It’s more than a hat: (re)exploring The Little Prince and shared language(s) via dramatic play
Lead Author: Antonia Troullaki
Additional authors:
Timetable: ,
Description:
The more I facilitate language learning via play-led methodologies in HE, the more I share the Little Prince’s disappointment: “all grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it” (Saint-Exupéry, 1995). We have become so much Homo Sapiens and forgotten how to be Homo Ludens, therefore encouraging adults to play calls for an explicit link to ‘seriousness’. In the spirit of the Little Prince, we, play advocates, find ourselves constantly defending the ‘elephant’ inside the ‘boa,’ i.e. proving the profound value hidden within the seemingly trivial act of play. This resistance to the latter strikingly mirrors adults’ inhibitions in language learning. Bound by the gravity of academia and the right-or-wrong binary, often reinforced by Confucian educational traditions, student-audiences approach the unfamiliar as a rigid ‘hat’ rather than a dynamic playground to navigate through the lens of their experiences. And yet, our Sapiens’ quality lies in play’s silliness (Huizinga, 2016) which surprisingly enough forges ideal circumstances for language development: by encouraging us to show who we are, it brings us closer to shaping an L2 identity as well as to connecting with the people of that worldview (Lugones, 1987).
This 90-minutes workshop will draw parallels between the Little Prince’s travels and Lugones’ notion of ‘world-travelling,’ inviting participants to embrace playfulness as a bridge into new linguistic and cultural worlds (1987). Drawing from embodied learning theory (Kolb, 1984; Matthews, 1998), players will (re)explore the Little Prince’s narrative via drama games and Boalian techniques, treating language not as a fixed system, but as a playful, plastic tool. Our journey will begin with adapted icebreakers rooted in the Theatre of the Absurd and constructionist learning; these activities will invite people to challenge Saussure’s “Signifier-Signified” binary (1966), warming up their playfulness and somatic experimentation. We will then move into the first phrase of exploration: a scavenger hunt to find ‘lost pages’ of The Little Prince and identify the core concept hidden beneath the text. To bridge the gap between abstract understanding and multilingual communication, participants will employ “Image Theatre” to produce frozen images (Boal, 2022), a shared physical vocabulary that neutralizes potential linguistic deficiencies. The exploration will deepen with players ‘unpacking’ the Little Prince’s suitcase. By performing the voices of imagined objects, they will engage in narrative improvisation and inhabit the playfulness of the journey. To complete the latter, players will capture their emotions by identifying with print Blob Figures on a tree (see references), a self-reflection that mirrors the intervention’s playful theme.
References, web links and other resources:
References:
1. Boal, A. 2022. Games for actors and non-actors. 3rd ed. Oxon: Routledge.
2. De Saussure, Ferdinand. 1966. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Revelations.
3. Huizinga, J. 2016. Homo Ludens: a study of the play-element in culture. Kettering: Angelico Press.
4. Kolb, D.A. 1984. Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
5. Lugones, M. 1987. Playfulness, “world”-travelling, and loving perception. Hypatia. 2(2), pp.3-19.
6. Matthews, J.C. 1998. Somatic knowing and education. The Educational Forum. 62(3), pp.236-242.
7. Saint-Exupéry, A. de. 1995. The Little Prince. Translated by A. de Saint-Exupéry and K. Woods. Ware: Wordsworth.
8. Schechner, R. 1981. Performers and spectators transported and transformed. The Kenyon Review. 3(4), pp.83-113.
You can explore the Blob Figures on the relevant website: https://www.blobtree.com/
It’s more than a hat: (re)exploring The Little Prince and shared language(s) via dramatic play
Lead Author: Antonia Troullaki
Additional authors:
Timetable: ,
Description:
The more I facilitate language learning via play-led methodologies in HE, the more I share the Little Prince’s disappointment: “all grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it” (Saint-Exupéry, 1995). We have become so much Homo Sapiens and forgotten how to be Homo Ludens, therefore encouraging adults to play calls for an explicit link to ‘seriousness’. In the spirit of the Little Prince, we, play advocates, find ourselves constantly defending the ‘elephant’ inside the ‘boa,’ i.e. proving the profound value hidden within the seemingly trivial act of play. This resistance to the latter strikingly mirrors adults’ inhibitions in language learning. Bound by the gravity of academia and the right-or-wrong binary, often reinforced by Confucian educational traditions, student-audiences approach the unfamiliar as a rigid ‘hat’ rather than a dynamic playground to navigate through the lens of their experiences. And yet, our Sapiens’ quality lies in play’s silliness (Huizinga, 2016) which surprisingly enough forges ideal circumstances for language development: by encouraging us to show who we are, it brings us closer to shaping an L2 identity as well as to connecting with the people of that worldview (Lugones, 1987).
This 90-minutes workshop will draw parallels between the Little Prince’s travels and Lugones’ notion of ‘world-travelling,’ inviting participants to embrace playfulness as a bridge into new linguistic and cultural worlds (1987). Drawing from embodied learning theory (Kolb, 1984; Matthews, 1998), players will (re)explore the Little Prince’s narrative via drama games and Boalian techniques, treating language not as a fixed system, but as a playful, plastic tool. Our journey will begin with adapted icebreakers rooted in the Theatre of the Absurd and constructionist learning; these activities will invite people to challenge Saussure’s “Signifier-Signified” binary (1966), warming up their playfulness and somatic experimentation. We will then move into the first phrase of exploration: a scavenger hunt to find ‘lost pages’ of The Little Prince and identify the core concept hidden beneath the text. To bridge the gap between abstract understanding and multilingual communication, participants will employ “Image Theatre” to produce frozen images (Boal, 2022), a shared physical vocabulary that neutralizes potential linguistic deficiencies. The exploration will deepen with players ‘unpacking’ the Little Prince’s suitcase. By performing the voices of imagined objects, they will engage in narrative improvisation and inhabit the playfulness of the journey. To complete the latter, players will capture their emotions by identifying with print Blob Figures on a tree (see references), a self-reflection that mirrors the intervention’s playful theme.
References, web links and other resources:
References:
1. Boal, A. 2022. Games for actors and non-actors. 3rd ed. Oxon: Routledge.
2. De Saussure, Ferdinand. 1966. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Roy Harris. London: Bloomsbury Revelations.
3. Huizinga, J. 2016. Homo Ludens: a study of the play-element in culture. Kettering: Angelico Press.
4. Kolb, D.A. 1984. Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
5. Lugones, M. 1987. Playfulness, “world”-travelling, and loving perception. Hypatia. 2(2), pp.3-19.
6. Matthews, J.C. 1998. Somatic knowing and education. The Educational Forum. 62(3), pp.236-242.
7. Saint-Exupéry, A. de. 1995. The Little Prince. Translated by A. de Saint-Exupéry and K. Woods. Ware: Wordsworth.
8. Schechner, R. 1981. Performers and spectators transported and transformed. The Kenyon Review. 3(4), pp.83-113.
You can explore the Blob Figures on the relevant website: https://www.blobtree.com/