Faces : Characters in Search of Authors

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428

MOR

MORAN, PATRICK R.

FACES : CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AUTHORS

Imagination: Using the face as inspiration, learners create imaginary biographies and breathe life into the characters. Using their powers of imagination, learners develop a detailed life history for their characters, and conjure up stories of their trials, troubles, successes, failures, hopes and dreams -- Just as authors create characters in stories.

Meaningful interaction: Once learners have created characters, they take on the identities of their characters and interact -- through dialogues, conversations, discussions, and role plays. Role playing allows learners to explore new ways of self-expression in the language and the culture.

Language Development: To create characters, learners need language -- lots of language. Each chapter in a character's story leads to new vocabulary areas, new phrases, expressions, or slang. Stories move in time as well, from present to past to future, to real and unreal conditions, to possibilities, probabilities, obligations, and the like -- all requiring language. And when learners role play their characters, all the language of social interaction and appropriateness enters the picture.

Cultural Exploration: Characters are products of culture. To develop a character's identity, learners need to situate characters in concrete cultural circumstances -- in families, places, social groups -- with specific cultural practices, cultural products, and specific cultural perspectives. This calls for cultural research and analysis, and comparison with the learners' cultures.

Play: Building characters, unlocking imagination, and unleashing creativity capture the powerful force of play in learning. When learners can engage a playful spirit, humour, laughter, and a shared sense of simple fun, learning language can become a pleasant experience.