Laboratory of Language and Culture
The Laboratory of Language and Culture of the Pedagogical Department of Preschool Education of the University of Thessaly was founded in 1999 by the Emeritus Professor B.D. Anagnostopoulos (Government Gazette 146/14-6-1999) and serves educational and research needs in the objects of study and research in the fields of general and children's literature, narratology, fairy tale, and art-folk speech. The Laboratory from 2009 to 2019, a period with M. Papadopoulou as a scientific supervisor, operated informally with two directions (Language & Literacy Direction and Literature & Children's Book Direction). From January 2020 it returned to its original form, revoking the operation of the informal directions. Since 2019, the Director of the Laboratory is Professor Tasoula Tsilimeni.
Objectives:
• Recording of folk literature (fairy tales, riddles)
• Study of contemporary children's literature, folk literature, and narration
• Connection with folk storytellers
• Recording the evolution of storytelling in new ways in new environments
• Collection and study of popular children's toys, songs, fairy tales, etc.
• Establishment of a Museum of Children's Literature
• Organization of events for the book in general and in particular for the children's book and the
teaching of literature.
The Laboratory has a library with literary books, books of theory and criticism of literature, issues of the Journal “Diadromes (Routes) in the Field of Literature for Children and Youth”, “Synergasia” (Collaboration), “Delphini” (Dolphin), “Dentro” (Tree), etc. It also has many recordings of folk narrators on cassettes.
Since 2005 the Laboratory publishes the electronic Journal “KEIMENA” (TEXTS) (http://keimena.ece.uth.gr).
Activities of the Laboratory
• Design and development of programmes for the cultivation of children's literacy in formal and
non-formal learning environments
• Research on the methods of teaching children's literature in education
• Studies on the criticism of children's books and children's publications in general
• Design and development of programmes for the application of creative writing in education
• Design and pilot implementation of programmes to promote iconographic, literary, and critical
literacy
• Design and production of printed pedagogical material
• Recordings of popular narrative texts
• Research on intercultural dialogue through literary books
• Ergographic and biographical studies of Greek authors of children's literature
The activity of the Laboratory for the years 1999-2020 can be found on the website: http://elpol.ece.uth.gr/.
