Teacher-training workshops – teenage and adult learners

A typical workshop structure

  • Short ice-breaking – partner work 60-seconds non-stop talking (a fluency activity for secondary school)
  • Death and the Gardener – listening to a short story, leading to partner work in a structured re-telling of the tale
  • Free Melons – listening to a Nasruddin tale – analysing paralanguage – short whole group discussion
  • Participants are divided into two groups, each group receiving a skeleton of a different story. In small groups participants prepare a telling of their story, focusing on paralanguage
  • All participants are assembled and re-allocated with a partner who has prepared the other story
  • Participants disperse to tell their tale and listen to their partner’s.
    They offer immediate feedback (Glows and Grows – i.e. what was good, what can be improved)
  • Short whole group discussion on the experience of telling

Methodology

Further general information

More about workshop objectives, options, logistical requirements, etc.: 

Teacher-training workshops

Current workshop schedule

Details of previous workshops in Germany, Italy, England, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and the USA

Workshop feedback: read what participants and organisers say

Downloadable workshop details in Chinese (2-page pdf)

Go here for tales to watch

Go here for a list of all tales included on this site

Go here to receive an e-mail notification when new tales are added

Permission to tell outlines my views on copyright

For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling