Episode 1: From Readers’ Theatre to AI: Inside the PIE SIG, feat. PIE Founder, David Kluge

What if acting, debate, and even song lyrics could actually help students learn better? That’s exactly what David Kluge believes, and he’s been putting these ideas into action for decades.

David, a former professor at Nanzan University and founder of JALT’s Performance in Education (PIE) SIG, joins Darren to break down how performance techniques can revolutionize the way we teach. You don’t need any drama training to start using these valuable methods in your classroom today.

Darren and David discuss Readers’ Theatre, using music to get students hooked, and why these approaches get people involved and actually help them remember what they learn. David also talks about his new textbook, the challenges of assessing performance, and how AI is shaking things up in education.

If you want to hear what’s next for the PIE SIG and how to get involved, this episode is your ticket. Whether you’re curious or ready to bring serious energy into your teaching, this conversation is packed with insights that have a proven track record.

To access David Kluge's interview on the JALT CALL Podcasts, click here:

https://soundcloud.com/jalt-call/david-kluge-interview-by-brian

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please like and leave a review. To learn more about the Performance in Education SIG, check out our website. 

https://jaltpiesig.org/

Have questions or want to get involved? Reach out to us at:

pie.sig.podcast@gmail.com.

To access other high-quality JALT podcasts, go to JALT CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) Podcasts on Soundcloud!

https://soundcloud.com/jalt-call

For tips on how to cite these episodes using APA 7th edition, use the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uLVARUdviigboSQXkJXfgNm0zNkMsal6brBvwpmTKWM/edit?usp=sharing

Intro & Outro song: Unlock Me (Royalty free)

Music by Kontraa Studio | UKA Music Publishing LLC

Transcript

Intro

Darren 0:00

Do you want to make your lessons more engaging and meaningful? Then join me on the PIE SIG Podcast with Darren as we explore performance in education with passionate teachers who bring it to life in their classrooms. Welcome to the PIE SIG Podcast with Darren, the show where we explore how performance can enhance and even transform our classrooms. For our very first episode, I'm honored to be joined by David Kluge, a longtime Jolt member and founder of PIE SIG. Today we'll unpack what performance means in an educational setting, how the SIG got started, and where it's headed next. So David, welcome to the show. Thank you, Darren. Uh I'm honored. So David, when people hear the word performance, they might think of student grades, you know, student performance. Or maybe they're even thinking about theater. So what does performance in education mean to you?

David 0:59

I was um in junior high school and high school, I was in what was called the um the forensics uh league, which means uh forensics means public speaking. And so for me, performance is uh a type of public speaking where you are doing either a speech, a drama, a debate, roleplay, uh reader's theater, or dance, music.

Darren 1:32

So it's much more than just educational drama, then.

David 1:35

Right, right. It's uh educational drama is or drama in education, is just one aspect of performance.

Darren 1:44

I see. So if a teacher wants to get involved with drama in the classroom, um do they have to worry about the stage and costumes and scripts and things like that?

David 1:54

No, they don't even need to have a background in theater or drama. They just need to be able to just need to be a good teacher and be able to um to access the the resources that's that tell you the the steps one by one, step by step, and you just go through it like you would as a as any teacher would put up put together an activity.

Darren 2:22

So, in your experience, how does performance impact student behavior?

David 2:27

And of course, it depends on how well you prepare the students. If you tell the students that this is the a proven way of learning a language and it's fun, it's interesting, then you have them primed for uh an unusual activity. And that they find if they're giving enough ownership of the activity, right, that they are the leaders and that they are the creators, then they are they get so involved in the activity that they forget that they are in class, they are just focused on the task.

Darren 3:14

So, David, I was listening to you on a podcast um with Brian, the um CALL SIG Podcast, and there you mentioned that you you were interested in science and chemistry when you were in school. So please tell us a bit more of about this journey, how you went from that to performance.

David 3:37

In high school I was interested in the sciences and math, but also in English and theater.

Darren 3:45

So was that quite an uncommon thing at that time?

