Marianna Iľkovičová,
Secondary School of P.P.
Gojdič Prešov
In June 2013 I unexpectedly attended an eTwinning seminar in Vienna as a substitute. I teach mathematics and my biggest fear was my poor knowledge of English. Due to the humane approach of other participants and a bit of courage I succeeded in fulfilling one of the main aims of the event, finding a foreign partner for our school. These meetings present a unique opportunity to find partners and discuss the basic frame of cooperation. Since September 2013 we have been implementing a project entitled “Sun is life” involving several teachers of different subjects (biology, physics, math, Spanish) at our school. Communication with partners was in a foreign language, which made me realize the importance of knowledge of foreign languages. Also thanks to eTwinning I started to devote myself more intensively to improving my English language skills, which I have been successfully doing until today. Encouraged by this mobility I and two colleagues of mine attended a two-week English course in Canterburry during this year’s summer break. (Very nice experience; need to try for yourself).
Participant of an international eTwinning seminar in Vienna, 2013
eTwinning helped me communicate with colleagues abroad, which is a way for me to get my pupils more intensively involved into various activities. In the last school year I and my pupils participated in an international action “Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth's Circumference”. The measurement stems from the fact that a shadow, which is casted by a one metre long stick at high noon, can be used to calculate distances between any two places on Earth and consequently find the radius of the Earth. There were some 8 year olds from our school’s math club who participated in the action and who through this measurement learned how to tell cardinal directions at high noon. Students of the Secondary school managed to determine cardinal directions and GPS coordinates of a place using a tablet application, which also helped us assess the measurement uncertainty. We found the exact time of high noon on the internet. This was just one of our many activities. Below are some more examples:
• In physics class – Nuclear fusion themed videoconference (the main speaker was Dr. Schmidt from CERN science research centre (Atlas Experiment)),
• In biology class – observing the effects of different amounts of light on the growth of violets,
• In Spanish class – influence of the Sun on the behaviour of a young person.
Pupils in general very much enjoy participating in such practical activities. However, it is a shame that such activities cannot be carried out in regular teaching process, or at least not without much strain. The main reason is the large number of pupils in a class. A solution to this is to incorporate project-based teaching as a subject in the school curriculum, which would allow pupils sharing a desire to explore the world to work in groups of 6 to 8 people.
In conclusion I would like to encourage other colleagues (not language teachers) not to be afraid of embarking on such activities. The initial stages are difficult, but once the initial feeling of frustration is overcome, the results come surprisingly soon.
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