About this Event
Transforming English Through Drama
In this edited volume Maggie Pitfield and Jane Coles bring together experienced teacher-practitioners and researchers working in the field of English/Language Arts from contexts as wide-ranging as England, Singapore and Palestine.
The contributing authors (including three researchers affiliated to Goldsmiths) show how embedded drama approaches can revitalise the English/Language Arts curriculum and motivate young people to make personal and critical connections with the subject. This highly readable book represents an exciting contribution to very current debates about the future of the discipline. It champions a range of creative (often playful) practices that are rigorously researched and applied in classroom contexts. Taken together, the chapters serve to locate English/Language Arts as an imaginative and fundamentally humane subject.
At the launch Maggie, Jane and fellow authors will briefly speak about their chapters before taking questions and comments. Copies of the book will be on sale at a discounted price.
Dr Jane Coles a former Head of English and Deputy Headteacher, is also an experienced teacher educator and educational researcher. Until recently she led the MA English Education programme at UCL’s Institute of Education, London. Research and publication interests include creative literacies, the teaching of Shakespeare and the relationship between drama and English.
Dr Maggie Pitfield taught English and Drama in London secondary schools for 24 years. Formerly the Head of Educational Studies and currently a Research and Knowledge Exchange Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, her research and publication interests include the contribution that educational drama practices make to the reading of literary texts.
Jane and Maggie, with Theo Bryer, are co-authors of Drama at the Heart of English: Transforming Practice in the Secondary Classroom (Routledge, 2024) and joint recipients of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) Outstanding Contribution to Research award (2024).
List of Contributors
Katherine Barber is currently a doctoral student at Kings College, University of London following a ten-year teaching career in schools in the UK and China. Her research interests focus on transformative pedagogies, critical literacy and decolonising the English classroom.
Dr Theo Bryer leads the PGCE English with Drama course at UCL’s Institute of Education, London. She has many years’ experience of teaching Drama in schools and leading Drama/Media projects with bilingual learners. Her research and publication interests are in cross-curricular drama, creative literacies and the relationship between English, Media and Drama.
Associate Professor Julie Choi leads the Master of TESOL and Modern Languages courses in the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. She is co-editor and author of multiple books on language, culture, identity, autoethnography, plurilingualism, and academic writing.
Dr Rafaela Cleeve Gerkens coordinates subjects for pre-service primary and early childhood teachers across literacy and the arts at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. Her research areas include drama-rich pedagogy for learning across the curriculum and arts-rich experiences to support development of children’s critical language awareness.
Raja’ Farah has taught English language in secondary schools in Ramallah, Palestine for twenty-three years. She has worked with the A.M. Qattan Foundation in Ramallah since 2020 and has a particular interest in applying ‘Mantle of the Expert’ to the teaching of English.
Susie Ferguson works as a freelance creative learning practitioner whilst a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield. She has taught English and Drama in comprehensive schools for over twenty years. She writes about drama-inflected approaches to the teaching of novels and is the author of several National Theatre learning guides.
Maggie Hulson is a highly experienced drama in education practitioner, a former Head of Expressive Arts in a London comprehensive, and author of Schemes for Classroom Drama (2006). She is a long-standing active member of the National Association for the Teaching of Drama and has edited The Journal for Drama in Education for thirty-two years.
Professor Vicky Macleroy was, until very recently, Director of the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning and Head of MA Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has led numerous high profile research projects and published widely in the area of multilingual digital storytelling.
Ghoson Orouq is an English language teacher working in Jenin, Palestine, with an MA in TEFL and seven years’ teaching experience. She joined the A.M. Qattan Foundation's training programme for teaching drama in 2022.
Dr Camilla Stanger is an experienced English teacher, teacher-educator, researcher and youth arts project manager, working across secondary and higher education sectors within the UK. Her research and publication interests focus on transformative, critical pedagogies and social justice.
Erin Woodford, until recently Dean and Head of English at a Singaporean Junior College, received the 2018 ‘Inspiring Teacher of English (Leadership)’ prize awarded by the Straits Times/Singapore Government. She has researched and written about inclusive and dialogic approaches to Literature.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Goldsmiths, University of London, 8 Lewisham Way, London, United Kingdom
USD 0.00
