Make your own Museum Fairytale

Practical insights

What worked well:

• Online Adaptability: Online storytelling is also possible. Use digital museum tours or images of objects if in-person visits aren’t possible. E-catalogue of the exhibits can be also used, and participants can prepare tales in small groups in online rooms.
• Scaffold Language: Provide a word bank of useful vocabulary (e.g., adjectives, fairy tale phrases like ”Once upon a time…”).
• Encourage Creativity: Emphasize that there’s no wrong way to create a fairy tale - imagination is key!
• Extend the Activity: Have groups illustrate their stories, create collages or compile a ”museum fairy tale book.”

Common challenges and solutions:

• Complexity for Beginners: Focus on one object (e.g., a controversial or emotionally evocative artifact) to build the entire activity around emotions, perspectives, and cultural experiences. Focus on one object or legend and use visual aids, sentence starters, or collage techniques.
• Seasonality: Ensure the chosen tradition or legend aligns with the time of year. Align the activity with current holidays or cultural events for relevance.

Field reflections

The session in the Museum of Warsaw aimed to introduce learners to Polish legends (the Warsaw Mermaid and the Basilisk) and guide them in creating their own fairy tales using Propp’s narrative structure, inspired by the Museum’s exhibits. That should make the learners learn a lot of vocabulary, use imagination, create their own world of the story. However, the task proved too challenging for their Polish proficiency level. Instead, we focused on one legend - the Warsaw Mermaid. Learners practiced vocabulary related to her attributes and body parts, completed sentences like ”The mermaid has…” and ”The mermaid is…”, and engaged in description exercises tied to the museum’s exposition. By adapting the session, we discovered an effective way to teach grammar and vocabulary to beginners in a museum setting.

In Cluj, participants explored one of Romania’s most beloved magical Christmas and New Year’s Eve traditions through a multisensory experience: a video, a traditional song, and a museum artifact (the tradition’s main character), displayed specifically for the session. To adapt the activity for beginner-level Romanian learners, facilitators shifted from a narrative- focused approach to a collage technique. Learners used key words from the video and song to inspire their own magical fairy tales, crafting stories with old photos, paper, and textiles. The target language was used to discuss the tradition’s characters, symbolism, and customs, while the collage activity encouraged creativity and vocabulary practice. The session concluded with participants sharing their fairy tale collages, blending cultural exploration, language learning, and hands-on creativity.