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
- Mr Fox – a hot seat activity
- Old Woman and her Pig – last line race as fluency exercise

Further general information
More about workshop objectives, options, logistical requirements, etc.:
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