Herbert Puchta

Herbert Puchta is an award-winning author and teacher trainer. He has been a plenary speaker at numerous international conferences and has conducted workshops and given seminars in more than 50 countries. For almost three decades, he has carried out research into the practical application of findings from cognitive psychology to English Language Teaching. Herbert has developed and co-authored a number of bestselling coursebooks, and written numerous articles and resource books. Herbert was president of IATEFL, the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.

Root and Branch
Helping learners make stories their own

Stories help us make sense of the world and of our own experiences. In language teaching, however, learners are often limited to simply listening to or retelling stories rather than interacting with them creatively and personally.

In this plenary, Herbert Puchta explores how story-based language teaching can help learners engage emotionally, think imaginatively and develop genuine ownership of language. Drawing on principles and classroom practices from Story-based Language Teaching, he will show how learners can move beyond passive reception by predicting, reacting, reshaping stories and retelling them from different perspectives. The session will demonstrate how stories can become powerful vehicles not only for language learning, but also for creativity, personal expression and meaningful communication.