The Harristown Multilingual Project was a series of drama and dance workshops, with media and visual art components with a group of culturally diverse students of the Harristown State High School Intensive English Centre. Workshops were run by professional artists from Toowoomba’s Empire Theatre Youth Arts.
The arts activities focused on drawing out the students’ experiences of coming to Australia. With English as their second language, the project sought to develop students’ confidence in allowing them to become part of their school and the broader local community.
The students were able to experience a different way of learning with the arts-led program and developed skills that can be used across the curriculum and into their lives outside the school environment.
A final performance night was arranged for the public to share in the stories and experiences of the culturally diverse students within the school.
Due to the success of the project and the relationships established, Harristown SHS will continue to engage with Empire Theatre on future projects.
July 2015 – April 2016
Harristown State High School - Toowoomba
$20,000 – Artist in Residence Fund
Harristown State High EALD Workshops 2015 // mini documentary from optikal bloc on Vimeo.
The project leaders identified the importance of relationships in the success of the project:
There was clearly a need for and a power derived from building relationships with the students so that they felt trust and a growing sense of confidence in themselves and their teachers.
Already having an established relationship with artists, Ari Palani and Jeanette Wedmaier, made collaborating on the project stress free. The students’ familiarity with Ari from previous work made this project an extension of what had already been established.
The artists involved in this project were very comfortable working with students whose first language is not English and quickly built relationships of trust with their groups of students.
Name: Felicity Radcliffe
Email: fradc1@eq.edu.au
A printable version (PDF) (2.98 MB) of this case study is also available.