International Cooperation Office

2^nd edition of Storytelling Workshops in UAS in Nysa

From 13 to 17 June 2016 International Cooperation Office and Institute of Modern Languages of the University of Applied Sciences in Nysa organized Storytelling workshops for the second time. The workshops were conducted again by Dr. Alastair K Daniel and Ms. Julie Wharton from the University of Winchester.

The main aim to organize this event was to continue learning the contents that our students and local schools' teachers learnt about in the previous year, including using the art of storytelling as an effective teaching method, which can be very useful especially in primary schools.

During the workshops students and teachers came to know about innovative methods of telling various stories, as well as how to gain interest of children and other listeners and make them actively participate in the lesson. Just like the last year, also this time the workshops were conducted in English by Dr. Alastair K Daniel - author of the book "Storytelling across the primary curriculum", senior lecturer in education, math and drama teacher with years of didactic experience; and by Ms. Julie Wharton - academic teacher with the specialiosation in drama, teaching of disabled children and practical teaching of spoken language (University of Winchester Students Award For the Most Inspiring Teacher 2015).

In the programme of this year's edition were workshops for English and Business students of UAS in Nysa, which were conducted at the stage of Nysa Community Centre (Nyski Dom Kultury). Our guests also visited the Primary School no 1 and Special School and Educational Institution in Nysa where they could participate in English language lessons, discuss teaching methods with the teachers and conduct short Storytelling workshops for the children. As an additional attraction, they visited the new-opened recording studio in the Institute of Jazz and Popular Music, where they participated in the recording of the drama "Relentless against all the odds", based on the biography of blessed Maria Luiza Merkert, in the script of Krystyna Wroniewicz. The last activity were workshops for English language teachers from local schools.

The Storytelling workshops at the University of Applied Sciences in Nysa once again became an interesting and great time for both our guest and the participants. We hope that the knowledge and experience gained during the workshops will be useful in the future for all the participants.