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SHORT DESCRIPTION
Fairy tales have great significance for each country in a global scale. Those stories are part of each country’s cultural heritage and in many cases are world spread and well-known stories that parents narrate to their children. Apart from the classic fairy tales, there are also folktales that are shared to entertain, educate, and protect the culture in every society. Those stories can be used as good instruments for understanding and increasing the exchange between diverse cultures. Moreover, a podcast is a collection or series of digital audio files that are made available for downloading or listening via the Internet. Each individual audio recording is known as a podcast episode. Podcasts are typically hosted by an individual or individuals who lead a conversation, share stories, or report the news. Educational use of podcasts is on rise as they are a great resource of educational material that can be used at any educational level and context.
EDUCATIONAL GOALS
The activity aims at the creation of podcasts from the participants of national groups of students. The content will be representative of the uniqueness of the country of origin. The tales would be recorded in each group’s mother language and would be translated in simple English enabling students from other countries to understand the content. In that way a multilingual and multicultural database will be created, promoting cultural exchange and understanding between people from different parts of the world as fairy tales are part of global culture. Apart from that the activity promotes learner’s use of imagination enabling them to picture the story, active listening improves attention, accommodates all learning styles and promotes language learning.
OF PARTICIPANTS
There is no limit on the number of people who can participate in this activity.
AGE OF PARTICIPANTS
15+
TIME
This activity can be completed during a school year.
ATTACHMENTS
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TOOLS
A reliable recording program, internet access to upload the podcast on a platform (Spotify, Google Podcasts, You Tube etc.), a smartphone or a laptop for recording and a microphone.
STEPS
Step 1 – preparation
Students research to find a fairy tale or a folktale representative of their country’s culture. They could also select stories and then decide which they will record.
Step 2 execution
Using one of the proposed tools, they will then record the tale in their native language.
Step 3 execution
With the help of their instructor/teacher they will translate the tale in simple English so as the content to be accessible from everyone. (This step might be possible to have the form of automatic subtitles if You Tube is used)
Step 4 execution
A channel including the fairy tales from all the groups is created.
INFO CORNER
Teacher or educator may urge their students to further discussion after listening to a podcast. Those questions are useful to facilitate them to express themselves and relate what they have perceived with their own cultural references. For example, they may ask:
What feelings did these fairy tales convey?
Do you have any similar fairy tales in your country?
What perspectives of the world in these fairy tales were new to you?
USAGE
This activity applies to (b) and (c)
SOURCES
Download the PDF version of the digital method