August 2017 No. 18
Teachers of the project As one of the longest-serving and oldest teachers of the project, I bring along a lot of experience both in teaching and in conducting international projects. Having taught mainly English and Religion for most of my career, it was teaching Intercultural Studies for 13 years that paved the way to international projects. As I did not only want to teach knowledge from books to my students, I looked for contacts with European schools. The emergence of eTwinning played a very important role in those efforts, and soon I had established a number of contacts, mainly with schools from Eastern European countries, where people were much more interested in contacts than teachers from Western Europe. It was the time of EU Eastward enlargement, and it was pretty clear to me that these countries would play an important part in the economic future of my students. Virtual projects and first mutual visits then lead to the need to seek EU financing, and so Comenius projects and Erasmusplus projects followed, we have been doing that for more than 10 years meanwhile. The experience and success also brought along the fact that we participated in most of these projects as overall coordinators. I see my main aim as a teacher to provide the best possible education and training for my students, not just from the point of view of knowledge and competence, but also from the point of view to have an open mind and be prepared to embrace new ideas and challenges. With quite a number of students with a migratory background at our school, it is important to help them make use of their abilities and integrate into society. Lifelong learning for today´s young people is a must, if we want to meet the challenge of the digital revolution ahead and the prediction that most of the jobs young people of today will have to fill have not even been invented yet. Having children of my own attending higher vocational schools, I also see school life from the learner´s perspective, which is sometimes quite interesting as it opens the view to a different angle. The quest for a healthy lifestyle has induced me to
take an interest in running in recent years, a habit I try to pass on to my students when I encourage them to take part in actions like “school running”, where I also participate actively. Last but not least, I firmly believe that language proficiency is a very important contribution to mutual understanding, not only verbally, but also on an emotional and cultural level. Each language has its own way of expressing things, and thereby broadens the thinking and widens people´s horizons. I hope that with this project we can contribute something to these aims. Michael Huber-Kirchberger
I was born on 2nd March 1968 in Linz where I have been staying for my whole life. I have an older brother and a little sister, no kids but I have been married since 2007. After finishing Secondary Vocational College in Traun I studied Business and Economics Education in Linz and worked at a tax office for a little more than two years. Since then I have been teaching a lot of subjects: informatics, business administration, business exercices, healt management, sports management, developping personal and social skills, project management and accounting. Accidentally I stepped into my first international project in 2008 which was called CEECONOMY - and I fell in love imediately which international projects. ESCAPE is now my third project I am very looking forward to be in more projects. Thanks to my parents who took us kids on holidays abroad I am still a traveller - but mainly in Europe especialy by car or by train. Twice I had the chance to work abroad managed by a students' association called AIESEC: six weeks in Verona/Italy in 1990 and six weeks in Wuppertal/Germany in 1991, both times in accountig departments. Beeing in a project I feel young again - like a student then. Elisabeth Hasiweder Austria
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I was born, live and work in the town of Vidin, Bulgaria. By profession I am an economist accountant, by vocation - a teacher! I fulfilled my childhood dream to be a teacher and it makes me very happy and satisfied with the work. I love science, and therefore I teach the basics of accounting and bookkeeping of the enterprise. I am tempted to "look" in the future development of my students and gladly work for their thinking and nurturing entrepreneurial spirit. I have a successful project, funded by the "Open Society" in partnership with schools from Serbia and Latvia. The next project "I want to tell you a fairy tale ..." was a Comenius with a school coordinator from Greece and partner schools from Poland and Turkey, as well as two schools from Romania (Lugoj and Craiova). This project was awarded with a "Sign of overall quality development" by the Agency in Bulgaria. That gave me confidence and strength for a new Comenius project entitled "Enterprising, healthy and creative," with my school as a coordinator and partner schools from Estonia, Hungary and Croatia. In project "ESCAPE" I met again with partners from Lugoj, Romania, and new schools from Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic (an interesting fact is that as a student of economics and pedagogy I visited the town of Tabor in September 1981 for the exchange of good practices ?!). The work on European projects helps to enrich my teaching experience, useful contacts with various institutions and gives me new friendships. Each workshop leaves a lasting memory of the experience - in stories, events and photos. Personally, I traveled to Russia, Ukraine and Germany. I think that all this describes me as a good traveler, an inquisitive person and a dedicated professional as well as a patriot - I love Bulgarian nature, Bulgarian folklore and Bulgarian language! I love Bulgaria! Eli Cvetanova
