Edward Bell is a highly experienced English-language teacher and theatre educator who has worked in a range of French higher education institutions, including ENSTA Paris, Ecole Polytechnique, Télécom ParisTech and the Ecole nationale des ponts et des chaussées. In this blog post, he shares an innovative project helping learners gain confidence and expertise in English thanks to the British art of pantomime. A perfect tale for this festive period!
When the curtain falls and the show is over, I always pause to take it all in: a hum of excitement and community in the air; the sense of accomplishment; students, teachers and guests mingling on the stage that for most of the year is a lecture theatre. Creating community, building confidence, sharing togetherness: this is what the pantomime project is truly about, and it can be achieved with students who have no prior acting experience and without huge resources in terms of time and material. This post shares how I’ve used theatre as a living language-learning experience and why any teacher, anywhere, can do the same.
Creativity within an engineering school
I teach this particular class within the Département de Formation Humaine of one of France’s Grande Ecoles, specialising in engineering. The goal is teamwork, communication in a multicultural context, and the development and success of a project from A to Z. Theatre is ideal: on the one hand, it connects language, body and emotion, and allows the students to express themselves creatively. On the other hand, it is a project that the students are responsible for: the language of communication is English and the students must communicate with each other, meaning they have to dig deep into pronunciation, rhythm, gesture, tone and other non-verbal aspects of language. They also need to build trust in others and themselves, while accepting a degree of risk-taking: they alone are responsible for the audience that shows up on the night!
Pantomime: a playful tradition reimagined
Pantomime is a British theatrical tradition that has roots in the Commedia dell’Arte, and is played around Christmas time. You take a well-known story, usually a fairytale or children’s tale, and add topical humour to the mix. Living in France for several years, I have adapted the dogma, taking inspiration from Jean de Lafontaine’s Fables, the stories of the Brothers Grimm, and even the musical Grease! The topics have included elections, the Olympic Games, social media challenges, internships, and jokes about the other schools. In the original plot line, boy meets girl and they fall in love, only to be separated by evil forces. The play then explores how evil is defeated and the young couple can marry. I have moved away from a love story and more into a coming-of-age tale: a young person has ambitions, but due to evil and unfortunate events, they must strive, ally and unite to achieve their goals. Good always defeats evil.
From workshop to performance
In our context, the performance is scheduled before the beginning of the Christmas holidays. The first class is at the end of September, leaving us three months and sixty hours to create the production. The first classes involve workshop activities to get to know the group and put the finishing touches to the script with their input. We assign project roles, notably communication, as well as decorations, costumes, lights, or music. The remaining class time, including four weekend rehearsals, is dedicated to getting the play together.
Accessibility and pedagogical value
For me, the beauty of the pantomime theatre project lies in its accessibility: a play by the students for the students. I strongly recommend the book ‘Drama Games for Classrooms and Workshops’ by Jessica Swale. In her introduction, she refers to an experience teaching children in the Marshall Islands with limited resources, but to great success. If you carefully select the exercises according to what you need, you will be on to a winner. I like to stick to a familiar structure to my classes, always beginning with a three-part warm up (a physical warm up, breathing exercises and pronunciation exercises). This way, they know that they are entering a different world with different requirements from their brain and their body. We then work out a schedule together.
