Teaching DIALLS in Portugal
This short documentary brings together perspectives from nine teachers in Portugal, spanning pre-primary to secondary, who have taught lessons from the Cultural Literacy Learning Programme in their classrooms. They touch on a huge range of themes, from the richness of students’ discussions to the impact DIALLS has had on them as teachers.
Teaching DIALLS in Lithuania
After a year of teaching lessons from the Cultural Literacy Learning Programme in her class in Lithuania, primary teacher Rasa Jurgeleviciene reflects on the ways it opened up her students to considering their role in the world. She is interviewed by DIALLS researcher Vaiva Juskiene from Vilnius University.
Maria
Kindergarten teacher
Cyprus
Teaching DIALLS in Cyprus
« The whole experience [teaching DIALLS lessons] from the beginning to the end was valuable, interesting, and very constructive for me and the children.
Although at first I was afraid that the whole methodology of the programme would not suit my students, I was happily proven wrong.
The difficulties that children initially had, especially in the area of cooperation and acceptance of other children, as well as dialogue and argumentation, were evident. They…found it difficult to have awareness of other children. From the initial lessons, their egocentric character was very evident, with the self overpowering their sense of the collective.
This seems to have changed over the course of the first 8 courses of the programme. Children in general in everyday school life seemed to operate much more harmoniously than in the beginning. The cooperation between them, the respect and the ability to compromise were significantly strengthened. These features also helped my work to an important extent.
The material given to us was remarkably strong pedagogically and useful in our work not only for the current academic year but for the school years to come too… The visual texts work together and interact, and are a powerful teaching tool for achieving the objectives of the programme as well as language learning objectives more broadly, since they work as an important stimulus for the production of oral speech.
Overall, what I will take away from DIALLS…is how important it is for children to develop such skills and abilities for intercultural dialogue and for understanding the daily lives of our fellow human beings. If we manage to encourage these skills to some extent from the earliest stage of education, they will be basic resources for children for the rest of their lives. »
Katie
Primary Teacher
United Kingdom
Teaching DIALLS in the UK
« [After one particular DIALLS lesson], several children have reached out to members of our school community linked to the video. Cards have been made and left for cleaners, children have offered to help support staff with their work and more thought has been given in discussions about how different areas of our community are affected by things.
The pupils were hooked by the film and it prompted a lot of discussion from a range of pupils – both those who often shared their opinions and those who rarely did so.
I found it…insightful for both myself and my understanding of the children in my class, and for the pupils themselves and their understanding of society. »