My name is Mitanka Todorova - a Senior English teacher at Vocational School "Prof. Dr. Asen Zlatarov" Vidin. I love reading, travelling, taking pictures of beautiful places and meeting new friends. School projects give me a wonderful opportunity to practice English in real situations. Communicating with young and energetic people from different countries motivates me to work with students and travel through Europe. It gives me the feeling that I live different lives. Each trip gives me the chance to take pictures, create videos and gather memories from nearby and distant places. My favorite words of the Bulgarian poet Penyo Penev are: "Man is man when on the road!" I believe he meant women too! I was born on 18.01.1973 in the town of Vidin, where I live so far. I graduated from high school in 1992 in the School of Foreign Languages, Vidin, English and German languages. In 1998 I graduated for primary educator at Neofit Rilski -Southwestern University-Blagoevgrad, and in 2004 I graduated English and literature at St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia. I worked various jobs, but definitely teaching profession is what I've always wanted to do. I have participated in numerous school projects. ESCAPE gave me the opportunity to meet many people and make feel a part of a team of excellent professionals.. Verginiya Petrova, Bulgaria
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My name´s Alena Jandlová and I´m a teacher of English and History at a vocational school, Tábor, Czechia. I hold a master´s degree from Masaryk University, Brno. I´ve been involved in plenty of international projects, which were carried out both online and onsite. I began with eTwinning projects 10 years ago as I felt they would offer interesting experience and new skills to my students. So we started, learnt to search for relevant information, make videos, edit photos, collaborate online and create joint outputs. Quite a few project were successful and received eTwinning and other awards. Thanks to the Comenius, Leonardo and Erasmus+ programmes we were able to meet partners from different European schools face-to-face. This is an essential point as meetings provide an extraordinary opportunity for sharing and learning. All this means that we´re not limited to our school anymore, but we can be part of a larger community. A present challenge of mine is concerned with educational use of online tools, future classroom scenarios, flipped learning and their implementation into teaching. My hobbies include travelling, hiking (often with geocaching) and sports such as table tennis or orienteering. I live in Sezimovo Ústí, which is a small town close to Tábor where I come from. I have wanted to be a teacher since my childhood, so my choice of studies was quite clear. I only had to decide what I would like to teach. This step also wasn´t too difficult, because I like getting to know new places and people. That´s why I chose geography and languages – Russian and English. Unfortunately, I have never taught geography. I have been working in our school for nearly the whole my teacher´s life. I love my work with young people. They not only make me feel and in my opinion also think younger, but I also thanks to them and from them learn a lot of new things. Every day, every lesson is different. I really enjoy our work in projects together. You can get to know students from other sites, which is for me very useful. I have been involved in this work for several years now and experienced a lot of new things, met many new people personally or only virtually and also learned a lot. My hobbies are sports, especially hiking, skiing and cycling, actually any kind of movement. I love the nature and my garden. Helena Průšová, Czech Republic
Hi, my name is Iva Kucerova. I have been a teacher at Commercial High School Tabor for 20 years. I teach vocational subjects such as accounting, information technology, marketing, management and economics. I have been working on projects such as eTwinning, Comenius and Leonardo with colleagues, especially Alena Jandlova and Helena Prusova, for about 10 years. I especially help students with particular challenges relating to economics or information technology. I like to work on the projects, because students solve different tasks during normal school lessons and I have an opportunity to meet new friends during project meetings. I like reading, doing Sudoku, travelling and trekking. Also I am playing in an amateur theatre group, but my biggest hobby is my four little grandchildren.
