Performative ELT

How do we move from talking about our challenges as teachers to seeing and feeling them in new ways?

In my Performative Pedagogy workshops, this shift happens through Image Theatre—a form of collaborative exploration where teachers bring their professional stories to life through body, space, and gesture. What begins as a personal reflection becomes a shared performance of understanding.

After participants have surfaced key emotional moments in their teaching lives, the group moves into what I call the Community Forum phase—a space for collective meaning-making. Here, shared experiences take shape as living scenes.

In small groups, teachers retell their individual challenges—moments of frustration, conflict, or doubt—while others listen with full attention and without judgment. The group then selects one story to explore more deeply. Crucially, the original storyteller steps back and becomes the facilitator, not the main actor. This small shift creates dramatic distance, allowing others to step into the story and reveal new perspectives.

The process begins with the group creating a frozen image that captures the emotional essence of the chosen story. These still images become powerful visual metaphors. They allow participants to notice posture, power, emotion, and relationships—what is spoken and unspoken in the classroom.

From there, the image gradually comes to life through short improvised scenes. A few simple techniques guide the process:

• Touch and Tell – The facilitator touches a character in the frozen image; the character speaks one sentence in role.
• Rewind and Play – The group re-enacts what led up to the frozen image.
• Fast Forward – They improvise what might happen next.

Through these steps, teachers explore common yet deeply human themes: the unteachable class, the critical parent, the disappointing observation, the moment of burnout, the institutional roadblock.

The goal is not to find easy solutions but to uncover insight. Participants witness their stories from new angles. They see how small shifts in gesture, tone, or intention can transform a moment of tension into one of possibility.

In Image Theatre, re-enactment becomes rehearsal—a rehearsal for empathy, for courage, and for change. Teachers begin to realise that what happens in their classrooms and institutions is not fixed. It can be understood, reshaped, and even reimagined.

If this kind of embodied reflection speaks to you, join our growing community at Performative ELT—a space where teachers explore creative and performative approaches to teaching, share classroom experiments, and learn from one another. Together, we’re reimagining what it means to teach with presence, empathy, and artistry.