Postcolonialism, Positioning and The Use of Drama in The Teaching of French Language andLiteratureAuthor(s): Jean SmallSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 1/2, Returning the Gaze: Reclaiming the Voice –Post-Colonialism and its Implications for Drama and Education (March - June 2007), pp. 216-221Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40654986 .

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Postcolonialism, Positioning and The Use of Drama in The Teaching of French Language and Literature

Jean Small

The political discourse surrounding the terms postcolonial, post-colonial or Post Colonial is one that tries to define the experiences and the quality of life that former colonies share. Do the colonies that speak the same language share a common experience that differs from colonies that do not share that language? Did the colonies that speak one of the European languages such as French, Spanish or Dutch inherited from their colonizers experience a

colonization that is in any way different from the colonies of the British Empire? If not what

are the commonalities? Now that the colonies have seized their liberation through political independence are there any continuities from the experience of colonization that affect their

present existence and their hope for change?

This paper is using the term postcolonial to simply mean those countries that were former colonies. The Caribbean Region which experienced a long period of colonization under

differing European imperial powers, and where the majority of the population is of African

descent, belongs to the African diaspora. All the former colonies in the Caribbean, whether

speaking English, French, Spanish or Dutch share this common experience though the

particularities of the experience of colonization may be different.

The uniqueness of colonization and slavery in the Caribbean is that of being the worst kind of slavery that existed in the world, as the slaves who were brought mainly from West

Africa, and who suffered displacement, depersonalization, loss of name, loss of language, loss of religion, were made chattels. They therefore had no hope of returning to their homeland and were engaged in labour on the sugar plantations for little or no pay which was in fact a carefully created state of poverty from which it was difficult to extricate oneself. The horrible physical cruelty meted out to our ancestors is very well documented. It is amazing how they were able to survive the horrendous and inhumane conditions under which they worked to make the white man rich. Our people are a people of survival if nothing else.

This traumatizing experience has left the majority of people psychically and

psychologically damaged for centuries having been made to feel inferior in physical attributes, mental capabilities, intellectual prowess, and cultural expression. Every aspect of life in the black world was devalued. The fact that at the time of colonization the Africans that were

captured and enslaved were coming from an oral society, unable to read or write, made them not different from but inferior to peoples of the western world. They looked different, they spoke a different language, they danced, sang and worshipped differently. No aspect of their

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Use of Drama in Teaching French 217

culture was considered of value, so they had to be taught the colonizer's way of life to be

considered acceptable. This resulted in a feeling of lack of confidence in oneself which was

further reinforced by the fact that the colonizers imposed on the colonised their language, their

literature and their education system. This became the hallmark of civilization.

There are two main theories about the Africans that came through the Middle passage to the Caribbean. The eurogeneticists1 believed that the slaves came with nothing, a tabula rasa

upon which a new learning and a new culture had to be engraved. On the other hand, the

afrogeneticists2 such as Prof. Mervyn Alleyne3 ,argue that the African came with a habitus or

mentalité4 that formed the infrastructure upon which reformulations took place. This solid

infrastructure was what allowed them to survive the separation from family and country, the

horrible conditions of transportation through the Middle Passage, the social deprivations and

hard labour on the plantation. Their religious belief system, their memory of past customs and

cultural practices, their language which they were not allowed to speak in public remained

buried in their subconscious upon which were superimposed the manners, the language and

the culture of the colonizer. The syncretism of the two cultures has resulted in a binary cultural

reality in the Caribbean which has been described as the melody of Europe and the rhythm of

Africa.5

It is out of this background that the students in Jamaica whom we have to teach a foreign

language such as French are coming. For many of them creole is their maternal language and

English, being the official economic language of the country, is their first foreign language. French then becomes their second foreign language. It must be understood that creole as a

language has a culture attached to it and indeed a world- view which is different from that of the English-speaking world and certainly different from that of the French world-view. The

inferiority complex imposed by the colonizer has resulted in the gaze always turned towards what is foreign because it is considered better. Education is the process through which one

evolves, through which one finds direction to confidently establish one's identity. If the teacher understands the traumatic experience of the colonized, that teacher has to make a conscious decision ön the position that he or she takes in teaching any subject matter so as not to further traumatize and reinforce the learner's feeling of inferiority. At all levels of teaching French in

Jamaica one is introducing a foreign, European language and culture to these students who

already don't like themselves, who want to be white, who want to migrate to somewhere they think offers better living and working conditions. Exposure to the French language and culture could in fact be reinforcing the notion of "otherness', of the difference between big culture and little culture, of black versus white, of being on the periphery and not in the centre, rather than strengthening a positive self-concept within the context of the home culture.

