Takahiro Watanabe

Takahiro has been teaching pedagogy at Tezukayama University since 2010. For him, drama is one of various pedagogic choices: ‘I have no intention to spread a particular method at all… It must be those teachers working with the children everyday…who finally decide which methods they adopt’ (MPI, 23/08/2011). His aim is to involve a wide range of human resources in learning (see Chapter 7.3.1.). For him, drama is an ‘activity with the act of acting’ (T. Watanabe, Fukuda, & Sasaki,

students will not need to go to school once they understand how to acquire it. What is left finally as the function of the school is learning through face-to-face communication, discussions or interactions. I believe that training for independent study and participatory-and-expressive forms of learning [i.e. the two basic premises of acquisition-oriented education] are essential to learning in school education’ (MPI, 21/08/2010).

71 _{Jun Watanabe (2007) defines dramatic knowledge as follows: ‘When I say dramatic knowledge, I means…the} state of knowledge which is active and creative and which is formed in the learner through a series of activities developing from the activity of an intellectual pursuit to a performance. This does not mean that your feelings or internal thoughts are merely shown but this means that knowledge is expressed as an intellectual construction’ (p. 31).

2011, p.5), which is associated with ‘physicality’, ‘communication’ and ‘fiction’. He argues that without them, a student cannot acquire richer knowledge: physicality is a basis for cognition; communication allows us to produce collaborative and constructive knowledge; and fiction gives contexts to knowledge (ibid, p.6).

Central to his work is ‘comparison’.72 He directs students to compare a stereotypical approach with an alternative approach (drama) and encourages them to identify how the second approach is more effective the first one.

For example, Takahiro offers drama to those students who want to be ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers (MPI, 23/08/2011). In this lesson, he first asks them to change the sentence, ‘I am watching TV’, to the interrogative form with ‘what’. Since they are university students, they answer without difficulties: they change it into the sentence, ‘What am I watching?’ But, he raises a question: ‘“But, is this what we mean learning or acquiring a language? This is strange, isn’t it? It must be happening right now in front of us, because it is the present progressive form. But, what are you doing?”’ (MPI, 23/08/2010). After that, he asks them to visualise scenes where a student is actually watching television: ‘I then ask, “In what situation do we use such a sentence? Can you make groups and dramatize it?”’ (MPI, 23/08/2010). Groups of the students use the same sentence but present different scenes (images) at the end. Based on the scenes, he asks them to examine in what ways the second approach is more powerful than the first one. Through this lesson,

72 _{In most cases, Takahiro Watanabe introduces two different approaches (traditional and dramatic) to compare.} However, there are some exceptions as well. For example, Watanabe uses drama to show the significance of collaborations (MPI, 23/08/2011). He divides the students into groups and asks them to identify their best stories during their university years. After that, for example, Group A tells their story to Group B and then Group B gives their story to Group A. Once the groups finish exchanging their stories, each group dramatizes the story of the other group. Finally they watch their performances with each other. The point of this lesson is that in their performances, the groups witness that their partners present a completely different image from the one that they originally imagined.

the students learn the importance of organising a language lesson in which students can learn words and their contexts together.

In another example (MPI, 23/08/2011), Takahiro criticises the conventional Japanese Language class for its overemphasis on formal written words and its lack of creativity. In this example, he divides students into groups and asks each group to line up in a straight line. He then gives a theme (e.g. a woman who dries her hair with a hair dryer) to the first person of each line. From this theme, the first person creates a still image without speaking, and shows it to the second person. The second person guesses what the theme is from the image of the first person and makes a different still image. The third and fourth persons do the same and eventually the last person answers what the theme is. Since the students do not speak to each other, they often misunderstand the theme. But they also identify the correct answer. From such an experience, the students compare written language and physical language and understand the significance of physical languages. Thus, he argues that ‘creativity emerges not when one thinks in his head [mind] but as one moves his body’ (MPI, 23/08/2011).

7.3.3.2. Language

We noted that Hirata use drama to teach language. Central to his method is a comparison between formal and everyday languages.