Developing students’ dialogue skills and cultural literacy: Introducing the DIALLS project

DIALLS started as a three-year project funded by the European Commission.  Its goal was to support the development of children’s dialogue skills and cultural literacy, which we define as a ‘dialogic social practice’.  Tolerance, empathy and inclusion were placed at the heart of learning to live together, to be socially responsible and understand how we belong.  The Cultural Literacy Learning Programme "CLLP"  developed a 10-session programme using short films as a stimulus for discussions about cultural themes.  There are resources for KS1, KS2 and KS3.  In addition to a wonderful set of films, there are prompt cards to guide discussion and a clear progression for learning dialogue skills.  The short professional development films have been designed to focus your thinking on what cultural literacy means; how to encourage dialogue in the classroom; and how wordless films are a wonderful resource to use. Following the completion of the first project, a second project was