Educators in Jamaica have to make a concerted effort to find the strategies to move the

periphery to the centre, i.e., to move the "other" or the "colonized mind" from the periphery

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218 Jean Small

where it has been placed by the colonizer and to put it in the centre as the starting point for

dealing with issues, for developing understanding, encouraging expression and interaction, for

gaining self-confidence and authenticity of self. Educators, have to take the position that we in

the African diaspora are survivors and every subject should be taught from that starting point.

If the Caribbean belongs to the African diaspora what are the fundamental attributes

that are recognizable among peoples of the African continent and people of the Caribbean that

give the right to belong to this grouping? Burton6 gives a detailed description of the many forms of African retentions in the Caribbean in festivals, religious expression, leisure activities,

games, riddles and a wide range of forms of interaction and communication which are

African-based. Caribbean people are a singing, dancing, dramatic, loud-talking people who like

to be seen, to show off, to dress (in other words to be costumed) and to entertain. Students react positively if in class the teacher announces that the lesson will take the form of a game, a

play or a song. Students immediately become uninhibited, happy and willing to participate. Therefore if a language is a vehicle used for communication the teacher should find various

practical and functional modes of communication that make learning the foreign language not

only enjoyable but realistic and unforgettable. This paper supports the suggestion made by Malley and Duff7 on the major levels of FL language learning from Secondary to Tertiary institution s ( French is not taught at the Primary level in Jamaica) and how drama could be used to make language learning more functionally realistic.

I once experimented with teaching beginners at the Secondary School8 level for a whole

semester without a text book. This was not easy because children come to the Secondary School already used to having a textbook and used to being told, for example, to do exercises 8, 9 and 10 on page 25 for homework, to write exercises that were going to be graded. I changed all of that to listening, miming, understanding and showing through action. So I gave instructions like "'Viens ici", "Va à la porte", 'Touche la tête," "Ferme les yeux" and they had

to perform without saying a word in French or without seeing the words written on the board.

They simply imitated me in the natural way of learning a language. They collected pictures or

drew their own pictures, talked about the pictures, learnt colours, shapes, grammatical structures through the use of visual images and drama. That's what they did for homework. I

also telephoned them and they had to respond to me in French on the telephone. It was not

easy. Especially for me because I had not done this before and I had to learn to be creative, to

keep them interested and excited and to maintain the oral performance of the language because

they had come to the Secondary school with a tradition of copying words and phrases that they had learnt. At the end of the semester I had to devise a whole examination based on miming in

response to instructions to demonstrate comprehension, responding orally to questions asked

based on pictures and objects. In the second semester I went right back to the beginning of the

programme and wrote for the first time all that they had already leamt to express orally and it

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Use of Drama in Teaching French 219

was amazing to see how quickly and confidently the students mastered those lessons. I

observed, for example, that they never said "sept" pronouncing the "p" which they would

have done if they had been introduced to the written word before learning the pronunciation of

the French word that stood for the number 7.

In the middle and upper school9 role playing, play acting, improvisation get the best results. I once had a class that just would not try to speak and in my frustration I took a number of puppets I had at home and gave them to work with and it was amazing what was the result.

They were talking! This was because the puppet functioned as a sort of mask behind which

they hid, so that if the puppet made mistakes in French it wasn't them, it was the puppets. The

puppet managed to help them get rid of their inhibition in speaking in the foreign medium. I

have also taken a number of items of clothing and made them dress up as characters which they created and then allowed the characters to interact. These little dialogues were video-taped. Children love to see themselves "on film" so they were not at all intimidated by the presence of

camera in the classroom. After the session of looking at themselves "on film:" I transcribed the texts they had created and used that as teaching material of both the grammar and

pronunciation. They then had to rewrite the corrected scripts and by so doing they were going through the process of correcting themselves. Another technique I used was to have them

prepare a story which they had to tell the class and they were evaluated on the applause they got from the class. If I did not have to stop them to make any corrections the applause was even

louder It was very pleasing to see how hard they tried not to make mistakes so that they could

get a great big applause. Another technique was to tell them a story and then ask them to re-tell

any part of the story they could remember or to illustrate by drawing any part of the story they remembered and to write an appropriate sentence below the drawing. The collection of illustrations was used for a class exhibition. When work like this is made available for viewing

by the rest of the school it is always encouraging. Likewise if the French students are made to

play a role in the general assembly of the school, when they say a prayer in French, or say a

poem, or perform a skit this gives not only the students but the subject prestige. All of these activities suggested above are placed in the context of their culture. If the cultural context is too far removed from them, they would not make the effort to try.

When I went to teach French Language and Literature at the Tertiary Level,1 °> I

developed a programme that I called /'Visualization of French Literature", i.e. using drama as the vehicle for easy interpretation through enacting the text on stage. It was important to choose a text the students were studying for them to want to participate in this kind of theatre because it must be remembered that they are not at the University to pass an examination in

drama, they are students of French. This is not commercial theatre. With little or no money for these productions, I as director have to be very creative in using minimal sets, simple costumes and other technical effects. The emphasis is on excellent command of the language and on

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220 Jean Small

getting the students to express their understanding of theme and character through their

performance. This has been working very well since 1984.

