I am an Italian teacher in Pannonhalmi Bencés Gimnázium and I participated in the Erasmus project of the school, and went for a mobility, because I am used to teach through drama games and, since I am fascinated by this approach, I want to know more and more about it. I took the course Literature and Drama for language teaching with David Farmer and Alan Pulverness at NILE (Norwich).

For our staying, we could choose between a host family and a dormitory in the university college. I personally preferred to be in the host family, and had the chance to speak more and share, also, personal experiences which, I think, is always very nice and meaningful.

It was a two weeks course (13 th- 24 th August), split mainly in two main subjects: David Farmer was teaching us drama games and a bit of drama process; Alan Pulverness was more focused in literature and how to combine it with drama. NILE organised some extra programs, like a dance and a quiz night, a tour around the city, and they booked for us tickets whether to go to Cambridge or to the East Coast.

The course was very inspiring for me, we have got new ideas and developed our skills: I improved my English knowledge, of course, and, about job-related skills, I learnt new games, understood how to use screenplays and dramatize literature, or how to involve culture in my teaching. For example, at the very end of my experience we were asked to plan a class in groups according to our interests, in order to apply our new knowledge, which I think was very useful, by the way, since we had the chance to put it in practise. During this experience, we decided to explore the potatoes famine in Ireland. It was very interesting how drama activities could combine listening, vocabulary, sense of initiative, social skills and also cultural issues.

During my experience I had the chance to get to know people, to deepen my knowledge about many things and I had a lot of fun playing drama games myself (which is the best way to test them). I collected a lot of material and hope to have the chance to try it out.

I don´t have words enough to thank all the people who made it happen, and I want to reccomend this experience, because I think with drama you get the chance to go back to your childhood (or to the youth) in such a spontaneous way, have a lot of fun and, this way, you get closer and closer to your students´ needs.

ERASMUS+2018 website of the sending institution:

http://erasmus18.simplesite.com/440262219