(member of the Rio Exploratory Practice Group,
retired English teacher at MunicipalSchool,
presently giving adult classes)

1. Introduction

        This reflective paper resulted from a question, which puzzled me and my friend, Doreen Veiga Purcell, co-author of a workshop that we conducted in the 7th Exploratory Practice Annual event, held in 2003 at PUC-Rio. We were interested in finding out why it was so common to hear both from students and teachers statements like: “To learn English you have to go to an English course!” and “There’s no way of learning English at school!”  As we both were (and are) participants of the Rio-Exploratory Practice group, we wanted to find out some answers besides the ones we could infer from our own experience with municipal school teachers and students, we began to seek for clues that could either show us that this statement was true, or that it’s only a myth without any real basis.
        For this purpose, we first interviewed an English teacher who works at a course, and three students, two studying at a course and one only at school. However, we felt that this wasn’t enough. We needed more evidence. But how could we get it – we just couldn’t make any additional survey with our classes, for we had just retired from school. Of course, we could just go on interviewing other teachers or giving out questionnaires. But would this agree with the principles of Exploratory Practice?  Certainly our colleagues had enough work with their classes without the two of us boring them with our puzzle. Since school teachers as well as course teachers were coming up for the 7th EP Event, we decided to propose this puzzle as a working puzzle for more teachers.
        That seemed like a good idea and we held on to it. We decided on a workshop (“School Teachers and Students versus Course Teachers and Students”), which would certainly  attract participation of  teachers both from private and from municipal schools as well as from English courses. But maybe they would come to the seminar just “fed up” of their everyday routine and wouldn’t be eager to give any answers at all.  So we imagined that teachers might like to change places either with other teachers or with students. In the case of playing the role of students, this would give us an extra guarantee for having students’ answers also. We imagined that this swapping of roles would be fun for them – and would give them the chance of experiencing “catharsis”. For us, it would be an opportunity of being close to teachers and students dealing with a situation that was the focus of our investigation.
        Most importantly, we supposed that this kind of activity would get the interviewer out of the way and bring out more emotional, deeper answers which would resonate with the questionings of the co-participants, maybe even questions which they wouldn’t think of putting into words, after a formal conference, for example.

2. Theoretical aspects

        Before going on to explain something about what this investigation brought into view, I would like to back up the use of role-play as an investigative tool, first of all drawing on what Dick Allwright (2001) says about Exploratory Practice. He stresses that “the traditional academic manner of a researcher visiting a classroom to develop an understanding which is returned to the classroom, if at all, only in the form of an academic publication” lacks ethical (and even logical) support. Allwright understands classroom life as a social event and, believes that while trying to understand it is a social enterprise, the teacher-researcher should involve all participants. Furthermore, “all participants should be developing their own understanding, rather than wait for the understanding of others to be put before them.”
        This, I think is achieved in a unique way through role-play, where participants can somehow develop understanding of their own specific “worlds” through the alterity of the roles of somebody else taken up during the activity. In order to better illustrate this, I would like to recur briefly to Lacan (1979) to say some words about language, in this case not the English language!  Expression makes the difference between the exterior and the interior (oneself and the other) and can be recognized in itself by the form that is in relation to other possible forms. In sum, language reproduces the reality. As there is no thought without language, the knowledge of the world, of others and of oneself is determined by language. Language is a necessary condition for taking conscience of oneself as a distinct entity. Besides, language carries social data, a culture, interdictions and laws. Lacan says that conscience sees in its representation something different from itself, when there is in this other only what it itself put there. It’s as if there were a dual relation, a folding up in a mirror, as an immediate opposition between conscience and its other, where each term passes from one to other and gets lost in these games of reflections. This is like conscience in the search for itself, which believes to be meeting itself in the mirror of the creatures and gets lost in what is not itself. Thus for Lacan, the Other is (a) the language, the symbolic, (b) the place of the inter-subjectivity, of the patient and of the analyst, therefore the analytic dialogue, and (c) the unconscious, constituted by significant elements, while it is the other of the subject.
        I’m in no way proposing a psychoanalytic session or the like, but just bringing into light some aspects that certainly emerge in a role-play. In the role-play we propose that participants impersonate characters, and the analytic dialogue certainly will be present during the discussions after the role-play.
        Palmer (1998) stresses the necessity for the teacher to understand and respect this alterity when he questions: “What does it mean to listen to a voice before it is spoken? It means making space for the other, being aware of the other, paying attention to the other, honoring the other. It means not rushing to fill our students’ silences with fearful speech of our own and not trying to coerce them into saying the things that we want to hear. It means entering empathetically into the student’s world so that he or she perceives you as someone who has the promise of being able to hear another person’s truth.”
        It could be argued that this is just a waste of time, because we can’t exactly foresee what will happen, but again we will refer to Allwright(2001), when he says that “something productive can be done, in inevitably changing human circumstances, as long as the hopeless aim of perfect precision is abandoned.  So (…) setting up ‘small-group discussion’ is a way of having something that is potentially productive happen, but without having to specify precisely what you expect anyone to learn from the activity”
        As we are talking of (role)plays, I wish to quote two authors who specifically speak about theatre: Antonin Artaud  (2003) “theatre is the space where man becomes master to what he isn’t yet, and makes it born” and Ingrid Dormien Koudela(2002) “the meaning of the discovery aims not only at the creation of reality on stage, but implies the transposition of the process of learning to the total structure of the individual.”

