Issue #4 - Wang - Applied Theatre for Self-Awareness in Int. Students
Integrating Theatre in Education and Audio Walks to Enhance Self-Awareness in International Students:
An Applied Theatre Workshop Script Practice and Reflection
Yaxin Wang
Introduction
This paper employs a practice-as-research approach to investigate how the form of Theatre in Education (TIE) can be integrated with gaming and audio walks to create immersive experiences that alleviate identity-related anxiety among international students. As the number of international students increases due to social and economic development, they face self-awareness issues arising from cultural migration, which are often reflected in feelings of anxiety, confusion, marginalisation, and loss of self-reflection. This research seeks to examine how immersive, participatory theatre can serve as a medium for international students to reconstruct a sense of identity and belonging in unfamiliar cultural contexts. To support this inquiry, a script titled Future was developed as the core practical component of this research. The script, divided into two parts, is provided as a separate PDF. Readers are encouraged to read these appendices before continuing with the main body of the paper, as familiarity with the practice material will enhance understanding of the analysis and discussion that follows. Click here to download the Workshop Script.
1. Context in difficult situations faced by international students
The process of international students travelling from their home countries to other countries for study is a form of cultural migration, prompting reflection on identity, self-awareness, and cultural conflict and adaptation. Cultural migration refers to international students living and studying in a new cultural environment that is different from their familiar cultural backgrounds. Studying abroad has become increasingly common with social and economic development and economic globalisation, which continues to be an upward trend (Feng & Byram, 2006).
1.1 Identity and Self-Positioning
International students in a new cultural environment will stand at a crossroads between two or more cultures, which will lead to doubts about their own identity. Studying abroad means living in a foreign country, away from the familiar living environment and way of life, making passive changes to one's culture habits, eating habits and living habits generated by one's own culture, or at least this is the state of life that foreign students expect themselves to live in (Feng & Byram, 2006). Because of these changes, foreign students often find themselves isolated and marginalised from the rest of society. Such a phenomenon stems from the contradiction between the identification with the culture of origin and the acceptance of the new culture, and thus the confusion and instability of self-identity. Research shows that prolonged psychological distress and anxiety are common among Japanese students during their one-year stay in the UK, contributing to a diminished overall sense of well-being (Feng & Byram, 2006). Such a situation can lead to a vicious circle, with international students questioning who they are and what cultural background they belong to, etc. Uncertainty about their identity can lead to more negative behaviour in social learning and life.
1.2 Self-Awareness and Reflection
When international students begin to face and understand different cultural concepts and different behaviours resulting from such different values, they will in turn re-examine their original behaviours and values. According to the research, Chinese students studying in Canada not only need to meet the basic academic expectations, but those living in homestay arrangements—boarding in the homes of local families—must also navigate and adapt to cultural norms and values that may differ significantly from, or even contradict, those of their home culture. This cultural adjustment is essential for fostering harmonious relationships within the host family environment (Feng & Byram, 2006). The process of accepting a new culture and re-examining oneself may lead to a new perception of one's personality, life goals and life ambitions, while the rapidly changing cultural environment and the pressure of life do not give the international student the opportunity to adjust adequately, resulting in further confusion and insecurity. As such, international students need to internalise the differences sufficiently so that they can respond appropriately to the cultural context in which they find themselves in any given situation (Feng & Byram, 2006).
1.3 Culture conflict and adaptation
Culture conflict brought about by cultural migration may have a negative impact on international students. There is a transitional period before entering a new cultural environment during which ‘culture shock’ often occurs, a phenomenon described by Oberg as resulting from the loss of familiar social practices and established patterns (Feng & Byram, 2006). International students are confronted with a conflict between the new culture and the old, which may lead to emotional confusion and cognitive dissonance. Meanwhile, culture shock can have a range of negative effects on international students, such as anxiety, helplessness, loneliness, frustration, and hostility towards the host country (Feng & Byram, 2006).
To help international students cope better with these problems, release stress, avoid losing their self-awareness, following the crowd, and losing their ability to reflect on themselves, I propose theatre as a useful tool. Theatre's intervention on this issue focuses on enabling participants to realise that self-awareness and the ability to reflect on oneself are important human skills, leading to reflection on their self-identity and subsequent changes in their current life.
