Using theatrical masks to transform second language-learning for engineering students

This article describes how a transdisciplinary module for engineering students, based on masked theatre workshops set within an enactive pedagogical framework (Trocmé-Fabre, 2022; Varela, 1999) combines a sensorimotor and reflexive (bottom-up and top-down) approach to English language learning and translanguaging (Aden, 2014). Through a process of devising and performing a masked play, students at a top engineering school in France can develop specific human-centric skills to help them mediate, collaborate and co-create within increasingly complex professional situations involving diverse perspectives. Grounded in Varela’s paradigm of enaction (Varela & al., 1993), and the mask pedagogy of Lecoq (1997, 2002) and Gaulier (2024), the students undertake a phenomenological, embodied exploration using first neutral then expressive masks. As well as covering the face, or identity (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 37), masks disrupt habitual modes of sensorimotor perception, as visual input is dramatically reduced and other modes of perception increase to compensate, thereby altering relations to self, others and the environment (Preller, 2022). Masks are potent catalysts for transformation and creative freedom, as evidenced by their importance in actor-training and performance (Freixe, 2024; Lecoq, 1997; Mnouchkine, 2000). With non-actors – here, engineering students learning a second language - I aim to show how three key features of mask-work enable a creative approach to languaging, meaning-making and knowledge-building.