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Professor uses drama to teach

Jonothan Neelands, a professor of Drama and Theatre Education at the Warwick Institute of Education, held a drama workshop in Seoul yesterday for about 30 Korean teachers with intermediate experience in drama in education techniques and philosophy. The workshop was hosted and organized by the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service.
Mr. Neelands, who is also the deputy director of research at the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth in England, started the workshop with a role play based on a traditional Korean folk story, “Simcheong,” about a girl who dives into the sea to enable her blind father to regain his sight. The participants played the characters and presented their stories to others. Mr. Neelands said that it is important to raise creativity and thinking power through drama and making up stories.
“The [folk] stories can be used for learning about personal and cultural identities. Through drama, young people can discover new and alternative meanings in old stories and explore how the values and morals of stories can be brought into a modern context,” he said.

by Park Sung-ha