2.1. The Origins of Kamishibai

Kamishibai, a Japanese term that means “paper theater”, is a millenary art form (initially with scrolls) used to tell stories. The practice allegedly originated in the ancient Buddhist temples of the 8th century, its main objective being reporting events to illiterate audiences, but with an eminently moralistic intention (^{Nash, 2009}).

Although the early days of the kamishibai may be unknown¹, we can find references in journals to this art form around the 1930s as a street theater (gaitô²) practiced in neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Tokyo - Shitamachi (^{Nash, 2009}). Apparently, the kamishibai finds its genesis in the etoki (pictographic explanation)³ or the art of interpreting images, references to which can be found in emaki (painted roll) manuscripts of the 12th century, namely in the famous Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga, a set of four paintings exhibited in a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, authored by a Buddhist monk - Toba Sōjō (1053-1140).

The emaki or emakimono is a silk or paper illustration, arranged in rolls (makimono), dating back to the 8th century (Nara period), depicting, among other things, stories with fantastic animals (with human forms), great battles or novels.

Kamishibai as manga/mangaka⁴ became particularly appreciated during the Japanese 1929 crisis and World War II. At this time, there was an explosion of kamishibaiya (outdoor storytellers) in Tokyo (about 2,500), who performed every day (several times) to an audience of several dozen children and were estimated to have involved about 1,000,000 people (^{McGowan, 2015}).

That was one of the most fruitful and exciting eras in the history of the kamishibai in Japan, designated as the “golden age” of kamishibai (^{Orbaugh, 2015}, p. 58). A strong publishing industry flourished around comics and, on its margins, driven by the search for cheap entertainment, there was also a great boom in kamishibaiya.

The gaitô kamishibaiya (itinerant storyteller) would stop their bicycles at familiar street corners and bang their hiyogoshis (pieces of wood) to announce their presence, thus starting the show, somewhat reminiscent of Molière’s famous blows hit on the floor of the stage with a stick.

When the children gathered around, they would sell them sweets in return for admission to the show, which was their main source of income. The kamishibaiya used a butai, a small wooden stage, where they slid, one by one, as the story unfolded, the illustrated cardboard story cards (^{Moriki & Franca, 2017}). The stories would always start with mukashi mukashi, meaning “once upon a time...”, thus dramatizing the stories with great talent, using hand-painted coloured cards while producing sound effects that gave life and colour to their unscripted narratives - creating an atmosphere of suspense around them.

The kamishibai is a narrative technique that “combines text and image, theatricality and creativity” (^{Faneca, 2019}, p. 361) and that stimulated Japanese society for decades, thus becoming a powerful and captivating way to illustrate stories⁵.

Although the ancient art form of kamishibai has faded over time, its meaning and contribution allowed it to endure to the present day successfully⁶.

2.2. The Kamishibai As an Educational Tool

The features of the kamishibai enable it, to this day, to be used in modern multimedia presentations for the most varied purposes (for example, in audits, engineering, and production management); however, what makes the kamishibai especially useful for storytelling is its unique format. Large cards with colourful illustrations give the storyteller the opportunity to offer narratives with a strong visual component to the audience.

“The school of the future will perhaps not be a school as we understand it today with seats, blackboards, and stage for teachers - it can be a theatre, a library, a museum, or a conversation” (^{Tolstoi, 1850/1988}, p. 140). The providential tone of this statement, written more than 1 century ago, has now become a reality. Today, we find an increasing receptivity towards these ideas, with more means and resources dedicated to educating young people and children (^{International Kamishibai Association of Japan, 2019}). One of those processes is precisely the theatre (^{Eisner, 1979}).

The dramatic expression as a teaching tool is not something new. Historically, it has long been recognized as a medium with great potential for education and teaching (^{Courtney, 2003}). In fact, only at the end of the 20th century was it possible to glimpse the real impact of this notion on public education. For many, it was questionable whether theatre and dance were an integral part of a young person’s education (^{Spolin, 1978/2005}) as indeed music, sports, and the visual arts.

Thus, this paper aims to show that the school has an essential role in promoting attitudes and values that form the basis of students’ civic education - as a counterpoint to prejudice and discrimination (^{Martins et al., 2017}).

2.3. The Plurilingual Kamishibai

Plurilingual kamishibai can be seen as an evolution of the traditional kamishibai when its pedagogical potential in linguistic and cultural terms is acknowledged.

In 1930, Imai Yone (1897-1968), a Japanese Christian missionary, developed a religious kamishibai that she used to teach the catechism to the children of her parish. She had noticed children’s interest in traditional kamishibai stories and started adapting some biblical narratives to this resource (^{McGowan, 2015}).