David 3:50

Not at my high school, so it was a lot of the people who a lot of the people who were in the theater group were also uh the some of the top athletes, they were also some of the top students in in the math and sciences. So it was there was not a a click so much as um a variety of subgroups that that all that with a lot of overlap uh uh among the groups.

Darren 4:22

So what was it about sciences and performance that drew you to both of those things together?

David 4:32

In I guess in high school, my goal was to be like a renaissance person where sciences and the arts were not ant antithetical. They were uh they they went together, and some of like Leonardo da Vinci was an engineer, a scientist, and also a great artist. So a lot of the um other scientists were also great good artists. So I it's not uh it fits with my uh my goal to be as well-rounded as possible.

Darren 5:06

So after high school, you ended up in California for university, is that right?

David 5:12

No, I went to actually I went to a local university for two years where I started out in chemistry and and math, but I was um it was a a normal university, normal university in in the states means it is an education university, it's uh a university that's specialty is in training teachers, and I'd wanted to be uh a secondary teacher, and so I got my license in secondary education in theater and English in my um fourth year of university.

Darren 5:51

I see. So when did you end up in California?

David 5:54

I went to California for my master's degree in um curriculum and technology ed tech.

Darren 6:02

So, what was your first teaching gig when you arrived here in Japan?

David 6:06

I was teaching at a junior high school, at a private junior high school in Nagoya called uh Nanzan Girls Junior High School, and I was there for four years.

Darren 6:18

And were you more interested in call at that time, or were you more interested in performance in education?

David 6:26

I was actually uh at that time, computers were just starting to come into the schools, and so there was there was no call at when I came to Japan. Um in Japan there was no call. Um and but there what there was in the high schools and junior high schools was speech contests. So that was my my major uh effort uh as uh as a uh speech coach or uh so the um the uh the big Japan Times and other speech contests uh I had to prepare students for that.

Darren 7:10

So I guess you came to Japan quite some time ago. Were the students any different then than they are now?

David 7:18

Of course, at that time there was no uh smartphones, there were no uh it was no computers, so everything was text paper-based textbooks, and um and uh the students had um were it was a good school. It was probably one of the best schools, not the best, but one of the best junior high schools in in Nagoya.

Darren 7:54

So and after that you decided to go to San Francisco State, and after that you decided to come back to Japan, is that right?

David 8:05

Yeah. Um I had gotten married before I left uh Japan. At San Francisco State, my daughter was born, so um uh and luckily I got a job at um at the uh at a university in Nagoya a week before graduation from grad school.

Darren 8:30

So and when does call come into the picture?

David 8:33

The school that I went to, the university I went to had a big call, a big computer lab with um Fujitsu uh desktop, huge, these huge desktop compute computers. And then um there was one professor there who um who was very excited about the Macintosh, uh the iMacs. And so we got uh he got a grant and we got uh something like 60 or more uh of the colorful iMac computers uh and and we went to town.

Darren 9:13

We and what was the thinking at the school at that time?

David 9:17

Uh they were uh they were thinking that um computer assisted language learning was the was the future of education.

Darren 9:26

That was quite some time ago. Were you a jolt member at that time, David?

David 9:31

Yeah, um I became a JALT member right cl almost uh a year, the year that I started teaching at the junior high school. So when I first came to Japan, then I had a job, I got a job teaching at a junior high school, and then um and I thought, well, if I'm gonna be teaching, I better know how to teach. And so I joined Jolt. Went to the first uh Jolt conference was in Nagoya.

Darren 10:00

I'm imagining that there weren't very many SIGs in JALT at that time.

David 10:05

No, no, there weren't. Um uh actually the um there were like a just a few, like two or three, and we started the um the call sig, the J ALT CALL SIG, um in uh very very soon after that.

Darren 10:25

How long were you in the call SIG before you decided to found another SIG, the PIE SIG?

