3/22/2012

First Transnational Dialogue Workshop


17th of December presented me a gift this year too. My first dialogue facilitation took place in Ankara with Peter Seier, how difficult it is to define him; a close friend whom at the same time so easy to work together and entertains you with many special personal properties, a musician, a fantastic story teller where you feel like you've been one of the characters. And ... I had the chance to have my first workshop with this intelligent man :)

Another speciality of this workshop was that we had Heidemarie Wünsche Pietzka, developer of DIA-FCC project and one of the trainer of the project, as the evaluator of our workshop. I am thankful to her not only for providing trainings at the Training of Trainers but also the support she gave during the workshop. After the workshop we had 2 hours reflection upon our training.



This workshop has been the first transnational dialogue workshop organised by YIMEM & Strategy Transnational and it has been run by the trainees Peter Seier from Strategy Transnational, Germany and Ferda Selem Adıgüzel from YIMEM, Turkey. It took place in Ankara, Turkey on 17th of December 2011 and lasted approximately 7 hours including breaks and lunch. Attendants were Turkish, teachers and women from work life who were speaking fluent English. The workshop language was English and it consisted 2 parts. In the first part before lunch, DUO’s, the evaluator, Heidemarie Wünsche Pietzka, and participants introduced themselves and the dialogue methodology has been introduced by us . A clear distinction between “discussion” and “dialogue” has been drawn. Core features of dialogue®, the implementation method of dialogue and didactical centre have been introduced to the participants with several teaching methods.
At the second part, the room has been settled with a didactic centre proper to dialogue session. The subject of the round was interculturalism and what interculturalism meant to us. Before introduction of the subject general rules have been repeated. The attendants were very communicative so it started a bit fast without leaving any space to thinking. To slow down we rang the singing bowl to serve as a reminder to slow down. Dialogue session would have been more challenging if the attendants spoke in their language. In general the atmosphere of the round was easy going without any problems.
After the dialogue session reflexion part took place. At this part we had the access to the inner world of participants and how dialogue touched their feelings. They stated that dialogue is much better way of communication since it depends highly on listening deeply and slowing down. According to the participants the main problem arises from not listening deep enough and rush in communication. They also stated that they can use the methodology in their daily lives such as in family and work environment.


® To make core features more understandable we drew an analogy such that;
We thought “dialogue” as a table with 4 legs and named the legs as Perception, Building a new perspective, Listening and Talking. We especially stated that features form a whole, one may belong to another classification as well. Classified features looked as follows:
Perception
-          Slow down
-          Embrace the paradox of differences
-          Suspending assumptions and certainty
Building a new perspective
-          Create a “container”
-          Radical respect
-          Adopt the stance of a learner
-          Practice a spirit of inquiry
Listening
-          Listening deeply
-          Observe the observer
Talking
-          Openness
-     Speak from the heart

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