Student Teacher Workshop: American English Presentations

On February 12, 2025, DAIS organized a training workshop in the DAIS Workshop Space for eight English teachers working across Saxony. The event began with a short overview of DAIS’ history and current work by DAIS Director Eric Fraunholz. After this, the English-speaking portion of the programming began, led by DAIS Educational Programming Consultant Heather Pruessing. She explained her exercise, which was to give a spontaneous presentation on a topic of the presenter’s choosing, and then gave her own presentation as an example. She demonstrated the importance of soliciting questions from the audience and highlighted American English presentation-related vocabulary, such as expressing gratitude for audience engagement. Then, the teachers split into small groups to brainstorm their own topics and present. Program Assistant Ludwig Große and CBYX intern Will Tandy participated informally, asking questions after each short presentation to simulate the classroom environment. After a short break, GASOP Fellow MacKenzie Nelson presented the Ask an American program and modeled a typical session for the attendees. Her presentation was enhanced by her experience as a Fulbright ETA the previous year.