Dunai Ágnes
Norwich, UK - 2016
Drama and Literature in Language Education with Alan Pulverness and David Farmer
Sunday 14th August
I arrived in Norwich safe and sound at around 5 in the afternoon. My host family picked me up from the station, so I didn’t have to bother finding my way around the city on the very first day, plus they saved me from dragging my suitcase through the town.
I am staying with an elderly couple and their grandson, who lives with them permanently. As you can see, even the Queen congratulated them on their diamond wedding anniversary. Isn’t it wonderful.
Actually, I am not the only student with them. Karolina from the Czech Republic is also staying here for two weeks. We are on the same course.
Monday 15th August
Monday started off well, after a nice breakfast my host took Karolina and me to NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education) to start our two-week course on Drama and Literature in Language Teaching with Alan Pulverness and David Farmer.
As a Hungarian, I consider myself very lucky as there are only seven of us in the group and all of us are of different nationalities. There is an Estonian, an Austrian, a Spaniard, a Briton – a native speaker, which is great asset to the team – a Czech , a German and a Hungarian (myself).
Today was mainly about us, who we are, why we are there and what our expectations are, though Alan Pulverness led us into the world of literature. We looked at the different literary genres and talked about them briefly. Two books which were recommended to us “Saturday” by Ian McEwan and the “Age of Reinvention” by a French author, Karine Tuil.
I think it is worth talking about my lunch, not because of the food itself, though it was delicious, but because of the people working in the restaurant. Norwich Guildhall now operates as a restaurant where prisoners are employed, prisoners who are about to be released. Obviously these convicts are imprisoned for some light offences.
Tuesday 16th August
This afternoon David Farmer, the drama tutor, took over the classes, so we could start our adventures with drama and drama techniques. I must say I am here because of him. I have been using his book, “101 Drama Games and Activities”, in my teaching for a while. (That is not to say, I am any less than 100% pleased with Alan and his classes. Firstly, his English is real music to my ears, the range of vocabulary he uses is amazing, secondly, he is very knowledgeable. )
Here is a photo of the first moments of David’s very first drama session. An international airplane.
After the invigorating drama sessions there was a well-led guided tour in Norwich. I believe Norwich is a fantastic place. It is a liveable city with a lot of history and entertainment, let alone, pubs. There is a saying about pubs and churches in Norwich according to which back in the old days, Norwich had a church for every Sunday of the year and a pub for every day of the year. Can you imagine, a city with 365 pubs in it? Weird, isn’t it.
But there is another thing that Norwich is renowned for. It is the world-famous Colman’s Mustard. You can buy it in Tesco in Szeged. Watch out for it. It is worth trying. It’s a bit hot, so be careful with it.
Wednesday 17th August
In the morning David Farmer carried on teaching us very useful drama games and activities. I must say freeze frames can do wonders in a language class. They can be used for revising vocabulary, making up a story, talking about a book or a film. What is more, they work well with every age group.
This is a freeze frame which served as a prompt for a mini-play.
By the way, I forgot to mention that Jeremy Harmer is teaching a course here in the NILE right now. I am sure his name rings the bell for every English teacher. Well, this afternoon he gave a lecture to all the students of the NILE. He was talking about how coursebook-writing has changed in the last 20 years.
Thursday 18th August
It was a day on drama. In the morning Mr Pulveness gave us a deeper insight into drama as a literary genre. We talked about the components of drama, and drama in language teaching. In the afternoon we had another mini-play, we performed an extract from ‘Speaking in Tongues’ by Andrew Bovell.
The evening had a real surprise for us all in the school. A storyteller came to entertain us with his moving, thought-provoking stories and his kora. In real life, he visits schools and tells his stories to British school children.
Friday 19th August
This day was dedicated to poetry. Both of our great tutors shared a lot of poems and ideas of using poetry in the classroom with us.
Here are some: “Stress” by Wendy Cope, “How to be a Patriot” by Sophia Caney (a student who won a national poetry competition) and “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins. I really recommend listening to it on YouTube.
Weekend 20th and 21st August
Three of my fellow teachers from the group and I went to the beautiful British coast on Saturday. We travelled to Sheringham on the train and walked back to Cromer, where we took our train back to Norwich.
Sheringham is a nice little town with lots of shops and tourists as well, especially on a Saturday. So we walked very slowly as we tended to go into a lot of interesting small shops to have a look around. Actually, we found a tiny shop selling very fancy buttons for peanuts, buttons which are excellent for teaching purposes. One might ask what on earth a teacher can do with them in an English lesson, well, they are excellent tools for grouping or pairing students up. So I bought at least 30 of them.
After the shopping spree, we spent some time on the Sheringham coast and admired those colourful huts which people have as beach houses. They are lovely little boxes which really embellish the view of the whole coastal area. One family even allowed us to have a look at the inside of their hut.
The coastal path and the walk on the beach was amazing, and what's more the weather was gorgeous. On the way to Cromer we saw a lot of families just picnicking on the beach. They had their fold-up chairs and a windshield to mark the edge of their territories. Some of the children were even brave enough to dip into the cold North Sea. We only paddled in it for a short time.
In Cromer I learnt what crabbing is. Families standing on the famous pier were holding on to ropes, and looking down to the water. It was an interesting scene to see. It made us wonder what they were doing. As we went closer to them we realised that they were all crabbing. How interesting!!!!!
