Vera Brachetková teaches English at The High School of Chemistry Pardubice, in the Czech Republic. In this article she describes how she prepared her students to take part in a Spring Day chat. The chat took place on 2 March 2006 and had as guests Commissioner Figel’ and his team. The chat topic was about European sports, education and cultural values.
The idea to take part in the chat came mainly from our headteacher, who encourages all the teachers to join various projects. I am an English teacher so I am expected to go ahead.
I must admit that I am not interested in politics very much. For the chat preparation I had to check the recommended resources to find out more about the topic and which of its aspects may be relevant to my students. We were also interested to find out more about the chat guest himself, Commissioner Figel'. This part was interesting for me because I realised how little knowledge of the EU I have.
My students and I prepared a set of questions. I also asked for help my colleague who teaches Civics. The students have not been discussing the EU in their civics lessons yet. They know only what they "caught from the air".
The chat itself was quite a fun. Students were really good at handling the chat tools. It took us some time to orientate in so many questions and answers. After a while I noticed they were active in communicating the way I had not expected.
These pictures show some of Vera's students during the chat.
It was also a good experience for me to see my students looking for real communication situations with people outside their cultural settings. This pushes me to activities which would help me in my job as a teacher of English. And my idea now is to use e-twinning base for finding fellow teachers from abroad to develop collaborative activities.
These pictures were sent by another participating school in the chat: Ordrup Gymnasium in Denmark. Teacher coordinator: Kjeld Mazanti Soerensen.