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I have a BA degree in Russian and library science and a MA degree in English. After working as a librarian at Szombathely Teacher Training College I started my teaching career at Jókai Secondary School of Economics in Pápa in 1995. Since 1997 I have always been a form-teacher taking care of classes for four or five years. In 2015 I started working for Türr Grammar School which I attended as a student between 1983 and 1987. From 2005 to 2015 I worked as a support teacher of the students’ board organising several extracurricular activities – competitions, talent shows, balls and school days. In 2002 and 2004 I won Comenius scholarships for teachers and attended methodology courses in Cork, Ireland and at Edinburgh University. Since 2008 I have always been involved in various international projects. Based on the success of our Comenius project with our Austrian, Czech, Polish, Romanian and Slovakian partners, we organised an ACES (Academy of Central European Schools) project with our partner schools in Linz, AT and Tábor, CZ. We carried out two Youth in Action projects with our partner in Pulawy, PL. Apart from formal contacts we could organise further student exchange with Tábor and Pulawy. Besides Comenius, I actively took part in Leonardo projects in Höxter, Germany. Since 2014 I have been a contact teacher of our Erasmus+ project called ESCAPE. Organising projects is really demanding and time consuming and requires cooperation of teachers. I feel privileged to work together with hardworking and devoted colleagues and enthusiastic students in my school and in the partner schools as well. Molnár András My full name is Éva Zita Németh. I was born on 11th May, 1959 in Pápa, Hungary. I have been living here since my birth. I am an only child but I have some cousins. I have been married since 1986. I have a daughter who is 29 now and works for an online news portal of Pápa. After finishing secondary school I studied Hungarian Literature and Grammar and Russian language at University of Pécs. I started to work at my ex-primary school where I spent 5 years. Since 1986 I have been working at my present job, at a secondary school of economics. After changing the political system of Hungary, I started to study English. For more than 25 years I have been teaching general and business English for students aged 14-20. My very first international project which I was involved in was CEECONOMY in 2008. Since then I have taken part in 3 other projects (ACES, Youth in Action, ESCAPE). I enjoy doing project work, it is reaally interesting and useful both for students and teachers. In my free time I like gardening, reading books. I collect lighthouses. I love riding a bicycle and if the weather is fine, I always go to school by bike. My motto is: You get the best out of others when you get the best out of yourself. (Harvey S Firestone) After finishing my secondary studies at Jókai Mór Secondary School of Economics in Pápa in 1998, I completed several post-secondary courses and I became a qualified logistics/ foreign trade assistant and customs administrator. I obtained a BA (2004) and an MA degree (2007) in English. In 2004 I returned back to my ex-secondary school where I have been teaching general English and English for specific purposes (logistics, finance, foreign trade and business administration) ever since. I have been actively involved in various international projects since 2008, first in a Leonardo one in Germany, then in a Comenius project with our Austrian, Czech, Polish, Romanian and Slovakian partners. Due to the successful co-operation between the partners we continued working together with some of them in an ACES (Academy of Central European Schools) project. We had two other projects with our partner school in Poland. Taking part in Erasmus+ ESCAPE project has proved to be really beneficial for students and teachers alike. I do believe that working in international groups can contribute to become open minded, co-operative and successful 21st century citizens. Csatári – Fodor Zsanett I am a teacher at Jókai Mór Secondary School specialized in Economics in Pápa, Hungary. My majors are English, Hungarian Language and Literature and Russian. I graduated from Szeged University in 1978 and from Veszprém University in 1996, so I have been teaching for 39 years. I like my job because it is varied, I always meet new pupils who are very different and each student has their own interests. I enjoy classes but checking, revising and correcting tests are not my cup of coffee. I have taken part in Comenius and Erasmus projects since 2008. These projects were the most useful in my job as a teacher of English because our talented students worked with a lot of enthusiasm, they improved their English, even they made friends. As for me, I could meet nice colleagues from seven countries who devote their time and knowldge to their pupils. As I like travelling I enjoyed seeing several nice towns of the participant schools and I can say that I had unique experiences during meetings. In my free time I read a lot, especially novels written by contemprorary Hungarian writers, but also by English writers for the language. I am crazy about dramas at theatre (I have a certificate of a ’students’ stage leader’), and if I can, I travel to Budapest to see a performance. Travelling, reading, speaking about culture, meeting friends, long-life learning – these are the best things in life!