2. The immersive experience in Theatre in Education (TIE)
2.1 Participatory Engagement as Immersion
Immersive experiences in TIE come from participatory practices that facilitate the creation of transient and intense experiences, as well as offering participants the freedom to choose and move around. Educational theatre, especially TIE, is a specific form of theatre in which many practices are based on participation. There has been mature research in educational theatre, including TIE and Drama in Education (DIE). Emerging in the UK in the 1960s, TIE focuses on the practical application of drama and theatre in educational settings. It is considered one of the pioneering forms of applied theatre and continues to be recognised as an innovative and dynamic practice today (Jackson & Vine, 2013). For example, Mantle of the Expert is a convention based on participation in which participants carry out a specialised investigation of a particular issue and complete a task as an expert (Matusiak-Varley, 2011). The core of this technique lies in the fact that participants learn one thing while thinking they are doing another. For example, a teacher working with fifth-grade students designed an activity where they operated a fictional airline and bid for three flight routes in India. This simulation allowed students to engage in decision-making while learning extensively about Indian geography and culture (Matusiak-Varley, 2011). Thus, TIE participation brings participants into a specific context that leads to an experience, which coincides with an immersive experience. With the rise of immersive theatre, immersive experiences are often mentioned throughout all kinds of theatre performance practices. Immersion emphasizes the freedom of the participant to walk through an innovative space and generate multi-sensory stimulation, experiencing interactive elements or characters within an impressionistic narrative (Biggin, 2017). Often, participants are empowered with choice and freedom. In the context of educational theatre, when participatory practices are facilitated with space for autonomy and choice, immersive experiences can be fully activated and meaningfully perceived by participants.
2.2 Future
In the context of Future—the script developed as part of this Practice-as-Research (PaR) project—participatory experiences are embedded throughout the workshop process. The full script and related materials are included in Appendices 1 and 2. Participation can be divided into two parts: (1) engaging in a theatre game, and (2) taking part in an audio walk, collective drawing, and watching the performance. Immersion plays a key motivating role. For instance, the participatory debate in the game—where participants act as technology company managers—creates an immersive context that heightens antagonism and involvement in the moment, ideally preventing them from immediately reflecting on the deeper realities. The structure and script of the game in the workshop script part 1 provide further context on how the issue of human cloning is embedded in the narrative and participant roles. This design aims to encourage delayed self-reflection. At first, participants may only engage with the topic on a theoretical level, narrowly focusing on ethical concerns around human cloning. However, this can foster deeper reflection, as demonstrated in the four-stage audio walk and performance scenes in workshop script part 2. The embodied experience encourages participants to recall and reconsider their behavior during the game, facilitating genuine self-reflection. The second part of the experience stimulates critical thinking. In the audio walk journeys, participants explore what it might feel like to be a clone. The immersive audio environment fosters empathy, allowing them to fully inhabit the role of the character and enhancing the psychological and emotional dimensions of their participation. For example, they may begin to question, ‘Is it right that the character receives an education based on the belief that clones must dedicate themselves to the medical treatment of humanity?’ Educational theatre conventions—such as collective drawing—not only deepen action-based participation but also facilitate ethical reflection on human cloning. This reflection becomes a form of self-education, emerging between participants’ immersion in identity during the play phase and their efforts to design the ‘perfect’ clone.
2.3 Liminal Space as a Gateway to Immersion
Participants in general TIE conventions are invited into the fictional space primarily through interactive activities and drama-game settings, drawing them into what Bucknall (2016) terms the ‘liminal space’. This space is created through a game-based scenario that tasks participants with specific roles, drawing them into the story centre. In educational theatre more broadly, this liminal invitation usually involves two main components: theatre games and participatory conventions. First, theatre games are a core element of educational theatre. While dramatic play is crucial in childhood—shaping cognitive and social development (Shahbazi, 2017)—for adults, such games serve additional functions, such as relaxation, actor training, and recreation. In educational contexts, theatre games are task-oriented, preparing participants for a specific situation. Firstly, the task itself becomes a liminal invitation, guiding them into the heart of the fictional world. Secondly, conventions such as Role on the Wall—a technique for exploring a character’s internal and external perspectives by visually mapping thoughts and social perceptions (Neelands & Goode, 1990)—and Mantle of the Expert share a key feature: they are all task-based. The task acts as both the invitation and the bridge between real life and the fictional context, making the task-space liminal.