David 10:33

I was the first um program chair of the Call SIG, and then became the president at that time as the coordinator of the CALL SIG for a few years. And then it was time for me to step down, and uh I became just a regular member of of that SIG and then of several other SIGs. Uh so I was a member of the CALL SIG for probably uh five, six years.

Darren 11:09

What made you want to decide to found a SIG that focuses on performance rather than computers?

David 11:16

Well, it was seem you know it seemed like that um call was more focused on the equipment, the the machine rather than the learner. And uh and a lot of the things this that was the the um the state of the software at that time was a lot of bells and whistles that were that just did not seem like it would was a very healthy way to to educate people and it was not creating students who could speak better, who could communicate better, who could write better. It just seemed that it was um there just to um just to see how just to show how neat the these the software this that the software could do exactly what textbooks were doing. And that's where I that's where I said, nah, I think um I'm really more interested in the dynamics of the classroom and how students actually learn and to how how they enjoy learning, and not just learning uh as in studying, but learning as in using language.

Darren 12:30

When you founded the PIE SIG, did you have other people who were interested in it as well? And did they help you, or did you have to kind of go it alone at the beginning?

David 12:40

Uh actually it was not the PIE SIG at that time, it was the speech, drama, and debate SIG. We had um many of the people who became coordinators, presidents of the SIG were there at the beginning. And you have to have uh five officers to start a SIG. So we had some uh actually at the beginning, it we had some really young, exciting people in the SIG that were involved in the in in in the administration, and so it was pretty pretty exciting.

Darren 13:19

What was the SIG like in the early days?

David 13:22

We were known as the fun SIG because the people we were we were always uh we were always hanging around in a group at the conferences, at our at our table, uh table was always had always a large group of people uh around it. Uh and we were um and the the banquets that we put on at the conferences were very, very uh I remember we were at Shizoka and we had more people at the banquet, it was an Italian restaurant than we had members in the SIG. I mean, we had like 30 some, 30, 40 people at the at the restaurant. It was just very, very exciting. It was up and coming.

Darren 14:12

So when did the name change take place?

David 14:15

In at conference in Okinawa, uh not a pie conference, but uh Okinawa JALT Conference. And um it was an all poster session conference, and I was there trying to advertise a new book that we had published uh on, which was on um on presentation, and the next the person next next to my presentation was Kim Rockell. And we started talking, and as we were walking to the banquet of the conference, Kim was telling me that he he's a member of JALT, but he doesn't feel like he has a home within because uh even the speech, drama, and debate, which is closest to what he does, is not exactly what he does what he likes, which is he loves music, uh he loves uh music. So I so I got it got me thinking that uh we should expand our our realm of of activities to include people who have no home in JALT. And so basically it's Kim Rockell that that uh starred me thinking about it. And the first name that I came up with, and you can see um uh Gordon uh Reese, uh who was who became like president of the SIG, has likes the acronym PAL, performance assisted learning. But um then I thought, but wait a minute, we have we actually have in my my university a course on pre make giving presentations, giving speeches. And uh in the speech, so that was not assisted learning, that was performance-based learning.

unknown 16:16

Okay.

David 16:17

So then I became performance in education because I thought, why are we limited just to language education? Because it could be for business, it could be for cross-cultural understanding, all of that can include performance. And so then it finally ended up as performance in education.

Darren 16:39

Uh of course there are lots of different uh performance and education activities, like you know, readers' theater, stage performances, debates, and so on. Uh do you think there's any kind of commonality between them all?

David 16:54

I think it's the um the agency of the students. The students in these activities have control over the activities. They don't they don't have to just follow the directions of a teacher or coach. They you know they're given the basics and then said and then are told go and create.

Darren 17:14

Do you have any anecdotes of your own that show the effectiveness of this form of education?

David 17:20

Yeah, um, I learned Japanese in Japan, and we use a textbook, and it was so boring. And instead, basically, I learned I learned the first thing that I learned was the names of the subway stations. Uh, and then when I had to teach um students for study abroad programs, I would I would first lecture them, and they were, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then then we would go to role plays, and that's when the students would wake up and and uh get really excited about about uh the about learning about the culture that they're going to.

Darren 18:08

So how do you approach English in your English classes?

David 18:13

My classes are not English classes. Uh the topic is life.

Darren 18:19

Right.

David 18:19

It the textbook that I wrote for the class is called Life Lessons, and it's about the things that that you want it, you know, if you have children of your own, you want your children to know these things. Uh and um and it's part of the of the uh two parts of that textbook are um one giving power making PowerPoints and then giving the PowerPoint presentations on the topic, and the second is doing um reader's theater based on the lyrics to songs that are on the topics of of life.

Darren 19:01

So what would be a typical type of activity that you would find in your textbook?

David 19:06

Um well it is um for example on being an individual, one of the songs uh lyrics that we used was My Way and this take the lyrics, and as a group they have to find a way to take the lyrics and perform them for an audience, not singing them, but saying the lyrics. So, um, and I was surprised that there are people who who said uh uh uh in our performance, can we sing? I said, Yeah, after you're finished, you know, when you're finished reading it, you there you can sing as much as you like. And they really got into belting out uh the last line of and I did it my way. It was just like, well, uh Frank Sinatra just uh just got a new group of of fans.

Darren 20:24

Is there anything that teachers should be careful of when they're using song lyrics in the classroom?

David 20:30

Well, you have to be careful because a lot of the lyrics for if you're doing lyrics of songs, a lot of the lyrics of songs are not appropriate for young people, really.

Darren 20:40

So a lot of teachers are, you know, part-time or they're on contracts and they're kind of stuck teaching these 15-week courses where the students are not very motivated. Um, what are some activities that these teachers could use right now that would help give the students uh agency and a sense of motivation?

David 21:02

I mean, that's why I like uh um readers' theater of song lyrics because they're short, they're like uh three minutes long. So it's a short activity. And uh and if if the st if the teacher is worried about teaching pronunciation and uh and nuance, well all of the songs are on YouTube. So the students can check their own uh pronunciation on YouTube and without having to ask the teacher how do you say this word.

Darren 21:46

So how do you make this work in the classroom?

David 21:49

What I do is when they're in a team, each team member has a s certain responsibility within the performance.

Darren 21:59

Right.

David 22:00

So that um and then you grade, you give two grades to the students, one grade for the entire group, and one grade for their particular task within that activity.

Darren 22:14

What would be an example of some of these tasks that you would use?

David 22:19

Well, um there is there needs to be at least one person who is the decision maker. And there has to be someone, especially if you're doing um lyrics, it has to be someone who's responsible for uh for the movement. And one person has got to be responsible for the technical aspects because they have to record their own performance on somebody's smartphone and use a small smartphone tripod to get that. So each person is responsible for one part of that activity.

Darren 23:07

I was wondering about the the influence of an audience. Did your students when they were performing have any kind of audience watching them?

David 23:15

I was lucky that I had uh live audiences, and live audiences were either another group within that class at the beginning, another group or groups, and then um we have invited the class next door to come in for uh for like a 15-minute performance. Our classes were 100 minutes long, so 15 minutes wasn't that bad. There were the energy level just went up, especially since um just by chance the class next door were had this were filled with students of the same major. So the students in my class knew the class next door. So they were just really, they were just really high energy for the performance. And to then then I asked the uh groups of the class next door to make some comments, and the comments that they gave, the students were just glowing with uh with pleasure with uh hearing the the um the positive comments from their friends.

Darren 24:28

So, what should a teacher who wants to do this performance in education keep in mind?

David 24:34

That it's more important to do something meaningful and memorable than it is to get through get through a chapter or uh in a book or or so um you have to figure, I mean that's the role of the teacher, you have to figure out allotment of time, what you know what is what activities must be done by the end of the semester, and what activities can you shorten the time or make it as homework rather than as a class activity? So um because I've because I realize that the performance activities are important to the class, important to the students, important to the to education. Um I don't I s basically said to my students, we're not going to perform until you feel that you're ready to perform. Because if they don't feel they're ready, they're not they're not going to be proud of what they do.

