Southwark College recently hosted a successful Erasmus+ workshop that focused on storytelling as a powerful tool for teaching English as a second language. The STELA (Storytelling for Teaching English as a Second Language) project was a collaborative effort involving partners from Turkey, Spain, Lithuania, France, and Italy, all working together to advance English language education.
The workshop provided an excellent platform to showcase the outcomes of the project and innovative methodologies used to inspire and empower educators to integrate these findings into their teaching practices, creating a more engaging and rich learning environment for their students. The College's experienced ESOL teacher, Kinga Radwan, played a significant role in the project and presented our project results to all participants.
Following the presentation, Kinga conducted a workshop where participants engaged in group activities to practice the storytelling methods. This immersive learning approach facilitated valuable communication among teachers from various backgrounds. They were able to create a comic strip or storyboard and acted out their scenarios to the other participants. As part of the workshop, they discussed the benefits of storytelling and digital tools in their contexts. The teachers were particularly interested in the scenarios created by the STELA project and how they could apply them in their lessons with limited digital access.
Sabrina, a private tutor based in London, shared her experience of the workshop. She said: "I was pleasantly surprised with how the workshop was delivered. I was expecting it to be more of a lesson, but I was enthusiastic about it being a practical and collaborative session. I feel like I am bringing home a new way of teaching, where I can encourage students to use the language they know to create a story."
The next storytelling workshop will take place on:
Date: Friday 27th October 2023
Time: 11.00am - 12.00pm
Venue: Southwark College, 25 The Cut, Southwark, SE1 4UT
If you are interested in attending our next storytelling workshop, please visit https://www.tickettailor.com/events/lewishamcollege1/1041826.