Kamila Bažíková,
Business Academy
Bratislava
"Since I have known eTwinning I have become different secondary teacher."
Eventually I learn that her new self-confidence also reflects in her good results in other classes. This amazing reach of eTwinning makes me so happy that I reward her with two one-on-one German lessons. Chocolate which I use to reward extraordinary achievements of my pupils is not worth to her as much as this personal tutoring. It means a lot for me too..........
As an ambassador I was touched by the persistence of a teacher who had a problem finding a suitable partner. After an extensive search she found a colleague with a good idea and similar amount of experience who, however, failed to respond. I was often in touch with her and this was the only issue she was always concerned about. “What should I do to have her reply back?” The time went on and she was disappointed, because her colleagues were starting to collaborate and she wanted to join them in their project, which was not possible. I felt sorry that despite her stamina she could not succeed. I shared all her enthusiasm as well as her disappointment but I had to insist on following the principles of eTwinning. Two days later I received a victorious email: “Yippee, the colleague replied. We are beginning our collaboration and I am very happy it has worked out.”
Teachers often receive help from active pupils, when trying to overcome initial difficulties. I once guided a colleague of mine through eTwinning and she quickly found a suitable partner, who was excited to welcome a new member. The project’s aim was a creation of an international magazine without a direct use of TwinSpace. The pupils immediately fell for this activity and having been very creative in the foreign language they quickly wrote several articles, which they wanted to place in the magazine. However, they were quite disappointed when the partner teacher fell out of touch, thus making publication of the articles impossible. The colleague informed that she was over with eTwinning. Perplexed I had to accept the situation, as there was nothing I could do. It was a day off for her, when the colleague sat down at home at her computer. She felt sorry for the pupils who had prepared presentations for the project and so she decided to try again. She accessed the portal and soon she spotted a school similar to ours and sent them an email. The other teacher must have been sitting at her computer, because a reply came immediately. Soon they agreed on the theme of their project. Even the following day my colleague was still puzzled that she had been trying for 2 – 3 weeks without any success. Well, sometimes what you need is the “right moment” and tireless effort of your pupils to start a good project.
The eTwinning project goes on with other new pupils and a girl, for whom German is a problem. Every time I address her with a question I can see her frightened face and after two incoherent sentences she bursts into tears incapable of further communication. I recommend she see a psychologist. After some time I find out that the girl has a tremendous problem with self-confidence and with oral expression in general; she is afraid of the German language and her fear also results in a poor written expression, thus making her final grades very bad. She continues to be afraid and does not believe she can learn the language. I keep convincing her of the opposite; however, I do have some doubts about how it might turn out. We are starting a new eTwinning project and she offers to be an “ICT” person for our campaign in other schools. We entrust her with everything; all the classmates seek advice with her; she resolves all possible technical problems with ease. The campaign has been managed successfully; everyone is grateful to her; her classmates speak highly of her and she smiles. In our project-based classes she is fast to explore web tools; she helps me teach others and together we create the final project publication. I am very delighted, praising her very often. She lives eTwinning and has an opportunity to show her classmates what it is that she “stars” at and they acknowledge her skills, saying how skilful she is and how the project would not have been so successful without her. A great and positive surprise for me is that in regular classes I cannot detect any signs of fear or stage freight in her and she performs with confidence. She no longer needs a psychologist. Her results improve gradually showing a 25% improvement in her knowledge at the end of the school year.
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