InterAction! ELT Drama for Cohesion and Inclusion (InterAction)

Basic data for this project

Description

The project investigates how English Language Teaching (ELT) with Drama for Cohesion and Inclusion can support the continuing professional development of educators such as teachers, professors, tutors and mentors. The quality of ELT will be strengthened through mobility of students and educators and cross-border cooperation. Inclusion within education is considered to be ‘a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all children, youth and adults through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities’ (UNESCO 2009, p.8), responding to individual differences, addressing uneven levels of achievement and benefitting all children. The planned cooperation between the partner universities and schools will enrich relevant curricula development for cohesion and inclusion in schools, ELT drama module development at universities and overall development of European modules according to the Bologna Process. The synergies between education, research and innovation activities through the university- school partnerships will ensure work-based learning as well as research-led learning of student teachers. Partnerships such as InterAction and transnational networks are especially crucial due to the increasing diversity of learners as well as learners with disadvantaged backgrounds (including refugees, asylum seekers and newly arrived migrants). The project will include provision for refugees and contribute to social inclusion. The InterAction ELT project includes building effective partnerships between universities and schools, promoting collaborative and holistic approaches, especially with regard to transition between different levels (primary to secondary) and types of education. This will be facilitated by inter-institutional and transnational networking events, and by the development of programmes, modules and online courses as intellectual outputs to strengthen the induction of educators to deal with complex classroom realities and adopt new methods and tools. InterAction and ELT drama for cohesion and inclusion supports intercultural competences of educators as well as the methodology of intercultural understanding in English Language Teaching. The project offers innovative integrated approaches to combat discrimination and reduce disparities in learning outcomes that affect learners with disadvantaged backgrounds; innovative pedagogies will empower students and student teachers towards media literacy and digital competences. An important outcome of the project will be the digitisation of quality learning content and promoting the use of ICT as a driver for systemic change to increase the quality and relevance of education. The InterAction ELT project is cross-institutional, intercultural, inclusive and respecting diversity in the classroom, such as differences in social class, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation and ability. We aim to yield an exciting framework for creative English-language learning and literacy teaching in multicultural and plurilingual classrooms, supportive of children from ethnic and linguistic minorities, integration of refugees, and children with disabilities and special needs in learning. In the centre of the project is the question of how the interface between school and university can be improved with drama pedagogy in ELT, and the conditions that need to be created for successful drama approaches to be integrated into teacher education aligned to inclusive approaches and an inclusive school profile development. Cooperation between research and education will be developed by interlinking theory and practice in teacher education, structurally anchored through inter-institutional and international cooperation. The project partners hold that the theory and methodology of teaching English to Young Learners must be supplemented by a synchronised theory and methodology of teaching English to Transitional Learners at the stage when they change from the primary to secondary school in most European counties (typically 10–12 year-olds). On the basis of drama for interaction and inclusion the teacher education dimension will involve examining and preparing a meaningful and realisable progressive English Language Teaching (ELT) methodology for 8–12-year-old learners, respecting their diverse cognitive styles of learning. This will allow the partners to assemble and exchange models of good practice, developing strategies to facilitate the all-important cohesive transition from primary to secondary education in foreign language education. The transition from rather implicit and holistic learning in the primary school to a more explicit and analytical language-learning mode is often experienced as demotivating by pupils, and problematic by teachers. A well-managed and differentiated transition is, however, crucial, as ELT is key for improving students’ life skills and career prospects.