The fairy tale seminar is part of the intercultural fairy tale festival. The goals of the seminar are manifold. First, fairy tale characters and motives from different countries shall be compared with one another. Second, the participants of the seminar shall be introduced to different methods of foreign language teaching and comparative phonology. Practical skills of playing puppets shall be imparted in this context (especially with regard to the phonetic way of speaking). Target group of the seminar: teachers for foreign languages and literature, primary school teachers and special education teachers, students of pedagogy and nursery teachers etc.

Contents of the seminar:

• History and relevance of fairy tales from Germany (fairy tales by Brothers Grimm), Czech Republic (Czech/Slavic) and Ireland (Irish-Celtic), an international comparison of certain fairy tale motives and characters
• Cultural commonalities and differences particularly with regard to language culture- verbal and non-verbal (rules of conduct: polite phrases etc.)
• A little vocabulary teaching (Czech, English, German) dealing with fairy tale themes like numbers
• Fairy tales and their effect on our psyche (symbols of numbers, effect of fairy tale symbols is international…
• Comparative phonology: German- English -Czech
• Methods of Foreign Language Learning (how can we overcome speech barriers, classification of „our“ methods)
• Special education (What kind of difficulties arises when visually and acoustically impaired people learn a foreign language? How can one solve these problems? …)
• Pedagogy of theatre and games (learning at stations, role plays, ...) in connection with foreign language learning
• Introduction to the puppet show, mainly practical, production of little dolls, 1 or 2 fairy tale characters for each country
• Multilingual improvisation of the puppet play

Possible priorities:

Students/ interested people get an introduction to the topic „Fairy tales and foreign languages”

• A short puppet play is shown (1. part), spectators get to know the fairy tale characters
• Various stations dealing with the puppet play (particular fairy tale as the frame). At the stations the particular themes and motives from the puppet play are picked up and dealt with. The participants pass through the various stations one after another.
• Continuation of the puppet play (2. part)
• Cultural supporting programme (Live-Music, folk dance, Puppet shows for everyone)
  

Example:

The frame fairy tale could be like this: A “hero“ travels through all three countries and gets into trouble as he wrongly pronounces or misuses words. In the stations the participants learn the right use and pronunciation, some vocabulary etc. In doing so, they can help and redeem “the hero“.

• The multilingual improvisation of the fairy tale, which was produced earlier in the seminar, is performed
• Further possible subjects of the festival:
• Cultural programme (songs, jugglery and lectures based on the topic of the festival)
• Country-specific stands, information panel about the country and its legends and fairy tales
• small language courses
• the puppet play and the stations (for families)
• Testing of the puppets, walking on stilts (also for children), “Flüstertüte” (wispering bag?), trying on the costumes
• magical food and drinks