“It Was Like Really Uncomfortable But Kind of Comfortable”: An Ethnographically-Informed Radio Play of Adult ESL Classes with Educational Drama

Abstract

This chapter explores possibilities and challenges of educational drama-based second language instruction for adult emergent bilingual learners. A part of the key findings from an ethnographic multiple case study of four adult ESL classes with educational drama in Canada will be represented, using playwriting as a means to uncover diverse nuanced insights and reflexive understandings of the phenomenon under investigation. The primary purpose of this ethnographically-informed radio play script is to serve as reflexive, dynamic, and artistic expressions that speak (about and to) students’ voices concerning their learning experiences in the course as heard/felt/perceived by the researcher as a participant observer-listener. Another central purpose is to bring to light potential pedagogic challenges of integrating artistic, contextual, and multimodal educational drama for more enriched and empowering learning journeys of adult emergent bilingual learners in ways that can reach out to wider audiences in a more engaging and accessible manner.