3. What we have done to date

        After those initial interviews, we had some idea of other “realities” besides our own of municipal schools. This helped us to design our role-play. So we just imagined various situations that could bring up tantalizing or funny recollections to the teachers and could lead to interesting discussions afterwards. We decided upon eight locations, such as municipal school classroom, private school teachers’ coffee break or course students waiting to enter classroom. Each of these locations had four or five characters, each of them with some pre-requisites, abilities, characteristics for defense and attack, mainly intended just as tips to help the “actors”.
        Still there was the task of deciding, or better, imagining how to manage the whole thing during a 90’ workshop - explaining our aim, making the teachers choose their locations, preferably “playing” for the other groups, discussing the proposed topics (mainly how the learning/teaching process flows in each context and in case it was unsatisfactory what could be done to find a way out?) Well, to be on the safe side, we made a rehearsal with our Exploratory Practice group, and many useful suggestions came up!
        So, we conducted two workshops at the PUC event, and the information gathered from our notes and the teachers’ answers were put forth by us at a Cultura Inglesa event in October 2003, in the form of a poster and handouts. But we still wanted to explore this puzzle somewhat more, so we repeated the workshop at PUC, at UNIPLI and at ENPLIRJ. Also, in 2004, we had the contribution of another member of the Exploratory Practice group, a course teacher, Edmar Falcão, who, as a matter of fact, is an English course owner too.
        This meant having as many meetings as possible!  But, for sure it’s worthwhile. Both for the workshop participants, according to their evaluations, and for us, even before taking into consideration any results. The experience per se is a very rewarding one. Serious topics are discussed in a light-hearted way and invaluable insights and suggestions emerge.

4. Results

        I think that there are two kinds of results to be considered: 1) more immediate results for the participants of the workshop; and: 2) more longer-term results both for the participants and the investigators, which depend on some reflection upon the data collected and the return of this to the larger community.

4.1 Immediate results

        These can be portrayed by some of the answers of the participants to one of the questions posed for discussion. Both the questions and most of the answers were posed in Portuguese, however in some workshops we gave bilingual explanations. For this paper I’ve made free translations into English.

	Question: “How did you feel about acting out the characters and what was your motivation for the speeches?” Answers: “There was no acting, there was a very rich interchange of experiences.” There was a relief, we could evidence that in the Private as well as in the Public, the problems are the same. There are moments of despair, anguish, but also good moments are spoken of  – then one doesn’t quit the occupation.” We could feel an existent reality, and its necessary to try understand it to make it more pleasant and profitable.” I felt very good, remembering some situations occurred in class. What motivated me was that the situations displayed are situations that really occur at a school. It was a coincidence, for I’m exactly as the character I acted out, and also I’m fascinated by linguistics so the motivation flows naturally.”

5. Conclusions

        Many things that have come up as results are the same as have been overheard by us in many school assemblies. So, you may ask what makes any difference now. I think that the fact that these questionings and consequent outcomes have been expressed in an academic setting, with a lot of other seminars and talks going on, has a greater weight, both for the participating teachers and for the larger community. For the teachers participating, citing Koudela (2002) once more: “The meaning of the discovery aims not only at creating reality on stage, but implies transposition of the learning process to the individual’s total structure.”, so I believe that if any of the teachers comes to face one of the situations “played”, he’ll remember how his reaction was, and for sure have a different understanding. As for the larger community, we hope that we can somehow manage to get the voices of the teachers heard, promoting further seminars, writing articles (like this one!), and most important of all, giving opportunity for the teachers participating to be aware that they’re not alone with their worries and puzzles – there are other professionals who have the same problems.
        The insights gained so far are, I think, precious. Maybe one of my colleagues will still go on investigating this question. For sure, we have not exhausted all answers – nor all the questions. As to what concerns myself, I’m presently puzzled by the influence of globalisation imposed by mass-media and the (de)valuation of traditional culture on the educational progress of afro-descendant student. This question is in part related to our initial puzzle, that of the students frequently asking: “Why do we have to study English? We don’t know even Portuguese!” This question of identity is an important one, both for the teachers and for the students.  Paulo Freire(1980) is one who has for long written about the importance of consciousness – not aiming at a possible revolution, but for the sake of making learning possible.

6. Bibliography

ALLWRIGHT, D. Putting ‘quality of life’ first: towards a new view of Exploratory Practice, Lancaster, 2001. Available at: http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/groups/crile/EPCentre/epcentre.htm. Accessed on Oct. 3, 2004.
ARTAUD, A. O teatro e seu duplo. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2003.
FAGES, J.-B. Para compreender Lacan. 3ª ed. Rio de Janeiro: Rio, 1977.
FREIRE, P. Conscientização: teoria e prática da libertação: uma introdução ao pensamento de Paulo Freire. 3ª ed. São Paulo: Moraes, 1980.
KOUDELA, I. D. Jogos teatrais. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2002.
LEMAIRE, A. Jacques Lacan: uma introdução. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 1979.
PALMER, P. J. The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998.