This publication by Manfred Schewe (1993) has become a standard reference work in the field of Performative Fremdsprachendidaktik (Performative Foreign Language Education). 

Authors: Schewe, Manfred; Scott, Trina (2003)

Based on the experience that today's students find it more difficult than students of previous decades to relate to literature and appreciate its high cultural value, this paper argues that too little is known about the actual teaching and learning processes which take place in literature courses and that, in order to ensure the survival of literary studies in German curricula, future research needs to elucidate for students, the wider public and, most importantly, educational policy makers, why the study of literature should continue to have an important place in modern language curricula. Contending that students' willingness to engage with literature will, in the future, depend to a great extent on the use of imaginative methodology on the part of the teacher, we give a detailed account of an action research project carried out at University College Cork from October to December 2002 which set out to explore the potential of a drama in education approach to the teaching and learning of foreign language literature. We give concrete examples of how this approach works in practice, situate our approach within the subject debate surrounding Drama and the Language Arts and evaluate in detail the learning processes which are typical of performance-based literature learning. Based on converging evidence from different data sources and overall very positive feedback from students, we conclude by recommending that modern language departments introduce courses which offer a hands-on experience of literature that is different from that encountered in lectures and teacher-directed seminars.

This overview article by Manfred Schewe initially focuses on early connections between dramatic art, teaching, learning, and living, followed by a brief account of how Great Britain took on a pioneering role with regard to the establishment of drama as a school subject, method and educational sub-discipline. It then focuses on how drama pedagogy in foreign language teaching and learning has developed as a specific field of research and practice since the 1970s, acknowledging the important contributions to the field made by scholars and practitioners from outside Great Britain. An overview of current practice in the field is given by presenting different (small-scale and large-scale) forms of staging language, literature and culture. The article concludes by proposing a model for a Performative Fremdsprachendidaktik (Performative Foreign Languages Didactics) and by arguing that in the future performative be used as an umbrella term to describe forms of foreign language teaching and learning that derive from the performing arts.