Language and Language Teaching, Issue 2 - Azim Premji Foundation

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dolphins, the return of their fathers from longfishing trips, a marriage in the community, etc. Ioften retold these stories to them in English.Now, I started bringingbig books to school, asour walls were chock-a-block with the children’swork. We had named a lot of things in English,and put up their pictures on the walls. Thepictures, with their name labels, hung like kiteson the criss-cross wires singing in the wind thatblew from the sea. We often pointed to themand talked about how they looked, and removedsome to replace them with better versions. Ofcourse, the names of the things were written byme, but the children had started writing theirown names, and very proudly too. We often satunder the banyan tree in the yard, reading thebig book about the little mermaid or thefisherman’s wife, with children drawing picturesin the sand.Of course, I had to teach the alphabet, and itwas fun to discover them in the books that wehad read.More often than not, the children couldread an entire word once they had located thealphabet in the text. We had read the books somany times that it evoked instant recognition.All this happened when we started bringing tothe class bottle labels, pamphlets, shampoosachets, and empty packets of kurkure. Welooked at them and read the names on the labels,and sometimes the instructions too on them. Westuck them in a large album that I had createdout of old chart papers and covers, and thechildren wrote under them. The spellings wereoften funny; they were invented spellings andthe letters were all awry, but they were allwritten by the children. I would sit down andask them what they were writing. Each one wasso special.Nivedita Bedadur has been an English languageteacher, resource person and Principal in KendriyaVidyalayas in the country and abroad. Her researchinterests include learning and teacher capacitydevelopment. Presently she is working as Specialist,Academics and Pedagogy in the UniversityResource Centre of Azim Premji University.nivedita@azimpremjifoundation.orgConclusionThus, we started on our journey of literacy—amemorable journey filled with fun and lots ofhard work, but the children were with me.Ourbonds cemented with the glue of love.Language and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 28
Democratizing the Classroom: AugustoBoal’s Theatre of the Oppressed as aCritical Pedagogical ToolChitra SeshadhriIntroductionThis paper is thoroughly experimental indesigning various activities to suit the studentswho hail from the underprivileged sections ofthe society as well as those students whointernalize a sense of oppression whenever itcomes to learning English. Democratization ofthe classroom leads to the participation of allthe students to not only communicate in English,but also to start speaking a few words. Studentswho are first generation learners internalize afear when a teacher talks continuously inEnglish. They feel alienated, and the wordsuttered become mere incomprehensible soundsto them. In this scenario, the English teacher’srole is to first take his/her class into confidence.The Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boalcomes as a critical tool in breaking the ice insuch classrooms.English often afflicts the audience/students. Andyet, they have to communicate in English, andthis develops an ambivalence among them. Inthis scenario, the technique of the Braziliantheatre director-cum-social activist AugustoBoal is likely to have a therapeutic effect on theaudience. Boal was raised in Rio de Janeiro,and was formally trained in ChemicalEngineering. He attended Columbia Universityin the late 1940s and early 1950s. Although hisinterest in theatre began at a very young age, itwas after he finished his degree at ColumbiaUniversity that he was asked to return to Brazilto work in the Arena Theatre in Sao Paulo. Hiswork at the Arena Theatre led him to experimentwith new forms of theatre that would have anextraordinary impact on traditional theatrepractice. The present argument, and theactivities proposed thereafter are structured onthe concept of the spect-actor developed byBoal.The spect-actorPrior to Boal’s experimentation, audiences wereinvited to discuss a play at the end ofperformance. In so doing, according to Boal,they remained mere viewers and ‘reactors’ tothe action before them. In the 1960s, BoalStudents who are first generation learnersinternalize a fear when a teacher talkscontinuously in English. They feelalienated, and the words uttered becomemere incomprehensible sounds to them. Inthis scenario, the English teacher’s role isto first take his/her class into confidence.developed a process whereby audiencemembers could interrupt a performance, andsuggest a different action for the character whowas experiencing oppression; the actor playingthat character would then continue with hisperformance incorporating the suggestions ofthe audience. But in a legendary development,a woman in the audience once was so outragedwhen an actor could not understand hersuggestion that she came onto the stage andshowed what she meant. For Boal, this was thebirth of the spect-actor (not spectator), and histheatre was transformed. He began to inviteaudience members with suggestions for changeonto the stage to demonstrate their ideas. In soLanguage and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 29
Page 3 and 4: Language and Language TeachingVolum
Page 5 and 6: marking. The judgment is not a ‘l
Page 7 and 8: All classroom experiences are insta
Page 9 and 10: for us. In this article I focus on
Page 11 and 12: However, we were not successful in
Page 13 and 14: observations are very similar to th
Page 15 and 16: ensure that they get a solid founda
Page 17 and 18: of Marathi. The remarkable thing wa
Page 19 and 20: Popularizing any language is a two-
Page 21 and 22: Cartoon Shows: A Tool to Facilitate
Page 23 and 24: Comprehension is a two-fold process
Page 25 and 26: 4) What did they do to solve the pr
Page 27: Then we sat down, and I told them t
Page 31 and 32: I) Ask for different ways of handli
Page 33 and 34: change. They are ready to flout eth
Page 35 and 36: observer. In the context of the pre
Page 37 and 38: poverty and lack of alternative sou
Page 39 and 40: ConclusionAgain, sometimes papers h
Page 41 and 42: (SLAP), which materialized a shift
Page 43 and 44: LandmarksTheory and Practice ofLang
Page 45 and 46: What are excluded are asadhu forms
Page 47 and 48: Notes:1We have the world’s first
Page 49 and 50: Mesthrie does not sound convinced w
Page 51 and 52: in using English for teaching diffe
Page 53 and 54: use of lesson plans, etc.), and pra
Page 55 and 56: Practice in a Second Language: Pers
Page 57 and 58: students that these words occur in
Page 59 and 60: themselves increase their interest,
Page 61 and 62: ReportWorkshop on Continuous and Co
Page 63 and 64: The workshop, in general, created a
Page 65 and 66: 20th KOTESOL InternationalConferenc
Page 67 and 68: 5) I liked the article written by S
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