Tóthné Pál Gabriella , Hungary
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As a mathematics teacher in the XXIst century, I try to reveal to my students the beauty, the usefulness and the meaningfulness of math, sometimes in relation with other subjects amd sometimes by applying it in real life situations. In my 27 years of teaching, there were some turnpoints. I had the chance to teach for one year in the USA, but I felt a real impact on my teaching skills after joining eTwinning community and participating in learning events, webinars and European projects. Adriana Maris I am one of the many teachers involved in the Romanian team of the Erasmus project. For an English teacher, as is my case, working as part of international teams is the next best thing to teaching. I have always loved teaching and always perceived it both as a challenge and as a two-way process. To my mind, the same things apply to school projects and partnerships, which is why I’ve rarely skipped the chance when there was an opportunity. I am grateful for everything that English teaching has introduced me to – people and places, open minds and new experiences. Mihaela Ioncica I am almost always on the lookout for new and interesting ways to stimulate language learners. I also try to introduce authentic material into my lessons to expose learners to the language as it is spoken in the real world. What is more, I keep praising my students for what they do well. If they recognize that they are progressing, it may help them to be motivated to keep learning – no matter what their pace is. Violeta Popovici, teacher of English My name is Loredana Anca Drinovan. I am 33 and I have been teaching English for 11 years . At present, I am mostly working with high school students and I like my job ! It gives me the freedom to reflect, to understand, to be active , to create and to be involved in the students' progress as individuals. I am friendly, sociable and I love nature. I also believe that "a teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils." I am passionate about the subjects I teach and I have always tried to create a learning environment in which students are inspired to want to continue studying the topic. My career and my life revolve around books, so I encourage my students to discover new texts, genres and authors. Mihaela Bînă, teacher of Romanian and French My name is Lucia Boldea and I'm a physics teacher. I really like what I do. Passion for physics exists in high school and I try to share my experience with my students. I'm a (self)critical, hyperanalitical, perfectionist, demanding, tough, gutsy, well-spoken, loyal, straight-forward, fastwalking ... modest Biology teacher! As a teacher, a certain number of hours of my “free time” are dedicated to school. Since 2008, I am the head of the local professional association of Biology teachers; we get together 4 times a year (sometimes more often), we participate in demonstrative lessons, we exchange ideas, professional experience, in order to improve our own abilities as teachers. I’m also tutoring the students who participate in different school competitions. That gives the students the opportunity to manifest their learning skills, but also their creativity and involvement, even if they are not valedictorians… I also encourage students to participate in voluntary activities (visiting the local shelter for the stray animals, taking care of trees and plants in parks, cleaning up places in our town, etc.) Thus, they get to do “visible” things themselves, things that draw the community’s attention towards the school in a positive way; at the same time, their behavior changes for the better: they become more careful in disposing of garbage, their selflessness increases and they manifest responsibility more often in their everyday actions. Daniela Mariana Popovici
My name is Mihaela Jiveti. I teach Grammar and Roumanian Literature. I really enjoy to work with children and, after 22 years I still think that teaching is the most beautiful job in the world ! I enjoyed a lot to be part of this project because I had the opportunity to meet wonderful people and share amazing thoughts, ideas and experiences I‘m a German teacher since 2005. I like children and I love my job because every day is different at school... I often take advantage of teaching them life lessons that may have a lasting effect on them. Adina Lazăr, Romania
I am Beatrice Frantescu, school counselor and I've been one of the teachers involved in this project. It was at the same time a great opportunity and a chance to develop new skills, meet great people and learn so many things about different cultures by sharing and spreading ideas.
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My name is Adriana Góra, I am the teacher responsible for the English language projects at Gymnázium-Gimnázium Štúrovo. We have done several projects including a project conducted by the British Council, Comenius project, E-twinning and now Erasmus +. In addition to school projects I have also applied and taken part in Comenius projects organized for teachers. I studied to be a Hungarian and English language teacher in the Faculty of Art of Comenius University in Bratislava. I graduated in 1993 and immediately after graduation a started working in my present job as a teacher. So far I have been a class teacher of 3 classes, one in the 8 year secondary school and two in the regular, 4 year secondary school. When I started teaching English language was not a compulsory subject for school – leaving examinations, it has changed meanwhile. Every student has to pass an exam as in other countries of the EU. This has made teaching more demanding. Being a secondary school teacher is not easy – it means constant learning. Students have changed a lot in the past decades and the whole system has, too. In spite of the difficulties my profession provides, I love being a teacher, I enjoy the fact that every day is different, students are different and sometimes it is difficult with parents as well, but I love teaching new things to our kids and if I have one or two grateful sudents a year that fills me with energy for the next period. Adriana Góra, Slovakia
