The Role of Theatre in a Beginners French Program: Tardieu's 'Le Guichet' ('the Ticket Office') Deals with an Extreme Version of the Sort of Bureaucratic Frustrations Students Might Encounter in France--Or Even in Australia (Report‪)‬

GIVEN THAT BOTH DRAMA AND LANGUAGE LEARNING 'NEED THEIR LEARNERS TO BE ACTIVE, EXPRESSIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE PARTICIPANTS' (PHIN, 2006, WEB PAGE), IT WILL COME AS NO SURPRISE TO LANGUAGE TEACHERS THAT THE ROLE OF DRAMA IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING HAS BEEN RECOGNISED, DISCUSSED, AND EVALUATED FOR DECADES WITH REFERENCE, IN PARTICULAR, TO ITS USE WITH PRIMARY AND SECONDARY LEARNERS AND WITH STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. EXTENSIVE LITERATURE IS ALSO AVAILABLE IN FRENCH FOR FRENCH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. A BROAD DEFINITION OF 'DRAMA' BASED ON A RANGE OF SOURCES (SEE REFERENCES) MIGHT BE; ORAL PRODUCTION WHICH INVOLVES LEARNERS CREATIVELY PORTRAYING THEMSELVES OR OTHERS IN IMAGINARY SITUATIONS. OR, AS SUSAN HOLDEN SAYS, 'LET'S PRETEND' (HOLDEN, 1981, P. 1). THIS SORT OF DRAMA TYPICALLY INVOLVES COLLABORATION, THE ELABORATION OF IMAGINATIVE SCENARIOS, AND INFORMAL PERFORMANCE. FOR OTHERS, DRAMA MIGHT INVOLVE SCRIPTED OR UNSCRIPTED ROLE PLAYS, PLAYS, AND SKITS DEVELOPED COLLABORATIVELY. SOME PRACTITIONERS, HOWEVER, ARE ADAMANT THAT 'DOING ROLE PLAYS WITH MORE EXPRESSION' IS NOT DRAMA (SEE, FOR EXAMPLE, FARRIMOND AND ABERDEEN, 2006, WEB PAGE; OR RYNGAERT, 1996, p. 8). HOLDEN DISTINGUISHES BETWEEN THE GENERIC TERM 'DRAMA', THE TERM 'DRAMA' REFERRING TO CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 'WHERE THE FOCUS IS ON DOING RATHER THAN ON THE PRESENTATION' (HOLDEN, 1981, P. 8), AND 'THEATRE', WHICH SHE SAYS IS CONCERNED WITH PRESENTATION BEFORE AN AUDIENCE, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, PHYSICAL SETTING, ETC. THIS PAPER PRESENTS A CASE STUDY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING THROUGH DRAMA AS INFORMAL PERFORMANCE USING PUBLISHED TEXTS, AND THE LANGUAGE-LEARNING ROLE OF THIS ACTIVITY IN A TERTIARY CONTEXT. FOR CONVENIENCE, IT WILL BE REFERRED TO AS 'THEATRE', ALTHOUGH MOST OF THE FINAL PERFORMANCES ARE CONSIDERABLY LOWER KEY THAN THAT TERM MIGHT SUGGEST. THE FIRST PERSON PLURAL PRONOUN IS USED THROUGHOUT AS THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THIS PROJECT WAS A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT INVOLVING ME AND MY COLLEAGUE, NADIE BUTCHER. ABSTRACT