E.
Key terminology
Briefing: A brief, cursory and introductory overview of a single topic. The purpose is to
introduce the audience to some basic concepts with respect to a given subject.
Seminar: An organized exchange of views, ideas and knowledge on a particular topic
or set of related topics. The purpose is to bring together various persons, usually
(relatively) equal in their degree of expertise, each of whom is to contribute to
an examination of the subject from his or her own professional, ideological,
academic or official position.
Workshop: A training exercise in which participants work together to study a particular
subject and, in the process, create a “product”, such as a declaration, joint
paper, plan of action, set of rules, written policy or code of conduct. The
purpose is thus twofold: learning and the development of a “product”.
Training course: An organized training exercise, designed to allow “trainers” to impart
knowledge and skills and to influence the attitudes of “trainees” or
“participants”. It may either be interactive (as in the OHCHR approach
described above) or follow a “teacher-student” lecture model, or it may be a
combination of both. Whichever model they follow, training courses are a
highly intensive method of learning.
F.
Adapting courses to challenging field conditions
43. OHCHR has conducted training under widely varying field conditions, in countries
across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe. Available facilities have
varied in terms of physical conditions, infrastructure and technology, such that one
course may have been conducted in a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled and
electronically equipped modern conference centre, another on the roof of a supply
building and still another in an open field.
44. Persons organizing training under the approach set out in this Trainer’s Guide must
therefore take into account the setting in which the training will be offered when
selecting appropriate methodology and materials, determining numbers of trainees and
drafting programmes. For example, the duration of sessions will be affected by
temperature and weather for outdoor courses, or courses where fans, heaters or other
climate-control devices are not available. Where temperature is a factor, the timing of
courses will also be affected. Similarly, flip charts and handouts must be used where
electricity is not available for overhead transparency or slide projection.
45. If interpretation is required, the lack of facilities for simultaneous interpretation
will necessitate the use of consecutive interpretation, which will cut the productive time
of course sessions by half. The lack of desks or tables will mean that more printed
materials will be required for distribution, as note-taking may be impractical. Finally, if
the training has to be conducted in the workplace of the target audience, owing to a
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