Remote Theatre Erasmus Project

Project Title

Remote Theatre

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Creativity and culture; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Multilingualism is one of the cornerstones of the European project and the promotion of language learning is one of the specific objectives of the Erasmus program. Foreign languages have a key role among the skills that help people qualify for higher education, then enter or progress in the labour market, and the prominence of foreign language courses in adult education programs organised both by public and private teaching institutions is well established throughout the EU. But the results of these programs are not always in line with expectations. Adult language students are often demotivated by what they perceive to be a lack of progress and an inability to communicate effectively in their target languages. This can translate into high drop out rates which limit the capacity of language teaching institutions to run courses effectively. Language teachers and teacher trainers are constantly reviewing methodologies and techniques in order to improve the efficacy of their work and in recent years, the introduction of new technologies has often been the catalyst for such revision. But that doesn’t mean that older methods are necessarily categorised as redundant and one such method, known in the language teaching profession as Total Physical Response (TPR), is enjoying something of a revival. The premise here is that learning should involve more than mental effort and that acting out the meaning of words facilitates their learning and retention. Drama takes TPR to a new, higher level and provides leaners with the opportunity to develop their speaking skills at the same time as they learn new language items. The main objective of the Remote Theatre project is to provide language teachers and adult language learners with the resources they need to incorporate drama into their language courses on a scale that has never before been attempted, using a range of original resources, developed by experts in the field.
The five partners committed to developing the Remote Theatre project are:
– International House Bucharest, one of the leading private language schools in Romania
– The Hands Up Project, a pioneer of the use of drama in the classroom, combined with modern recording and dissemination technologies
– Jantar, a lading language school in Croatia and one of the developers of Amber a web-based school administration system
– British School Pisa, a private language school in Italy that has collaborated previously with the Hands Up Project
– Molehill Holdings, a company based in Spain that is responsible for a number of language teaching operations in several countries and has experience both in the development of language teaching materials and in large scale project management.
The partners have agreed to produce 3 intellectual outputs (IOs). The first of these is a Handbook for language teachers that will explain the theory behind the use of drama in language teaching, suggest how teachers can introduce drama in their classes, and also show them how to record their students in order to provide them with the opportunity to review their performances, and then disseminate their work to a wider audience. The second IO will consist of a series of 30 original short plays that the partners will write specifically for adult leaners. The plays will cover a range of themes, they will each focus on different language items and they will cover all levels from A2 to C2 on the CEFR. The third IO is an interactive, online platform that will serve as the training hub for teachers working through the Handbook (IO1), host the recordings made by teachers and their students of the plays produced in IO2, and provide a forum for further discussion and training for language teachers everywhere.
Throughout the project tasks will be allocated according to the expertise of the partners so, for example, Hands Up will be responsible for the teacher training components of IO1, Jantar will take the lead in the development of IO3 and Molehill will be responsible for Quality Assurance. Further decisions will be taken during 3 transnational meetings as well as regular online meetings. Piloting all 3 IOs will take place in the last months of the project and then the results will be disseminated widely via the partners’ websites, social media, and at regional and international conferences.
The project aims to involve at least 100 teachers and 2,000 learners before one year of completion. Longer term the aim is to multiply these numbers ten times or more. The impact of the project will be measured both in terms of the number of teachers and learners that use the resources created and by the impact using resources has on learner outcomes. We expect learners to become more proficient users of their target language and to be motivated to continue their studies. While the resources we develop will target teachers and learners of English, we expect teachers and learners of other languages to be inspired by the project to create their own plays.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 178406 Eur

Project Coordinator

IHB Language Training Center SRL & Country: RO

Project Partners

• British School Pisa srl
• Molehill Holdings S.L.U.
• Uciliste JANTAR – ustanova za obrazovanje odraslih
• The Hands Up Project