Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2014 Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------My eTwinning Adventure
by Esen Sandiraz
I would like to start talking about my eTwinning
adventure by sharing my favourite student motto:
“If you really want to teach me, you first have to
reach me!”
I am a teacher of English and European Projects
Head Coordinator at Toros College in Mersin,
Turkey. I have been working with eTwinning
projects for about 5 years now. I have an
eTwinning Teachers’ Room named “Ideas for
Teaching English”. I am a teacher trainer and an
ITEC Project pilot teacher.
Now I would like to tell you something about my
personal and professional development. Before
joining eTwinning, my students did not want to
come to my class and they did not want to learn
English! I knew they loved English and me, but they
did not like writing texts, reading long stories and
doing difficult, boring grammar tests. I tried to find
out a new way of teaching everyday but I had no
idea where and how I could find it!
In 2009, Turkey was accepted in eTwinning and I
was very delighted that I became a member of this
community. In a short time I found a project
partner, a lovely teacher from Portugal. Our
project’s name was “Time to learn, time to share”.
It was our first eTwinning project and the
cooperation between us was very good from the
very beginning. Our collaboration was basically an
exchange of introducing ourselves, our cities and
our countries, sharing PowerPoint presentations and
writing letters to each other. Yes, we the partner
teachers and pupils were glad to do something
different but we wanted to do something more
exciting!
In September 2010, I had the chance to participate
in the European eTwinning Conference held in
İstanbul, Turkey and there I could make personal
contacts and met lots of eTwinning colleagues faceto-face.
Then we started to join Learning Events, workshops
and Teachers’ Rooms, and learnt how to use the
TwinSpace and ICT tools effectively. A year later
the project won the European Quality Label and we
were invited to present our project first in national
workshops in our own countries, and then in 2011
at the eTwinning European Conference in Budapest,
Hungary. I also had a workshop as a presenter in
the Budapest Conference. My topic was “Motivating
Pupils Through Games”.
My first partner Maria Condeço and I had the
chance to meet face-to-face thanks to eTwinning in
the Budapest eTwinning European Conference in
2011.
Unfortunately soon after coming back to Turkey, I
got seriously ill and I could not carry on any
further. During my illness, my European eTwinning
colleagues were so kind and ready to help, and
without knowing me very well, they felt sympathy
for me and during my illness, I got lots of emails to
encourage me to go on in my personal fight.
Luckily at the beginning of this educational school
year (2013-2014) I felt better and started to
participate in eTwinning projects again. Here are
some of them:
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