VoiceS - Integrated competences for European Teachers. Giving voice(s) to professionalism and citizenship in school networking.
Özel Tan Okulları - Turkey
Çağlar ANMAC, Ayse TOMAS (VoiceS Members of the Turkish national group)
A day in my life - Private Tan Schools
Our school, Private Tan Schools, is located in Bursa, Turkey, and consists of two kindergartens, a primary school, two high schools and two study centres within its institutional framework with a total of more than 1200 students. It was founded in 1973 by seven teachers who aimed to raise the level of education in all of its branches and provide the highest and most contemporary education. The lessons are planned to consider individual differences and also different learning styles for visual, auditory and kineasthetic learners. The lessons are enriched and made more effective with the help of smart boards in the classrooms. The students are encouraged to take part in many national and international projects to enhance their knowledge and to develop their social and communicative skills (www.tanokullari.com).
School house
We have participated in the VoiceS Project – A day in my life involving twenty-one 9th graders aged 14 from Tan High School.
Participated in the VoiceS Project – A day in my life
VoiceS Project: A day in my life
Our project is about how we can encourage our students to develop knowledge and understanding of European cultures and lifestyles. It is mainly based on using and developing their oral and written communication skills in English. The students are to prepare written documents, powerpoint presentations and videos describing their daily routines. These materials are to be uploaded to the project blog (http://voicesadayinmylife.blogspot.co.at/) and shared with the students in other countries.
After the In-Service Course held in Graz (2014), we started the project by uploading a video to the blog introducing ourselves and our school on April 4th, 2014. As this is the first time for most of us to join a European Union project, we were very excited at the beginning. Yet, we were glad to make such a short but an enjoyable video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPe3Uz6AsuM)
Picture blog
Picture blog
Next, our students began preparing their productions about their daily routines – how they get up, what they do at home in the morning, how they travel to school, what activities they do at school and after school, their hobbies and interests, what they eat, how they spend their free time and so on. We uploaded these products to the blog by the end of May.
Picture blog
Picture blog
Picture blog
Picture blog
Meanwhile, some of our students presented their project at the annual Tan Science Festival on May 3rd, 2014. They asked some questions to the visitors about the other countries in the project and so they both enjoyed themselves and also were able to raise awareness about European identity and clutures.
Project presentation
Thirdly, our students commented on the other students’ products on the blog and asked and answered questions about each other with them.
Lastly, we made a video about the similarities and differences we have as a final product and said good-bye for now to our friends. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HP8BZp1M1U) (Actually we had planned to organize a videoconference with the other participant countries but we couldn’t manage it due to heavy workload and official holidays).
Webpage
It was a great pleasure for us to take part in such an effective and fruitful project and we are looking forward to further cooperation.