Authors
Cynthia Adaeze Onuegwunwoke, PhD
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Arts Alvan Ikoku Federal University of
Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria
cynthia.onuegwunwoke@alvanikoku.edu.ng
+2348037675151
Godfrey Ngozi Ogbonna, PhD
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Arts Alvan Ikoku Federal University of
Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria
ogbonnagodfrey82@gmail.com
Ogechi Angela Nnadi, PhD
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Arts Alvan Ikoku Federal University of
Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria
ogechi.nnadi@alvaikoku.edu.ng
Lilian Oluchi Duru, PhD
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Arts Alvan Ikoku Federal University of
Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria
lilian.duru@alvanikoku.edu.ng
Abstract
This study argues that critical drama pedagogy,
understood as the fusion of Freirean dialogue and
Boalian rehearsal, offers Nigerian and African higher
education a distinctive route to intercultural competence,
but only under specific conditions. Anchoring on a
conceptual synthesis of published Nigerian and African
scholarship, the study pursues three objectives: to
establish how critical drama converts intercultural
knowledge from inert content into embodied, socially
witnessed action, extending Byram’s model of
intercultural communicative competence beyond
cognition into performance; to examine, through a
documented Nigerian case, the conditions under which
this conversion fails and instead surfaces ethnocentrism,
illustrated by role refusal among theatre arts students at
the University of Benin; and to integrate Ubuntu and its
pedagogical form, ubuntugogy, as a corrective to
Byram’s individualist assumptions, reframing
intercultural competence as a communally negotiated
achievement rather than a private cognitive trait. Read
together, Freire, Boal, Byram, and Ubuntu form one
integrated framework rather than four separate theories.
Each supplying what the others lack. The study closes
with a proposed framework for Nigerian higher
education and implications for curriculum design,
teacher preparation, and assessment, arguing that critical
drama pedagogy requires deliberate institutional
investment, not incidental classroom enthusiasm, if it is
to deliver genuine intercultural learning.
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