Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter no. 5 - July 2015 | Page 95

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2015 Newsletter

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As expected, some did, some didn’t, some finished
their stories, others were struggling. It was time for
an intervention and an honest discussion on what
worked and what didn’t. The main problem was
getting everyone involved, invested, trusting
everyone to be their best. There was no room for
egos, they had to push everyone just as hard and
praise everyone the same.
It was time to get them out of their comfort zone,
so we changed teams. We put all the names in one
hat and did it the old fashioned way. The first
response was: “I don’t want to work with X, he/she
does nothing or he/she is good for nothing, barely
knows any English”. That stung since I thought all
my students were above that. But I explained that
there were simple tasks that could be assigned to
those whose level of English was low, tasks such as
translating the lists into Romanian, or illustrating
the story, keeping tabs on what the team members
do, documenting the work with photos. And then of
course, everyone has ideas, everyone is creative
and incredibly good at making up stories, so
brainstorming became part of their routine. Every
time they would present a story I would add more
questions to it and sometimes the new elements
they added to their story as a response to my
questions were absolutely stunning.
But how do you make this kid of a project work in
class? Well, first of all, you can’t do it during every
class, but once a week, for about 25-30 minutes
they could move the desks, take out their phones,
use my laptop, their tablets (just 2-3 but still
enough) and get creative, inventing a world of their
own. It was never quiet, dull, they were on their
chairs, on the floor, at the window, in the adjacent
room (our Comenius room) using the computer.
Sometimes, they would mingle and borrow gadgets
from another team or negotiate who uses the
laptop. It was a matter of trust. Trusting them and
empowering them. I trusted that they were working
on the stories and not playing games, although
sometimes that happened too, mostly when they
had run out of ideas. I never nagged, threatened or
took their devices away, because they were doing a
bit of teambuilding, learning from each other,
exchanging ideas, getting to know each other
better. That is vital in a team and sometimes a
team that is really in sync can achieve more than
any hardworking team could. Playing and working
go together.

feedback, revised grammar by co