Darren 25:42

Is it better to start off with simple activities and slowly move up to more complex ones over time?

David 25:48

Uh yeah, of course. I mean, um the uh the uh and I tell the students that they can choose, uh for example, if they choose a per particular song, that they can cut as much as they want. They could only do one verse. So if they feel that it's too long, even even if it's just a regular three-minute song, they can cut it in half and just do a minute and a half or do a minute performance because then they could do that well within the time allotted.

Darren 26:26

I was wondering what you think about AI and how it's kind of infiltrating everything in our lives, including education. So where do you think AI and PIE come together or come apart? What's their relationship?

David 26:42

I have not used AI so much, but I envision one of the things I envision for the performance in education SIG is to do some of the some of like an uh a graded reader of a Shakespeare play, of Shakespeare plays. So you would ask, you would ask, you give a type in a prompt to um to an AI uh app and say, please do two gentlemen of Verona in uh using language that is appropriate to CEFR um level A2.

unknown 27:29

Right.

David 27:30

And um and that uses the most famous uh lines from that play. So I can see that AI would be really useful for creating that text, and then of course the teacher would have to do some pruning and some uh uh adapting what what's the AI it generates, but um I can see that it would be very, very useful as a tool. The other thing is um I think that probably companies in the future will expect their employees to have proficiency in using AI. So it's it would be a good life lesson, a good career lesson to at least teach them and encourage use of AI.

Darren 28:28

Okay, David, what do you think the future holds for the PIE SIG?

David 28:32

One thing is I see the future in the new set of officers that we have and in their imagination and their expectations, especially things like um starting a podcast and doing other activities that uh are more um interested, that more I'm sorry, that more um of the people who are members of the SIG and people who go to a conference are more interested in in learning about and in in learning how to do.

Darren 29:16

In your opinion, should the SIG be focusing on its current members or be constantly seeking new members to spread the word?

David 29:25

Yes, it has to do both because otherwise you become an inbred click rather than research group, and this is um this uh research and practice is the name of of our major conference. Performance in education, uh research and practice, those are the things that we are that we have to focus on to because that's that's who the members uh are their researchers and teachers.

Darren 30:03

If there's an educator in another country and they don't belong to JALT, how can they get involved with the PIE SIG?

David 30:11

Anyone is welcome to participate in the conferences. You don't have to be a member to write an article on PIE on uh performance in education, and you don't have to um have a lot of money to attend a Zoom conference uh like the one that we'll have in uh July, July 11th. Uh it'll be a Zoom conference uh no money charged.

Darren 30:42

And if someone wanted to become a member of the PIE SIG or an officer, what would they have to do?

David 30:49

Uh they go to go to the website and uh contact uh contact the SIG and um and uh then get in get in contact with uh with the president and vice president of the of the SIG.

Darren 31:06

So for others who may not want to join the conferences or get on our Zoom calls, are there any articles that people can read that would allow them to be more familiar with performance in education?

David 31:21

Yeah, look at our website. They have all of the publications that we have been involved in are freely downloadable. So uh you don't have to be a member to download this the uh both the practice and research that we've come up with. So I I believe the website is being is being uh redesigned. Right. And after that, all of the articles should be on the publication page of the website.

Darren 31:59

Okay, any final words to any educators who want to get involved with performance in education and use it in their classrooms but are not sure where to begin?

David 32:11

I think you just have to r realize remember when you went to a um a play or a musical how excited and how uh uh how connected you felt with the material and with the other people in the audience. And if that is the same kind of experience that you want to give to your students so that they remember what you did in your classes, then performance in education is for you.

Darren 32:47

All right, that brings us to the end of this episode, episode one of the podcast. David, thank you for joining us and for sharing your journey. Your work has shaped how many of us think about performance and education, and it's a great way to kick off the series. Thank you very much.

David 33:04

Thank you.

Darren 33:08

Thank you for listening. Until next time, stay focused and keep performing.