon Euro­pean Frame­work of Refe­ren­ces for Lan­guages (CERF), Coun­cil of Euro­pe https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages

Eikel-Pohen (2017): Pre­sen­ting as Per­for­mance: Pain­less Prac­ti­ces for Pre­sen­ta­ti­ons in For­eign Lan­guages, in: Sce­na­rio Vol. 2017, Iss. 1, S. 17–32.

Eikel-Pohen, Mona (2021): Zoom­prov. Impro­vi­sa­ti­on exer­ci­s­es for lan­guage lear­ning in online clas­ses with Zoom or simi­lar tech for begin­ning and inter­me­dia­te lear­ners and bey­ond, https://issuu.com/home/published/zoomprov_2020_updated_december_2020.docx [04.01.2021]

Howard, Pier­ce J. (2014). The owner’s manu­al for the brain. The ulti­ma­te gui­de to peak men­tal per­for­mance at all ages. 4th edi­ti­on. New York: Wil­liam Morrow.

Mages, Wen­dy K. (2020): Edu­ca­tio­nal Dra­ma and Theat­re Pedago­gy: An Inte­gral Part of Trai­ning Eng­lish-as-a-For­eign-Lan­guage Tea­chers, in: Sce­na­rio, Vol. XIV, Iss. 1, 2020, 12–25.

Mila­di­no­vić, Dra­gan (2019): Prin­zi­pi­en eines per­for­ma­ti­ven Fremd­spra­chen­un­ter­richts. Eine Bestands­auf­nah­me, in: Lern­be­we­gun­gen insze­nie­ren: Per­for­ma­ti­ve Zugän­ge in der Sprach‑, Lite­ra­tur- und Kul­tur­di­dak­tik. Fest­schrift für Man­fred Sche­we zum 65. Geburts­tag. Tübin­gen: Narr Fran­cke: 2019.

Sam­ba­nis, Michae­la, Wal­ter, Maik (2019): In Moti­on. Thea­ter­im­pul­se zum Spra­chen­ler­nen. Von neu­es­ten Befun­den der Neu­ro­wis­sen­schaft zu kon­kre­ten Unter­richts­im­pul­sen. Ber­lin: Cornelsen.

Sam­ba­nis, Michae­la (2013): Fremd­spra­chen­un­ter­richt und Neu­ro­wis­sen­schaf­ten. Tübin­gen: Narr Fran­cke Attemp­to: 2013.

Erstellt: 1. Juni 2021 
Aktua­li­siert: 7. Juni 2021 

BVTS

Begegnung

Labor

Forschung

Bildung

Fokus

Mediathek

Forum

Die Seite Schul.Theater lädt alle am Schultheater interessierten Menschen ein, sich über Grenzen hinweg zu inspirieren und zu informieren, zu verbinden und im Forum in den Austausch zu kommen.

Schul.Theater

Die Seite Schul.Theater lädt alle am Schultheater interessierten Menschen in fünf digitalen Räumen dazu ein, sich über Grenzen hinweg zu inspirieren und zu informieren, zu verbinden und im Forum in den Austausch zu kommen.

Forum Schultheater

Diese Seite wird gerade neu eingerichtet. Bald gibt es hier mehr!