Theatre workshop „Crossing Wildlife“- A one-day training for teachers
Drama as a stimulus for communication in (international) school team-ups
Definition and learning objective
Teachers observe, revise and discuss the possibilities when using theatrical elements in the team-up for school groups
Target groups(s)
- Teachers of all courses, especially foreign languages (for pupils between the age of 13 and 14)
Concretely
This training shows you how to provide your pupils with the basic drama techniques as well as body- and language perception, without the need of being a professional yourself.
We discuss and develop small pieces of drama, which befit the framework of a team-up for school groups due to their length and linguistic structure. The basic principle is not to offer fully completed texts, but to make the pupils develop those texts on the basis of a situational framework.
The assumption concerning the learning of foreign languages is mostly the fostering of the pupils’ “passive” understanding, by developing a piece of drama together (with everyone speaking their own language). This way, they will get more acquainted with the neighbouring languages as well as the conscious use of their own language. In addition, the participants will be provided with a trilingual drama dictionary.
Moreover, attention will be paid to possible linguistic and drama-related stumbling blocks as well as questions regarding logistical preparation. Since this training runs parallel with the pupils’ workshop, the developed material can be immediately put and used in practice.
In February 2011 the first edition of the drama workshop „Crossing Wildlife“ took place in Belgian Limburg. To meet this end, a concept was developed under the guidance of professional drama coaches: How does one bring pupils together who hardly know each other? How can one ground them drama-wise so that they can put on an enjoyable show? The challenge is to have pupils from contrastive linguistic backgrounds and with no former knowledge of neighbouring languages collaborate on a joint project.
The experiment was a huge success and the concept has proven its value: 30 pupils between the age of 14 and 19 from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany worked intensively together fort two days and, as a result, they did not only grow towards each other, but they also got more acquainted with the neighbouring languages. And, last but not least, they not only learnt a lot about themselves, but also about body composure.
Pictures from the 2010 pupil workshop can be found here.
The participants get an official participation certificate.
More info?
Florian Niehaus, District Government Cologne
Contact?
Florian Niehaus: niehaus@regioaachen.de - Tel.: + 49 241 963 1951
