I am called what I am called

The project “I am called what I am called” took place in Sweden, Norway and Denmark in the autumn 2013. The target group were 12 classrooms in age group 9-12 years. The classes received a theatre-pedagogue from one of the neighboring countries, who taught theatre in their native language. The classes in the project were paired with a “friendship-class” from the country of their respective theatre teacher. As preparation the pupils answered a few questions about themselves and these texts served as a starting point for the theatrical work that followed. The theatre-pedagogues then worked with themes and selected words from the answers of the “friendship-class”.

The pupils started with reading and comprehension and then proceeded to exercises and games involving words from the neighboring language. In this way the students didn’t only experience the neighboring language in a passive way, but also actively practiced expressing the language within a certain frame. Through these exercises the pupils got the tools to relate to words and actions of their neighboring language, through physically based theatre form. For example they acted out their friendship-class’ dreams and interests through a game of “living statues”. The experience is that the playful and creative approach helps the students open up and dare to talk a little more.

Movement and body language makes the new language more manageable and makes it easier to relate to and remember words. After 4 days of theatre work, the week ended with a performance based on the material of the week. The performance was only in the neighboring language and that also served as a motivator for the participants to dare to say at least a few words. It was a positive experience for the class to do a show together but it also served other purposes: create a community, set goals for the work, pupils learned to create a product out of their own material and it rounded off the teaching in a concrete way.  The final performance was filmed, so that the friendship class could see their own ideas put on stage. The teachers’ general experience was that the pupils were curious and interested in the other Nordic languages. The pupils discovered similarities and differences between countries, both linguistically but also through their interests and dreams. The students had a much greater understanding of the neighboring language at the end of the week. In the pupil’s written evaluation they found that this way of teaching was a fun and effective way of teaching neighboring language and they thought generally that it was very positive to use the body in connection with learning, making it easier to remember words. Project leaders and teachers were Helena Berglund (S) and Sine Sværdborg (DK), both M.A. in theatre pedagogy and the Norwegian teacher was Christine Seiertad.