Teaching in Four Positions across Worlds

Abstract

In this companion to Tim Taylor’s insightful article, Between Worlds: The Function of Twilight Role, I turn to Positioning Theory to understand in more complexity how and why as teachers we can use twilight role alongside full role to deepen and extend teaching and learning with drama particularly when using the mantle of the expert approach. I outline four positions that a teacher can adopt when interacting with the students both in the world of the classroom and as if engaging in a fictional or story world. I analyze an example of my teaching when alongside a class of five- and six-year-old children we imagined we were a team of firefighters. I chose the example to complement Tim’s so that readers could compare teaching about similar themes though in different contexts.