Impressed by Imai Yone’s success, Gozan Takahashi (1888-1965), a publisher of children’s magazines, created Zenkōsha, introducing the educational kamishibai. The publisher started publishing kamishibai stories based on Buddhist plays and Disney movies, for which he used different methods of illustration (^{Moriki & Franca, 2017}). Imai Yone’s technique, used for educational purposes, inspired several authors, including Matsunaga Ken’ya (1907-1996), who would go on to create “the type of interactive kamishibai that allows and fosters public participation” (^{Carreño, 2012}, p. 5). In 1938, Gozan Takahashi also founded the Japanese Educational Kamishibai Federation to promote Japanese culture (^{Lucas, 2009}). Since then, the kamishibai has often been used in public education institutions and libraries to stimulate teaching and learning and preserve the country’s cultural heritage. From the 1970s onwards, it also became widely used as a didactic resource in Europe (^{Jiménez, 2005}).

In 2015, the D’une Langue à L’Autre Association (From one Language to Another; based in Montreuil, France; https://www.dulala.fr/) held the first edition of a plurilingual competition for collaborative writing and illustration of cardboard cards, that is, the construction of a plurilingual kamishibai (^{Pedley & Stevanato, 2018}).

The versatility of the kamishibai form promotes communication and cooperation between children, from its creation to the moment of its presentation (^{Faneca, 2021}). In this sense, it also enables various approaches, including linguistic and cultural activities, namely the integration of linguistic and cultural diversity. Thus, the kamishibai can be used to stimulate the personal and social development of children and support work across subject content areas and children’s creative expressions. Consequently, developing these competences through the plurilingual kamishibai enables children to improve their intercultural communication and interaction.

Due to its educational potential and its multimodal characteristics, the plurilingual kamishibai in a school context can promote the valorisation of the others, their languages and traditions, and the development of literacies. Among the tools for teaching languages and learning to read and write through storytelling in kindergartens, the kamishibai occupies a special place. (^{Faneca, 2020}, p. 225)

The stories of the plurilingual kamishibai should integrate at least four languages, seeking to mirror the reality (diversity) of the languages spoken by students while still safeguarding, as far as possible, the general understanding of the narrative.

Creating a kamishibai using multiple languages leads to a reflection concerning the languages used in the school. It is also a great way to enable the learning of other languages used by children, families, or teachers within the school.

In the plurilingual kamishibai, the languages also contribute to the construction and development of the story. The challenge is to design a coherent narrative using a set of languages that will appear during the telling.

Thus, the plurilingual kamishibai emerged, gaining a plurilingual and intercultural dimension focusing on plural approaches (^{Candelier et al., 2010}). That means that the plurilingual kamishibai incorporates the characteristics of a traditional kamishibai while adding various languages and cultural aspects to the narrative and illustration.

2.4. Drama and Theatre

Drama and theatre can come together with mutual advantages to find appropriate solutions to conflict resolution. Recently, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (^{Comissão Nacional da UNESCO, 2006}; ^{Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura, 2000a}) advocated teaching and learn ing of visual and scenic arts as part of the construction of a culture of peace while also emphasizing the need to consider new types of education - more balanced, which meet the requirements and needs of the 21st century. These are, notably:

Creative drama, such as kamishibai, is deemed a powerful educational resource to improve children’s communicative and cognitive skills (^{Barret, 1993}). It aids children to develop their critical skills, creativity, communication as well as their writing and speaking skills.

Creative drama fosters students’ imagination and desire to learn, whether in (serious) action or in (play) acting, to reinforce their emotional, interpersonal, and educational objectives. Indeed, creative drama shows students how to be appreciated and to understand the needs of others, which will enable them to make value judgments and develop a critical attitude.

4.1. Methodology

This study may be characterized as an exploratory qualitative investigation of the pedagogical and didactic aspects of the plurilingual kamishibai in terms of the awareness/creation of IC in elementary school children aged between 6 and 9 years old (^{Lei n.º 85/2009, 2009}).

To outline the object of study and the research plan, its analytical purposes, and the corresponding methodological strategy, we draw on the techniques recommended by ^{Coutinho (2013}).

The choice for the qualitative research paradigm was based on the dynamics of contemporary society and the fact that such a paradigm provides greater flexibility and reflexivity throughout the research work, that is, it allows authors to highlight the descriptive, interpretative, and comprehensive character of social reality and to reflect on the issue of cultural diversity and interculturality within the field of education. Thus, follow ing a qualitative methodology supports better structuring of the research effort and the treatment and analysis of the collected data.

The merits of teaching/learning IC in school using the plurilingual kamishibai offer a pragmatic background - simple, clear, and concise - thereby enabling a critical reading of reality. It establishes the causal link between the object of study and the knowledge and its theoretical conceptions, intending to provide an objective explanation that facilitates the entire process, thus creating the epistemological basis for elaborating the theoretical and empirical corpus of the study.

This study seeks to answer the following questions:

To this end, seeking to verify the plurilingual kamishibai’s potential for the development of intercultural competences in an informal educational setting, the following elements were analysed:

4.2. Project Stages

The project was divided into four stages involving: literature review and design of data collection instruments, collecting and organizing data, interpreting data and analysing information, and writing the final report with recommendations.

The results presented here are part of a broader research project intended to emphasize the importance of the kamishibai in stimulating in students the necessary mental structures for the acceptance of difference and plurality and integrating them into the daily life of schools, thereby contributing to suitable intercultural communication and the creation of a sense of common belonging.

