My research concentrates on the outcomes of using drama-based methods in foreign and second language education. Also known as performative language teaching, performative pedagogies support learner motivation and confidence, decrease anxiety, as well as support intercultural exploration in learning a foreign or second language (Piazzoli 2018). I began this research in the fall of 2018 in my Research Methods course at Arizona State University where I conducted a meta-study survey of work from within the last fifteen years in the field of language teaching and learning incorporating performative methods in the classroom. In the spring and summer of 2019, I went on to present my research paper at the ArtsWork Graduate Student Research Colloquium held at ASU, where I won the award for “Outstanding Presentation,” as well at the Drama in Education Days Conference in Zug, Switzerland. This coming May, I will present an iteration of my research at the SCENARIO Forum International Conference held at the University of College Cork in Ireland. Both the Drama in Education Days and SCENARIO Conference focus specifically on performative language teaching, thus offering me an avenue to assert my work among leading scholars and professionals in my niche field of interest within drama education. Moving forward, I aim to continue to center on how drama influences affective factors in language learning. My main inquiries include: how can performative teaching methods increase learner motivation, confidence, and cultural awareness in language classrooms with multilingual students? Furthermore, I am interested in how we can create drama-based curriculum accessible to non-arts language teachers to use in their classrooms. As I head into my final year of my MFA program and develop my Applied Project, I aim to build and implement curriculum based off of my initial research. With the surge of migration across the globe due to socio-political and environmental factors, we see an increase bilingual and multilingual youth populations, both in the United States and abroad. Through my current and future research, I hope to respond to the preceding phenomenon, providing concrete evidence for how performative teaching and learning can support and motivate students in navigating cultures and languages different from their own.
Piazzoli, Erika. 2018. Embodying Language in Action: The Artistry of Process Drama in Second Language Education. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jenna Nilson 