Whether it’s the Myth of Sarikiz, the legend of San Jorge and the Dragon, the treasure filled tomb of Alaric, the river that bursts out of the mountain at Fontaine de Vaucluse, the goddess Zemyna who nourished all life or Sir Lancelot and Excalibur, stories have been shared down the generations, across the centuries and through every country, community and people. Stories thrill, excite, scare, make us laugh and cry and capture our imaginations. Stories keep our cultures and identities alive, they are used to teach and educate and in our age of technology we can bring them to life in ways that were unimaginable not that long ago.
Educators from Italy, Lithuania, Spain, France, Turkey and the UK have come together in an Erasmus+ project called STELA, to use storytelling, digital technology and innovation in the teaching of English as a second language. This exciting transnational project will see the development of teaching techniques, the use of digital tools and innovation in language teaching which by its end, will have reached more than 600 students and more than 230 language teaching professionals from across Europe and Turkey. In our digital and social media age, the reach of the project will extend to all areas of the globe with the potential to revolutionise the way story telling is used to teach English language skills.
The STELA project has brought together a core group of specialist language educators who have undertaken a wide range of research to design a framework for teaching English using storytelling. Together they have produced teaching resources, lesson plans, and have explored the effectiveness of a range of digital tools to be used in teaching through storytelling, which has been successfully practiced during our short-term training in Didim, Turkey by participating English teachers.
The STELA project is now moving into the exciting phase of dissemination through multiplier events that will see more teachers and students trial and test the story telling approach and use of digital tools in English language teaching and will culminate in a large Multiplier event in central London at Southwark College in 2023.
When the project is complete, the resources developed, the research undertaken and the impact on teaching English through story telling and the use of digital tools will be freely available to all educators across the world with the hope that our love of storytelling flows seamlessly into the classrooms of today and the future. To find out more, go to our website https://project-stela.eu/ or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/stelaproject2020
On behalf of the STELA partners of the UK, France, Lithuania, Turkey, Spain and Italy