To deal with the problem of cultural identity the work is positioned to deal with an

issue that is placed in a universal context but seen through the eyes of their own culture. I

therefore try to use a play in one year from the French Caribbean culture and the next year from

French African culture. In this way a direct connection is made with issues, belief systems and

characterizations that are similar but different and the students easily accept to enter this world

in the foreign language which makes them a part of that experience. This boosts their

confidence, becomes an extension of their knowledge and understanding of the world in a

larger sense and therefore contributes to their sense of growing, of becoming, of accepting themselves and valorizing their world view. In this way their "centredness", their cultural

identity is established. We have dealt with these issues through works such as Birago Diop's folktales which adapted became Quatre Contes Africains or Deux Contes Africains, Aimé Césaire's

Une Tempête, Ina Cesaire's Mémoires D 'isles, Henri Lopez* L'avance (from Tribaliques), Léon

Damas' L'enquête. I consider the folktale to be intrinsically a major Caribbean theatrical form.

The students take very easily to telling a tale and so they appreciate the creativity involved in

translating the 'contes' of Birago Diop and Léon Damas into a script for the stage. There have

been moments when an event or an occasion warrants the creation of a text that has nothing to

do with their study programme. In 2004 on the occasion of the bicentenary celebration of the

Haitian revolution, I created a text for them called Haiti Leve Campe from the works of Haitian

poets. The students, through their enthusiasm, created the dance movements and much of the

blocking themselves. Through having to re-enact the issues leading to the independence of

Haiti, the students confessed that it was the first time that they understood what happened in

Haiti in 1 804. The play was entered in an English-speaking drama competition TALLA WAH11

and won three awards. A videotape of the production was sent to a theatre company, Double

Défi12» in Quebec and it was chosen for their 2005 festival. Unfortunately, the University could

not find the funds to send the students to participate in the festival and this was unfortunate as

it would have been the most effective way of confirming their sense of placing the periphery in

the centre and strengthening their journey of becoming.

Another 'position' that I feel is necessary in this project of understanding through theatre is an appropriate reinterpretation of a metropolitan text through the home culture. This

was done on two occasions, with En Attendant Godot by Samuel Beckett where the tramps looked exactly like tramps or homeless people as we know them in Jamaica and.¿4/*o¿0»*byjean Anouilh where the costuming was African in colour and design. In the latter, circles made of

rope were placed on the floor of the stage as centres of tension, neutrality, innocence and

where to be outside of this design was the space for the chorus who simply reported or commented on the action.

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Use of Drama in Teaching French 22 1

This year for the first time the students performed the poetry of Mutabaruka,13 a leading Jamaican dub poet, translated into French. These poems performed to the rhythm of the

drums, using the appropriate body language of the dub poet was a dynamic presentation as they were in harmony with the philosophy, the historical and social comments expressed in the

poems. It was not appropriate to give a translation of these poems from creole to creole as the students in Jamaica are not in contact with French creole and a presentation in French creole would not have resulted in effective communication between actors and audience.

In my directing process the students become very much a part of the creative work and are allowed to make suggestions for changes both in the script and the directing of the play. The constant repetition of lines perfects their pronunciation and having to perform on stage under the lights before an audience strengthens their confidence. As there is always a shortage of funds for these performances, the students have to be actors and stage hands at the same time and a wonderful camaraderie develops. These performances are presented to other French students at the University or for Secondary school students. They are not commercial

performances. They are part of a learning process, the positive effects of which are seen in the

improved fluency of the students who have taken part in theses dramatic productions.

Notes 1. Term used in reference to extremists who believed that the slaves came devoid of any culture.

2. Term used to define those thinkers who believed that the slaves came with a cultural background on which European forms were imposed and from which a new cultural form evolved.

3. Prof. Mervyn Alleyne author of Roots of Jamaican Culture, 1988.

4. Introduction of Afro-Creole by Richard Burton, p. 3.

5. An expression coined by Prof the Hon. Rex Nettleford, historian and Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. 6. Professor of French and francophone Studies at the University of Sussex.

7. Drama Techniques in language Learning by Alan Maley and Alan Duff , Cambridge University Press, 1978.

8. Experiment carried out in a Secondary School in Jamaica in 1964-65.

9. Experiment carried out in the middle school of a Secondary School in Jamaica in 1986.

10. A theatre experiment in teaching language and literature started in 1984 at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.

11. A Tertiary level drama competition held every year at the UWI, Mona Campus. 12. A Theatre Festival in the French Language held bi-annually in Quebec. 13. A leading Jamaican dub poet.

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