The University Chaplaincy would like to invite you to be part of this year's Interfaith Tandem Learning programme. This is an opportunity for people of any faith or none, to meet regularly with a partner from another faith and learn more about their life, beliefs, customs and experience. It's a chance to ask the deep and difficult questions, and at the same time to think about your own faith or beliefs, and what part faith plays in your own life and assumptions.

There are three group meetings, and you will meet with your Tandem Learning partner six times (or more, if you wish!) to discuss subjects that you can choose from a list including religious identity, science and religion, gender issues, festivals and their meaning, and many others. In addition, you can choose to complete a journal and submit it, to earn credits towards the Sheffield Graduate Award.

For more information, just come along to the first meeting, or go to www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssd/chaplains/interfaithtandemlearning or e-mail chaplaincy@sheffield.ac.uk Each year, the University of Sheffield Chaplaincy Service hosts a programme of interfaith dialogue for staff and students. Students and staff with an interest in interfaith dialogue and questions of religious identity are welcome to participate.

'Interfaith Tandem Learning' is a has been developed by the Chaplaincy in conjunction with the Modern Languages Teaching Centre. It is a form of autonomous learning in which students and staff participate in structured conversations on a range of ethical and religious issues.

Participants are encouraged to increase their social and cultural awareness by engaging actively with questions of religious identity. Interfaith tandem learning takes place when participants of two different faith communities work together in order to learn about each other's faith and to explore their own self-understanding. The task is not simply to engage in abstract doctrinal debate but to understand religious identity in terms of personal reality and real experience.

Following the principle of reciprocity or mutual benefit, each participant has to benefit equally to their own satisfaction from working in tandem. The great thing is that you determine what you want to learn, and you can arrange to meet up whenever and wherever you want.

To get started, you need to download the 'Setting Objectives' form and answer some simple questions. You will then attend two introductory sessions to pair up with a tandem partner and to develop your listening skills. Task Sheets with topics for structured conversations are available from this website. If you want to gain credit as part of the Sheffield Graduate Award, you will also need to complete the Learner Diary. If you need any advice or support during the programme, the Chaplains are available to help.

These are some of the reflections of students who have participated in the past:

"To be honest when I first heard about it I was sceptical.... I thought it's never going to work. But I really enjoyed it. I thought it was completely different to any interfaith thing I have experienced before. It was good."

"I can ask the kind of questions I wouldn't be able to ask a priest or someone, because I would expect them to give me a textbook answer. But because it was another student and their experience of it, it was interesting to see how they actually put it into practice. Rather than what I was almost expecting to hear, I got a sense of their faith as a real experience."