Participatory drama: bridging cultural understanding and Tang poetry teaching

ABSTRACT

This article adopts Geertz's view of cultural analysis and embodiment theory, creating a theoretical lens to explore how participatory drama can support students in their understanding of the culture connoted in Tang poetry – a significant cultural heritage of China. A case study was conducted on fourth-grade (10–11 years old) primary school students in Shanghai. The findings show that participatory drama can help students perceive poetic images with their physical senses, awaken the cultural experience connoted by the body to locate meaning, and reflect on the poet's spiritual world through their bodily experience.

KEYWORDS:

• Participatory drama
• Tang poetry teaching
• embodied practice
• cultural understanding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Yeh (2008) stated that there is a process of the reader understand the poet's emotion, will and spirit – emotion and will to start with, and then the spirit.

2 Tang poetry (唐诗) refers to poetry written in or around the time of or in the characteristic style of China's Tang dynasty (A.D. 618 – A.D. 907).

3 The Chinese Ministry of Education (MoE) has published government documents Chinese Language Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education Was Implemented, more details see http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A26/s8001/201112/t20111228_167340.html.

4 Expository approach pays attention to directly ‘exposing’ definitions to learners.

5 Habitus, at its simplest, is what Pierre Bourdieu (1977) calls a system of personal dispositional tendencies shaped by social culture. See Bourdieu (1977).

6 Cornel is a type of dogwood.

7 It is important to note that the English translation of these lines adds subject and place adverbial to some sentences in order to satisfy English grammar. With this additional wording, the reader can more readily spot the correct line-ordering in the poem's English version. However, there is a level of difficulty for Chinese students to identify the correct order of lines in the poem's language.

8 The word ‘cornel’ in Chinese was not on Boy 2's original line, it is added for translation purpose.