Abstract: |
This chapter analyses videorecorded interactions in English theatre sessions with a group of secondary school students. It shows how seemingly inauthentic language input is transformed into a real, embodied, aesthetic and emotional learning experience by the youth. In the data studied, learners work with a commercially published drama script over several weeks, reading it aloud, repeating it, memorising it, correcting themselves and being corrected, paying attention to their voices, to their bodies, to the physical space and to material props. They play roles, play with words and their voices, with their bodies and movement, and with objects encountered. The chapter considers notions of authenticity, play, action, aesthetics and emotion in second language education to trace how the young people show their understanding that authentic language and language learning are done while constructing real life. |