My full name is Nikoleta Lőrinczová. I was born on 22nd May 1977 in Nové Zámky, Slovakia. I have one younger brother, Miloš, who is working as a self sustaining agriculturalist. I am in a relationship, but not married and have no kids. After attending Secondary grammar school in Štúrovo I studied Biology and Environmentalistics at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. I started to teach Biology at my ex-secondary grammar school in 2001 and since then I have been teaching there till the present. Later in 2008, I started to study English language and literature at the same university. In my free time I like gardening, reading books, fishing, hiking, travelling, drawing and listening to music. I have taken part in international projects as COMENIUS (with 6 countries), e-Twinning project (with Turkey) and ESCAPE (with 7 countries). These projects on the international level are very enjoyable and useful for us both, students and teachers too. I am looking forward to be in other projects
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I was born in the previous century, which makes me old according to our students’ standards, but luckily, I still consider myself quite young. I have been teaching English for over ten years now and, unlike perhaps some other colleagues, I do not think generations of students have changed so much in the last years. I still really enjoy teaching, also because of various projects our school is a part of. I believe that a lot of learning should happen outside the classroom, in various school-organized activities, such as going on field trips, attending lectures and workshops of successful entrepreneurs and experts, participating in various competitions and projects, also international ones. Yes, there are times when being a teacher is quite hard, but it can also be hugely rewarding, which is why I find great satisfaction in teaching. I have been living in the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, for my whole life and despite being a keen traveler, it is still always great to come back home. My next destination? Dublin Trivia: I have a Master’s degree in Political Sciences; my older daughter has been fluent in English since she was five; I hate winter, yet love skiing. I am the happiest in summer, at the seaside, with my kids and friends. Jasna Damjan
Since the primary school I was intrigued by two things – computers and economy. I always wanted to know how the world ticks, and how seemingly unrelated things are influenced by each other. Therefore, I loved to read not only fiction books, but also the ones that were about history, economy and technology. Speaking of which the information technology was certainly my beloved one. My first computer was Commodore 64 ... you can try to google it and just imagine how much more powerful even smart watches of nowadays are ... So in my education and career I always combined economy (which I studied at University of Ljubljana) and informatics – I worked at several IT companies before I started my teaching career. Now, I am a teacher of various subjects related to economics, entrepreneurship, as well as information technology. During my studies, I also participated in the Erasmus student exchange programme – and so spent one year in Huelva, Spain. What I loved the most from the experience was getting to know other cultures, and cultural differences. That is also the reason I like to travel – but what I prefer even more is to be part of international projects like ESCAPE, where you have the real opportunity to collaborate with people from various countries. Regarding my personal life – I live near Ljubljana with my spouse and our 17-month-old daughter Brina, who successfully put our hobbies on hold for the time being, but I hope we will resume to do things like travelling and hiking together quite soon.
I have been teaching at school for 23 years and every day I come to work with the feeling - I am going to discover something new. An old Chinese proverb says: When teaching well you always learn. I completely agree with this. I enjoy my work; I like to teach and like to learn. I feel I can do more but sometimes I need the help, some new ideas or just a fresh view on the problem. I have already taken part in many projects on history, arts or languages and world literature. I am one of the first at our school to implement computer technologies at the lessons. Such elements make lessons more joyful and interesting for pupils but require more preparation to work. When I started working in eTwinning I got excited when getting access to all this interesting information and projects. Here I found new friends and like-minded people, I learned about new approaches in the teaching methodology. I have conducted a lot of projects and I hope that my students and I have made a small contribution to the promotion of our country and Zakarpattya in particular. These projects helped my students feel a part of the European Community and see and be proud of their national identity at the same time. I taught my pupils respect and tolerance, I helped them enjoy the world's diversity and cherish their own traditions. Being a member of such a successful pedagogical team as that of ESCAPE is a great honour. I am very happy to be your partner and hope to meet you in new projects! Natalyia Orlyk
With the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union
My career (celebrating years in the profession) has included teaching in primary and secondary schools and Higher Education. I am passionate in helping my students to gain their knowledge and to develop creativity. I understand that I am often a role model for my pupils, so I must be careful when making a decision. One of the great men said that wise moral decisions will always acknowledge our interdependency; our moral choices are ours alone, but they bind us all to those who will be affected by them. I never forget about this. I am interested in world literature and arts. I am trying to get my students interested and involved in these activities too.
Being with my pupils I feel young and inspired by their energy and enthusiasm. I think my profession is very important and tiresome at the same time, but when I see the sparkling eyes of my pupils I am really happy! Natalyia Banias, Ukraine
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.