Renaissance News Service – a project in a non-native language school
Project participant – Center Secondary School of Vilnius.
Creative agent – Mr Paulius Tamolė, actor.
Creative practitioner – Ms Gabija Vitkevičiūtė, communications specialist.
Coordinating teacher – Ms Violeta Lauciuvienė, Lithuanian language teacher.
Project participants – 22 tenth graders.
Field of study
The project was created to increase the self-esteem of non-native language speaking young people by employing methods of journalism, art criticism, communication, and by analysing multiculturalism in Vilnius during creatively integrated lessons.
Participating students had poor grades in history, Lithuanian, and ethics. Surveys revealed their low self-esteem. These young people did not think they, Lithuanian citizens, could change anything in their environment.
We aimed to “awaken” their curiosity by creating a TV show in Lithuanian. The project saw teachers of Lithuanian, Russian, history and ethics working together.
Project activities
A half-hour TV show about Renaissance in Vilnius – the project’s end result. It took one full day to film this TV show in the Center Secondary School of Vilnius. For this to be possible in a school with instruction in Russian, communications specialist Gabija Vitkevičiūtė and actor Paulius Tamolė first had to organise a number of preparatory creative activities.
Vilnius city tour. Project activities aimed to reveal the multicultural history of Vilnius to teenagers. A Lithuanian guide gave participants a tour of town. The city’s history, which became “closer” after it, revealed interesting points of the students’ hometown, as well as the city’s multicultural environment and the fact that multiple nationalities and religions co-existed here for centuries.
A visit to a newsroom. The students organised a press conference, visited the editorial office of a popular online news portal, talked to editors. During their stay, students had the chance to hear a different manner of spoken Lithuanian than the one they hear in school, developed their spoken language comprehension, prepared and asked questions in Lithuanian.
A business woman of Russian background was invited to the school, and talked to students in Lithuanian about being Russian in Lithuania: how she feels, how she learned Lithuanian, and how the development of her business is going.
Gathering historical information. Tenth graders gathered historical information and learned to adapt it to and present it in news. Students had to re-enact some historical events and dialogues. Participating tenth graders needed to read a great deal of texts and learn to select them.
Though the majority of the project’s creative activities had to do with the Lithuanian language, in preparation for the filming of the TV show lessons in three subjects – Lithuanian, history, and ethics – were integrated.
Getting acquainted with the etiquette and traditions of the Renaissance. The ethics teacher gave participating tenth graders an insight into the etiquette and traditions of the Renaissance. Integrated Lithuanian and history lessons were held to discuss material about the Renaissance that was gathered by students and teachers.
Students learned to prepare information for selected news sections (Current Issues, Fashion, Weather, etc.), learned to present news, write a classic message and complement it with interesting historical facts.
Project impact
At the beginning of the project, the participating class, 10a, was divided into groups with very little communication between them. After having prepared the “Renaissance News Service” TV show together, the teenagers became a friendly team: they sat at one table at lunchtime, created a social media profile.
This project was a method of teaching Lithuanian to non-native speakers. When learning a language, all activities – speaking, listening, reading, writing – are equally important, and all of them have been used in an interesting way to encourage student participation. The result: project participants are now far more comfortable with communicating in Lithuanian.
Project reflections
“The project allowed students of this class to feel at home in their city. By gathering historical material, writing news, they’ve “tamed” the history of Vilnius. They now want to participate everywhere.” Coordinating teacher Violeta Lauciuvienė.
“All trips and guest visits were organised with a specific aim in mind – we chose them as teaching methods. These activities helped develop all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.” Coordinating teacher Violeta Lauciuvienė.