2.4 Reflection on liminal invitations in Future
Future is primarily reflected in the initial game setting and the interspersed ‘Role on the Wall’ activity during the second half of the audio walk. In the first part, participants are assigned a unified role as executives of the Future Technology Company, which mediates the participatory process and enables them to engage with the theatrical situation through a specific role context. Game rules are delivered as tasks that gradually progress from individual to team-based challenges. This structure fosters growing connections and deeper involvement among participants. Three levels of progressive invitation are used: first, participants are invited to step into character by making clones of themselves; second, they deepen relational bonds through collaboration and discussion based on their chosen tasks; third, they debate and compete, collectively entering a liminal space. This transition shifts them from the real world into the immersive world of the Future Technology Company. In Future, the Role on the Wall technique shifts the concept of ‘role’ from a single figure to a representation of a broader event. The participant’s understanding of the role evolves into an exploration of the scenario’s details and dynamics—for example, observing and interpreting a specific space, then collaboratively reconstructing the event’s full narrative.
‘Please observe this area. You can approach each object closely and make guesses about what might have happened here.’ (Workshop script part 2, Journey segment 2: Characters on the wall)
In this way, the ‘character’ is no longer associated with psychological depth or personality, but rather with a collective understanding of the event, shifting the focus away from the character and towards the complete picture of the story. In the technique ‘Characters on the wall’, the traditional exploration of the character's inner and outer aspects is transformed here into a multi-layered interpretation of space, behaviour and meaning.
‘Please share your guesses as a group and come up with a general answer.’ (Workshop script part 2, Journey Part 2: Characters on the Wall)
The facilitator then externalises and materializes this collective speculation through improvisation:
‘Sam and Sara will help us re-enact the scene.’ (Workshop script part 2, Journey Part 2: Characters on the Wall)
This progression invites the participants to move from the peripheral space (as observers or interpreters) into the heart of the fictional event and become active meaning-makers. At this point, the ‘event’ becomes the structure that frames the situation, but the participants remain at the centre of the moment.
3. The immersive experience in the audio walk
3.1 Hearing the World, Seeing the Self – Multi-Sensory Immersion in Audio Walks
The immersive experience of the audio walk stems from how auditory input shapes both the external world and the inner sense of self. This inward influence on the body creates an imagined embodiment that becomes the agent of sensory experience. Ocularcentrism, the prioritisation of vision as our primary sense, dominates because vision constructs our perception of the world's structure and offers a subjective, controllable experience (Kendrick, 2017). Under this assumption, visual input is treated as inherently meaningful, while other senses are largely neglected. Kendrick (2017) argues that hearing and sight differ fundamentally in perceptual orientation. Hearing is processed entirely internally—sound enters the ears and moves inward—making it more isolated and subjective. Unlike vision, hearing is not just a sense but also a form of touch, both physical and emotional. While the eyes perceive, the ears allow us to engage with and influence the world. This blurring between sight and hearing disrupts our ability to distinguish the self from the world. The internality of hearing and the externality of sight are often wrongly attributed solely to vision, leading to a loss of clarity about where the world ends and the self begins. In contrast, sound carries inward energy that powerfully shapes and re-creates the self. Myers (2011) notes that sound can transform the body into an imagined object occupying space, discarding the physical self in favour of a reshaped one. This re-creation may be contradictory, competing, or radically different (Myers, 2011). While the audio walk’s auditory experience activates internal processing and emotional resonance, it also shifts visual perception. Participants are not passive viewers but are prompted to imagine beyond what is visible. For example, when the character Sam mentions ‘big French windows’ or a ‘blue sky,’ participants may be in mundane or enclosed spaces, yet their vision expands through emotional memory and imagination. Thus, the audio walk breaks visual passivity, transforming sight into interpretive ‘seeing’—a creative, multi-sensory experience shaped by sound, narrative, and internal association. This shift blurs fiction and reality, enriching the immersive encounter.
3.2 Reflections on Future
In Future, the reinvented body in the audio walk becomes a medium for the main body to perceive the fictional world, and the participants touch the characters through the fictional body, perceive the characters, and immerse themselves in the fictional world.
‘What a lovely room, isn't it? Wow, how rich this hospital is, big French windows, I look like I've come on holiday!
The sound of opening windows, outdoor bird songs and breeze.
The corridor smelled really nice too, like lavender! My favourite smell is lavender, please close your eyes, take a deep breath in, and feel the refreshing air slowly joining the nose, then to the chest, into the stomach, and then flowing to the limbs, the freshness of the breath all over the body!
Each guideline is slow, with a soothing background music. ’
(Workshop script part 2, the first journey: Audio 1: Sam’s voice)
In this part, the participants enter Sam's perspective and imagine themselves in his environment through some of his basic narratives. Through the evocation of sights, smells, and bodily sensations, the participants’ own bodies are re-sensitized as vessels for experiencing the character’s life, allowing them to momentarily step into the character’s reality and engage with the fictional world in an embodied, immersive way.