In Cromer we all had fish and chips for lunch in the Mary Jane’s fish and chip restaurant. After lunch, which I must say was a late lunch, we had a nice walk in town and then we took the 17:00 train back to Norwich.
Sunday was quiet for me. I decided to stay in Norwich and have some time for myself and for the town. I went to a service in the Anglican Cathedral. It was a very moving service with a meaningful lecture on the Gospel. After this I looked around the city and then I went into the Castle.
The castle is one of Norwich’s most famous landmarks, it was built by the Normans as a Royal Palace 900 years ago. Actually it was founded by William the Conqueror sometime between 1066 and 1075. It is one of the 48 castles mentioned in the Domesday Survey.
Monday 22nd August
Another busy but very fruitful day at school. The main topic for the day was SHORT STORIES with Alan Pulverness. We read some intriguing short stories from the 20th century and learnt some techniques to work with them. Here are some of the titles: ‘Father’ by Raymond Carver, ‘Three Resolutions to One Kashmiri Encounter’ by Giles Gordon
David Farmer came for the afternoon again. We dramatized the “Shepherd and the Stone”.
I have just realized that I haven’t even said a word about Norwich.
Norwich, about 100 miles north-east of London, is the county town of Norfolk in East Anglia. The city was the second most important settlement in England until the Industrial Revolution.
Now it is an important literary centre of the country. East Anglia University is well-known for its creative writing programme and in May 2012, Norwich was designated England’s first UNESCO City of Literature.
Linguistically it is also a very interesting region of England. Norfolk has a very strong regional dialect. The other day I came across this lovely tea towel on which you can see some words of the Norfolk dialect. Unfortunately I haven’t heard anyone speaking this dialect yet.
Tuesday 23rd August
I had been looking forward to this day a lot. A whole day on Shakespeare and how to use his plays in the classroom. Wow! A lot of things happened today, here are the appetizers:
Wednesday 24th August
We discussed current Young Adult Literature with Alan Pulverness in the morning. (Young Adult fiction is fiction published for readers from the age of 13 up to their early 20s.)
The afternoon we had the opportunity to choose from 4 workshops. I went for the one on “Using Short Films in Education” by Mr Pulverness again. He showed us some great short films such as:
This evening held another surprise for me. Jeremy Harmer performed poems accompanied by the violinist Steven Bingham. It always nice to discover people’s hidden treasures.
Jeremy Harmer is a great performer, so if you happen to have the opportunity to listen to him reciting poems, please do not miss it.
Thursday 25th August
Another day with David Farmer and his drama activities. Today he gave us a little insight into Augusto Boal’s work. He was a very interesting, and dominant figure of the Brazilian theatrical world in the 20th century. Two main types of theatrical genres are attached to his name, these are the Forum Theatre and the Theatre of the Oppressed.
Here is a short video of a forum theatre kind of play:
Last night Karolina and I had a very interesting conversation with our host. Our dinner ended up in a discussion about English and the words which are gradually creeping into British English from America. I found out that my host blames the Americans for all the bad changes in English language. The conversation started because he had noticed us using two words inappropriately. One was 'pudding' the other one was 'kid'. My Czech colleague said pudding instead of dessert, which made him really upset. He firmly believes that pudding only refers to a type of dessert; therefore it cannot be used as an umbrella-term for the sweet dishes served after the main meal. As for kid, I used it for talking about my own children. For him it sounds too aggressive. So we were elaborating upon these words for a while. I think this is a controversial topic even among linguists.
But I have some photos of my lunch. I think I have already written about the high number of churches in Norwich. One could ask if they all function as churches. Well, most of them are still belong either to the Church of England or the Catholic Church, but quite a number of them are refurbished and deconsecrated. The church where I had lunch today has a double function. It is a restaurant during the week and it operates as church during the weekend.
Friday 26th August
Time to say goodbye. It was a sad morning for me. I have had such a good time at the course that the simple thought of saying goodbye made me sad. The school has a tradition of inviting students for an afternoon cream tea in the Cathedral Garden on the last day of the course. So after the sessions, which were a kind of summary of the two weeks, we walked to the Cathedral to say farewell to each other. I was so touched that I forgot to take pictures there. I am sorry.
Saturday 27th August
Saturday started off sadly for me, as my landlady asked me to leave the house in the morning and spend the day in Norwich, of course, with all my luggage on me. (She got a bit too worried about her next guests, who were supposed to arrive on Sunday, but for some reasons they came on Saturday. She wanted everything to be spick-and-span before their arrival.) I got a bit angry especially when I found out that there wasn't a left-luggage office at the station in Norwich. Thanks to God, my friend from the Czech Republic was calm enough and suggested I go to Ely with her. (She was on her way to London with a change in Ely.)
I was very pleased with the idea and I got on the train straight away. Although the left-luggage office was missing there as well, the people at the customer service were happy to help me and allowed me to leave my baggage in their office. Looking back on the day in Ely, I'm very pleased to have been thrown out, because I spent some beautiful hours reminiscing about those two occasions when I had visited Ely before.
The chap at the customer service had asked me to be back by 13:30, therefore I took the 13:53 train to the airport. I arrived there well in advance, but it made my life much easier because of the great number of travellers.
1. A movie trailer for Midsummer Night’s Dream (A superb production of my fellow teachers)
2. Make Me A
Blind luck - Virgin Media Shorts 2010 shortlist