Inspired by
Learners
for Learners
Our Story
Before AEL project was established in Spring 2006, a pilot project was set up for my own pupils in 1998, rooted into my understanding of Steiner education and inspired by my experience as class teacher in Waldorf/Steiner schools in Milan.
Two purposes have been at the core of Active English Learning from its beginning: educational and charitable.
The educational purpose was to provide my teenager pupils a full-immersion language experience in the country where English is the live means of communications as well as to nourish their personal development, self-confidence being one of the top priorities at that time.
A “hands-on” activity-based programme was designed to help participants improve primarily their spoken English language through drama, arts, crafts, games, excursions and social/cultural events. Drama has always been the most relevant activity for its bond to verbal and non-verbal languages.
Over the years AEL has changed various locations, activity programmes and teachers, but its essence is still based on three principles: learning by doing, with joy, from real life.
Educational Benefits in learning with AEL
We aim to help our students improve their ability to understand and communicate in English, to feed their personal development and to rise their social awareness.
Cognitive achievements are fundamental for a complete personal development, so we take care that each students achieves good learning outcomes, respecting their personal pace of learning and learning strategies
Any successful achievement may feed self-confidence and self-esteem that are relevant factors of further learning and personal development
Activating creativity and firing imagination are amid the effects of our holistic approach, that takes into account mind, soul and body a each learner
We envisage our students to work together and learn from one another as well as from teachers during all creative projects and English lessons
Living in a new context -out of our usual comfort zone- encourages everyone to take the responsibility of doing what is good and appropriate in a certain situation for themselves or for others.
In all we do, we aim to sharpen social awareness, that is taking care of one another, being sensible towards those who need, understanding what I can do for the others and what they may offer to me.
See our ways to learning
Learning by doing
You will discover that in AEL arts, crafts, drama and all creative and outdoor activities are learning opportunities as you will indeed learn from "English in Action"!
Learning with joy
You will enjoy learning in a safe, friendly environment where teachers are on your side to facilitate and encourage community building and cooperative learning
Learning from life
School is one of the places where we learn: life is a much wider field of learning! During your stay in AEL you will be offered plenty of opportunities to learn from real life!
Drama, a powerful educational tool
Drama is included in almost all our programmes as we believe that drama classes may provide several benefits in language, social and personal development. If you want to add your contribution to the use of drama in teaching and education, please feel free to contact us and share your ideas or experiences. Here below is a short summary of drama educational benefits that may continue to live long after the summer school.
All drama exercises encourage students to creatively act and speak in front of others, helping them grow self-confidence and self-esteem, two qualities that will continue to grow long after the summer school if they continue to be appropriately nourished
Drama is a powerful creative activity that requires teamwork and collaboration. No performance can be performed without a condition of positive cooperation between several people and various skills. Even out of a performance, drama exercises always require a certain degree of working together.
Acting and practising drama exercises help develop verbal and non-verbal communications as wells fluency of speech, pronunciation and voice projection
While acting or role-playing, students learn to speak in turn at the appropriate time, to listen to the other character, to articulate well what they say and add accents and expressions to their role
Through drama practice and acting students focus their mind, gestures and voice to impersonate their character and to interact with others: exercises will help them develop the ability to improve concentration and memory
In drama classes students are invited to play different characters and interact with other characters. This makes them capable to understand their own role and also the others. Doing so, they learn to understand others and their perspectives without judging
In all we do, we aim to sharpen social awareness, that is taking care of one another, being sensible towards those who need, understanding what I can do for the others and what they may offer to me.
In drama classes students bring to life a character or a scenario when they add emotions, gestures, movements to their words while interacting with others. This will help every individual to explore who they are and become friends while interacting with others