5.1. Survey

5.2. The Cultural Reality

The survey also included questions looking at participants’ cultural realities. These aimed to understand the contribution and implications that intercultural education can have on students’ personal and social development by verifying and identifying the traits of the school community regarding the cultural processes to which children are subjected. With this in mind, we highlight the following:

5.3. Familiarity With the Plurilingual Kamishibai

In this group of questions related to the knowledge and experience with the kamishibai, the answers are unequivocal. They emphasize their appreciation for this resource and their willingness to work on constructing and arranging a story. That may be due to their previous experiences and participation in the plurilingual kamishibai contest, promoted by the Laboratory of Language Education of the University of Aveiro as part of the Plurieduca project (analysis and construction of plurilingual competence - didactic paths for language education). This annual contest aims to encourage children aged 3 to 15 to develop a story using the kamishibai format, integrating four different languages into the narrative, including the school language. It is an occasion to incorporate multiple cultural aspects, usually ignored in the school setting.

We believe that, despite the socio-economic status of families and the privileged environment of the school, actions should be implemented to blur some of the figures presented, namely those that relate to a better understanding of difference and cultural diversity. In this case, we take advantage of the means provided by the plurilingual kamishibai, namely the promotion of intercultural competences in students and their emotional, social, and cognitive development, thus giving them greater self-confidence, imagination, empathy, cooperation/collaboration, concentration, and communication skills, among others.

The kamishibai has a pedagogical potential that can be applied to multiple situations, successfully mobilizing students’ thinking schemes for the learning process⁸. At the same time, as children get involved in theatrical and artistic activities, this promotes the acquisition of other types of knowledge and competences, according to several authors (^{Boal, 2005}; ^{Spolin, 1978/2005}; ^{Vygotsky, 1991/2014}).

The answers to the survey show that the students’ involvement in the design, construction, and installation of the stories in a kamishibai format and the respective cards, takes them into a world of fun - humour, irony, and entertainment. The questions and answers regarding the stories, discussions, comparisons, and the creation of their own narratives and characters show that, in addition to enhancing orality and writing, partici pation in the kamishibai activity fosters the creation of the necessary mental structures for accepting difference and plurality, and their integration into the daily school life, thus contributing to good intercultural mediation.

6.1. The Plurilingual Kamishibai: A Stimulus to Cooperation

As has been shown, a kamishibai story fosters collaborative work among children from creation to execution since it engages them in:

The following steps were taken to answer the research questions and understand how the activities around the kamishibai can raise students’ awareness of linguistic diversity and cultural issues, involving 62 children aged 6 to 9 years old, within the scope of curricular enrichment activities:

This contest was under the theme “the world is changing faster than we had imagined”, and its main objective was to encourage educational actors to develop projects open to linguistic and cultural diversity through the creation of plurilingual kamishibai cards, thus contributing to the development of intercultural education (^{Faneca, 2020}). The four kamishibai produced for the contest were:

During the elaboration of the projects - from design to production - several steps were followed: coming up with a story (subject, title, development, choosing the characters, etc.); ideas regarding the illustrations; and choosing the keywords for the story and the languages used (when possible and depending on the subject chosen). That allows us to regard the plurilingual kamishibai as a pedagogical resource that has the power to develop intercultural values/attitudes/competences. These refer not only to the collaborative aspects of the design and creation process of the kamishibai but also to the reading and dramatization of the topics addressed. The public presentation of the work also confirms initial assumptions that highlight the advantages of (successfully) exploiting dramatic activities to address multicultural issues in a school context.

6.2. Representations of the Teachers/Animators

The teachers/animators’ representations in the logbooks (identified by “LB” and by a respective number) are associated with the four kamishibai competing in the 2020/21 plurilingual kamishibai contest. Their analysis shows that the participation in this project was initially motivated:

by the willingness to develop a project that involved linguistic and cultural diversity, but above all because it involved the newly arrived children who spoke other languages, thus promoting all languages in use, the respect for differences, sharing, and cooperation in the project’s co-creation. (LB4)

Perhaps the main question expressed in the text is what this project can bring that is new and challenging to the group of children. The fact is that “we are increasingly citizens of the world, and there is a need to expand our knowledge of it, embracing differences” (LB1). Also,

for the adults in the group, it was a very rewarding challenge, not only to witness the joy of children participating and their evolution but also to witness how beneficial it is for them and their development. This work also takes a different perspective on how languages can be approached and explored and the development and acquisition of captivating and facilitating strategies and tools to make activities more dynamic. (LB3)

It is certainly an “opportunity to involve all children and welcome their proposals, sparking their curiosity for the world’s many different languages and cultures. In addition to being a captivating and creative experience, it promotes interest in reading” (LB1).

Thus, according to the results obtained, we can highlight the importance of this didactic tool in promoting an attitude of solidarity, open-mindedness, acceptance, enrichment, and learning towards diversity and fostering a sense of hospitality, recognition, cooperation, and dialogue. Such characteristics enable the development of transversal competences in the curriculum that are essential to the learning process, not only at the school level but also at the social level (^{Pedley & Stevanato, 2018}).