LEARNING THROUGH THEATRE AND TECHNOLOGY Erasmus Project

Project Title

LEARNING THROUGH THEATRE AND TECHNOLOGY

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Creativity and culture; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

The aim of the project was to allow the children to express themselves creatively through acting, singing and creative writing in their mother tongue and in English. We organized a range of workshops for pupils, including drama, creative writing and storytelling activities. Drama workshops focused on interaction and helping participants discover the creativity that lies within them. The school theatre and drama classes became their alternative way of spending free time. It was a great chance also for those pupils who are shy and cannot cooperate easily with their peers due to the lack of courage and the faith in their own strengths. While acting out they learnt to express their emotions, feelings of a played character, practiced pronunciation, voice, facial expressions and movement on the stage. Such activities shaped children’s imagination and, creativity as they not only presented themselves artistically but they are also involved in preparing the scenography, costumes and additional props. They got used to working with one another towards a specific goal. These skills were transferred to the classroom. The project allowed participating pupils to learn more about other countries traditions and literary heritage through the experience of theatre and drama. Students researched and wrote about traditions, legends of their countries and shared the knowledge with pupils from partner schools. The research was used to form original theatre pieces written by the pupils. Performances were recorded and uploaded to the project web site. Pupils improved their ICT skills as the primary contact with their friends from partner schools will be via Internet using ICT equipment. Furthermore, they worked on several tasks using different forms of technology (recording the plays, working with the video, writing online stories and publishing on the website). This improved their competence for life in an advanced technological society. The students learnt to write stories by analysing the literacy elements like characters, setting and plot. But as a lot of students are not willing to attend writing activities, we have aimed to make story writing fun by attracting the students’ attention, through using enjoyable implementations like “Storybird” software to improve their writing skills in the target language.
Pupils actively took part in managing the project and in making decisions about the way activities are carried out. Through different local activities we gave the opportunity children from the kindergarten and children with special needs to participate. For pupils coming from socially weak backgrounds it was a great opportunity to visit foreign countries and get first-hand information about different countries, cultures and religions. Such cooperation gave pupils and teachers a wider picture about European traditions, cultures, their habits, way of life and improves tolerance, cross-cultural learning and understanding, multicultural learning for all participants. Comparing school systems and teaching practice and exchanging experience contributed greatly to the development of each partner school.

We involved the students of primary and secondary schools, special need children. In total, there were at least the majority of the students (about 1000 students) developing the project tasks in each partner institution. Sometimes, all students of a grade were participating.
The teaching staff consisted of 10-15 participants in each country. They were mainly the teachers of native and foreign languages, history, ICT, art and craft.
All the administration staff were involved to manage, prepare and coordonate the meetings.The parents participate a lot to the differents contests, presentations, evenings events, lunches…

We organised writing stories by pupils in Story Bird Internet tool about the legends and sharing the stories on the website. As a result I can be a writer-a collection of tales written by the students connected with their neighborhood was published and presented in a booklet form. Students wrote creative stories associated with the place they live in. The competition for the best tale and best comic book and best poem contest was organized in each school. The best three were chosen and translated into English in a simple language. Selecting the best tale written by the students in each country and preparing the play script of the tale or legend to be staged in each country. Making props for the play in Art lessons and preparing costumes for the play. Filming the performance and making a documentary using Windows Live Movie Maker software-a workshop for pupils and teachers. Each school chose a tale of a partner country to be staged in their school and prepared a rehearsal with additional scenography and props. Each country had a different scenario to be performed on stage and recorded. DVD films were attached to the published booklet titled In the Land of Tales and distributed among pupils.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 116820 Eur

Project Coordinator

COLLEGE LA PLAINE LAVARDAC & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas de Rio Tinto
• PUBLICZNA SZKOLA PODSTAWOWA W STAREJ SLUPI
• Talatpasa Ortaokulu
• IISS F.Caracciolo-G. da Procida