Gunma Chapter

This presentation outlines the framework design of a tri-semester process drama project. Students chose the theme of “homelessness” as a subject that they wanted to research about. There were many possible points of access into the subject, but for the purpose of this project, the issue of homelessness was experienced through the eyes of Japanese-Americans, incarcerated in internment camps, during World War II. Through video clips, role-plays, writing-in-role, a guest speaker from Afghanistan, students traced the journey from wealth to involuntary homelessness and subsequent homelessness on return. In a similar vein to current events, the students took all the news stoically and almost every student commented on the value of family and hope for the future.

Eucharia is a PhD student of Drama and Theatre Studies under the supervision of Dr. Manfred Schewe, University College Cork, Ireland. Her field of specialty is process drama in language acquisition for the Japanese university level student in particular. She completed and a tri-semester long process drama project which focused on the social issues of bullying, emigration and homelessness while working as an English instructor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan. She currently works as an English lecturer for Sophia University, Tokyo and is adapting her previous teaching drama-based pedagogy to be used in classes with large student numbers.