“It comes from you”: Agency in adult asylum seekers’ language learning through Process Drama

This article presents a study of adult asylum seekers learning a Second Language through Process Drama. Adopting an ecology of language approach, the authors first set the scene by examining some of the most salient issues regarding the language learning needs of asylum seekers and refugees, including the challenge of fostering both language proficiency and a sense of autonomy and agency. It then introduces the topic of performative, or drama-based pedagogy, focussing on how this has been adopted for second-language learning, presenting the main features of Process Drama. It goes on to evaluate a number of drama-based projects aimed specifically at adult asylum seekers and refugees before presenting the specific context of this study. In the Process Drama session described, the participants became members of an association of community workers welcoming migrants, and the teacher took on the role of the asylum seeker. Through the dramatic frame, the facilitators drew on the learners’ expertise in settling into the host culture, and in welcoming new arrivals. The aim was that of using ‘time’, ‘place’ and ‘role reversal’ as distancing devices to challenge the notion of ‘otherness’. The analysis from videos, focus groups and teacher journals suggests that the drama gave participants the chance to shift perspective, and that this impacted on their sense of agency as second language learners.