On the other hand, the reinvented body becomes a source of self-reflection. Through the questions set up in the audio walk, the imagined self asks questions to the real self and thus thinks about themselves.
‘Can you imagine the happiest holiday you've ever had? Where was it? What kind of beautiful sights were there?
10-second pause between each question
(Workshop script part 2, the first journey: Audio 1: Sam’s voice)
What is the most beautiful blue sky you can ever imagine? Take a deep breath, and now see it? What is the color of the sky and are there any clouds?
Soothing background music and birdsong’
(Workshop script part 2, the first journey: Audio 2: Sara’s voice)
These questions blend the participant's self-awareness into the perspective of the character they have joined, allowing the fictional self and the real self to intertwine. The imagined body becomes not only a sensory vessel for inhabiting the character’s world but also a mirror that reflects the participant’s own memories, emotions, and identity. This dual layering of perception fosters a deeper immersive engagement—participants are not merely observers of the character’s experience, but become co-creators of meaning, using the fictional context to trigger introspection and personal resonance.
As the participant in the audio walk enters the theatre, the traditional participant is replaced by the notion of the Percipient[1], a person who perceives the world through the senses (Myers, 2011). It can be thought of as a special kind of participant who engages and changes the artistic process and outcome by engaging his or her senses. The imagined body, on the other hand, can be used as a medium for the Percipient and as a stand-in to enter the theatre situation. Phenomenology suggests that being does not just mean having a body in a world, but that it can be present through our active experience, as well as in others who are experiencing the world. The immersive role of sound for bodily presence in the world and the specific bodily forms in immersive participation can be seen here.
Based on the above theory, the immersive experience in the audio walk of this workshop script can be analyzed in two ways: the participant’s perception of the world and self, and the imagined body they shape during participation, which becomes the imagined self. The participant’s perceived world is not the real world, but a fictional one created by the story’s context. Through the audio walk, the narrative is transmitted inward to the participant’s body via sound, creating sensory stimulation and surrounding them with the theatre world. The storyline overlaps the two worlds through the main character’s monologue, background sounds similar to the participant’s natural environment, and matching narrative routes such as gardens and corridors. This deepens immersion by entering the workshop world via the liminal space accessed in the prior game. The imagined self is formed through initial role assignments and audio effects. Initially, the imagined self assumes a defined occupation and identity, then emotionally engages with the two characters’ perspectives and experiences the world through their eyes. Participants become Percipient whose imagined bodies may overlap, oppose, or intersect with the characters. The imagined body is shaped by two main factors: sensory feedback from the environment—such as sight, smell, and touch during the route—combining with imagined bodily sensations to deepen immersion; and the interplay between the participant’s own feelings and the character’s emotions, where empathy for the character sparks thoughts in the imagined body, transforming it into the imagined self. The participant’s feelings about the character become part of the imagined self’s thoughts, differentiating it from both the character’s self and the participant’s own self. This fosters deeper reflection on identity and helps reduce participants’ uncertainty about their sense of self.
4. Conclusion
Firstly, TIE aims to develop critical thinking and encourage self-reflection, thereby improving self-awareness. Through TIE conventions, participants reconcile with their inner selves and the world, deepening acceptance of their identity through creative art and performance. The audio walk’s meditation helps participants relax, forming part of the experience, but its main goal is to integrate character and self through an auditory-focused process that promotes empathy, allowing participants to emotionally connect with the character and environment. Empathy here is an imaginative process where participants project their experiences onto others. It also enables understanding the connection between one’s own and others’ experiences, seeing others as ‘other than self’(Bleeker et al., 2015). This empathy is vital for immersing oneself in the male and female characters’ narratives. Participants feel the male character’s struggles adapting to a new culture and the forces leading to his assimilation. Likewise, the female character’s questioning of foreign culture prompts reflection on why she remains unable to break free.
This engagement with gender roles is key to exploring identity, not covered in previous analyses. By contrasting male and female characters, participants critically examine cultural adaptation and gender expectations, integral to identity formation and promising for future research.
Additionally, revisiting auditory and visual differences is essential. Hearing’s active, internal nature deepens participants’ connection to the story, while sight often passively receives stimuli. This contrast enhances immersion and highlights sensory perception’s role in shaping identity.
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[1] Percipient is used here to describe participants as individuals who not only perceive but also interpret and internalise their experience within the fictional world.