Tag: eTwinning

Storytelling in a Multicultural Setting

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Gross, Diana, & Mancel, Corinne. (2026). Storytelling in a multicultural setting: intercultural collaboration between Austrian and French student teachers through eTwinning. Journal of Advanced Education Studies, 8(1).

International collaboration in teacher education plays an increasingly significant role in preparing future educators for culturally diverse classrooms. This article presents a collaborative project conducted between Austrian and French pre-service primary teachers, also called student teachers, who worked together to create multicultural picture-story versions using the digital platform eTwinning. The aim of the project was to initiate intercultural learning processes through collaborative digital storytelling while promoting teaching skills in the field of foreign language teaching. 25 students (12 from Austria, 13 from France) from Private University College of Teacher Education Augustinum (PPH Augustinum) in Graz (Austria) and Teacher Training Institut (INSPÉ) of University of Picardie Jules Verne in Laon (France) took part in their university courses. The student teachers worked together in binational groups and developed French versions of picture stories on the German literacy website Amira-lesen. The evaluation was conducted using a questionnaire and qualitative feedback from the students. The results show that the collaboration fostered intercultural awareness, collaborative competence, and reflection on cultural similarities and differences. Student teachers reported gaining new insights into communication across cultures, pedagogical creativity, and teamwork in multilingual environments. At the same time, the results highlight challenges, particularly regarding language barriers or different working styles. The experience demonstrates how storytelling and digital collaboration can serve as powerful pedagogical tools for intercultural teacher education and for personal development.

ICD in Fairytales, Drama, Art

Intercultural Dialogue through Fairytales, Drama and Art is a multi-partner project with 35 schools participating from all over Europe.  The participants collaborated in order to become familiar with the different cultures of each partner school’s home country through the use of fairy tales, drama and the arts…Schools involved in this project first created a PowerPoint presentation on their school which was posted on the TwinSpace. They served as a background so that students learned about each other before commencing work on the project itself.  Then, each school had to translate one national fairytale into English and then post this translated work on the TwinSpace for all partner schools to view.

Students from all schools read all of these translated stories in their English classes. Students of each institution then drew illustrations of their chosen national fairy tale in art class. Next, students from each participating school started performing one partners’ fairy tale in English. These performance are being recorded on DVD and sent to all partners to watch in English classes, and photos are being posted on the TwinSpace. Students can then watch each school’s performance recorded on DVD by each partners school.

All fairy tales from all European countries will be published in a book with students illustrations and share between partners and distribute to local community. Teachers and students were also able to communicate and further comment on all aspects of this project via the eTwinning Project Forum and on a Google Group.

For further information, see the etwinning site.