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