“Si l’ORESTIE m’était contée…”. Quand le théâtre jette des ponts vers les apprentissages et devient un enjeu pédagogique. Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Si l’ORESTIE m’était contée…”. Quand le théâtre jette des ponts vers les apprentissages et devient un enjeu pédagogique.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

‘If I were told The Oresteia…,’ when theatre builds bridges to learning and becomes an educational issue.

Many students master fundamental knowledge ever less. The same is true for other countries. Students live in an era of immediacy – they want to know everything without having to learn anything. We want to reconcile them with the act of learning.
That is why mastering one’s mother tongue (written and oral) plays a crucial role in students’ schooling – if that transversal skill is insufficient, all other school subjects may be negatively impacted. More, mastering the language is necessary because it is a factor of social, cultural and professional integration.

We are convinced that theatre, especially ancient Greek theatre, is an excellent teaching tool. That is the reason why we have decided to make use of The Oresteia, a trilogy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus (both simplified and original version) in order to maximize our students’ learning process, and even go beyond the simple mastery of basic skills, give meaning to those skills, especially by encouraging the practice of reading, writing and speaking.

In order to achieve this, we wanted to share teaching practices, create a new dynamic, and get our students more active, « make school pleasant and work attractive » as Jules Ferry suggests. We have therefore decided to promote inter and multidisciplinarity. Learning is not enough, students must perceive the utility of what they learn and understand that they can reuse it in other situations.

Getting our students to read and listen to a foundation narrative, which they later rephrased and reworded through various exercises (for instance performing the play) and from which they worked in various school subjects, enabled them to learn how to express and expose their feelings and point of view to others in a constructive way, to discuss together issues that affect them, to foster their critical thinking and finally question their own conscience.

By reinforcing basic skills acquisition through methods which we thought (and we still think after this experience) effective, by using theatre in a transversal way, we aimed at helping every student develop their potential, their independence, their self-confidence, their solidarity, their open-mindedness towards others and other cultures, their literary, cultural, historic, scientific, mathematic, linguistic and artistic interest, and the way they express themselves, communicate and create.

Of course, the pupils concerned by the project were not only those who are at odds with traditional education and who experienced school failure (because of wrong methods, unremedied deficiencies, learning troubles, or socio economic difficulties) but also those who did not experience school failure and whom we encouraged to serve as a driving force behind both their own school classmates and pupils from partner schools.
Sharing ideas, by using correctly formulated spoken and written language, concerns all students by the way.

By promoting ancient Greek theatre and making use of Aeschylus’s trilogy and its values in the classroom, we aimed at improving basic skills in reading, writing and speaking, that is to say reading and understanding a document, reusing its comprehension, defending one’s opinion and one’s work.
The various achievements, such as a logo, a poster, a movie, a video, a brochure, a debate, an album, an ancient theatre model, etc., were made as part of different lessons and different school subjects. Therefore, they put the students at the center of their own learning, got them active, independent, conscious of ‘the reason why they are learning what they are learning’ and made them part of a creative project.

Teachers from involved schools shared and compared their ideas and teaching practices – they questioned themselves in relation to their partner’s contribution and designed a joint methodology to complete their task properly: strengthening insufficient basic skills.
The promotion of a European educational cooperation made it possible to exchange useful and creative information, which enables to remedy academic deficiencies.

The last project activity linked to the project, a digital document, summarizes our experience and justifies our choices for an active and innovative teaching methodology which differs from our daily practice inside our schools.

For the students to whom we were able to give again the taste for learning these last two years of partnership, the benefits gathered concerning their knowledge, their know-how and their interpersonal skills, will stay, we are certain of it, in the long term, lightening their horizon as for their life after school.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 37640 Eur

Project Coordinator

Athénée Royal Thuin & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Gymnasio Armeniou
• Gymnasio Mygdonias
• Liceo Scientifico Statale “A. Gatto” Agropoli