Language learning is an interesting investment because you can be assured that learning a target language will be very useful for you in the future. Nowadays there are so many ways and methods to learn a language and each technique may produce different results for each language learner. Have you ever tried or would you want to try learning a language through performing arts, such as acting?

Learning languages through arts is a creative and original way to become fluent in a language. The Slovak National Theater or the SND has recently hosted several experienced experts from various European theaters in Nottingham, Berlin, Helsinki, Saint-Etienne, and Hamburg; these experts gave lectures and led workshops on joining Theater – Education – Art, a unique European educational project. The project took place during the last weekend of February 2009 and its goal was to exchange experiences about connecting theater with school, educating through theater, and various creative ways of education.

One of those who teach foreign languages through drama is Steven Clark. He is a teacher of English as a foreign language, a French teacher and also gives classes of theater studies. He has stated that, drama is like a language. He uses drama to teach languages through his basic idea for students to forget about one’s identity and overcome shyness, to let go of inhibitions and feeling guilty for not saying or doing things properly, and to enjoy and take pleasure in exploring a foreign language.

Communication is a major key in learning a language; through the performing arts many emotions are reflected and eventually lead to better communication. For example in drama, a single eye contact can draw out a lot of emotions such as aggressiveness, friendship, hostility, solidarity, and trust among others. Through these emotions you can establish rapport with other people and communicate through actions, interaction, and eventually through language exchange.

Steven Clark has said that the feeling of human belonging is essential when it comes to learning a language because we humans sometimes need to communicate abstract and sophisticated stuff in a way that is fair to other people. If people who have performing arts as their common ground, they should start working from it and explore the possibility of learning new languages.

If you’re interest in the subject you can read our post on learning languages through music.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Learn Languages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.