Performing for Better Communication: Creativity, Cognitive-Emotional Skills and Embodied Language in Primary Schools

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Established links exist between creativity, emotional skills, and cognitive processes.
• Few school-based evaluations of interventions targeting these links have been conducted.
• The enactive paradigm views language as a dynamic cognitive process.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a performative theatre approach for stimulating creativity, emotional skills, and executive functions.
• To investigate the synergistic effects of this approach on oral communication.
• To explore its benefits for foreign language teaching, especially for children with communication disorders.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a performative theatre-based intervention within the enactive paradigm.
• Focused on enhancing artistic, bodily, and linguistic creativity.
• Assessed emotional skills (identification, understanding) and executive functions (inhibition, flexibility, control).
• Conducted a case study of a neurodivergent pupil in a 4th-grade English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class as part of the CELAVIE pilot study.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated progression in oral communication skills in English as a Foreign Language (EFL).
• Showed improvements in emotional skills, including identification and understanding of emotions.
• Observed advancements in creativity across artistic, bodily, and linguistic domains.
• The case study indicated positive outcomes for a pupil with a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Conclusions:

• A performative theatre approach can synergistically enhance creativity, emotional skills, and executive functions in an educational setting.
• This method shows potential for improving oral communication in foreign language learning.
• The CELAVIE pilot study suggests this approach is beneficial for inclusive education, particularly for children with communication disorders.