Old Games Brought Back to Life Across Borders

Kostas Papathanasiou, a PE teacher at Kavassila junior high school in Greece, and Alena Mayová, a PE teacher at Česká Lípa grammar school in the Czech Republic, carried out an eTwinning project on traditional games. First, the teachers wrote emails and exchanged the rules of a Czech game called “Beating out” and an old Greek game called “Faininda” via their Twinspace. After this, they then played the two games with their pupils during PE classes. In addition, they also shared PowerPoint presentations which contained a number of pictures to help better understand the game. In the end, the students began to play the games on their own and introduce them to other students in their schools.

We asked both Kostas and Alena a few questions about their eTwinning experience:

Why did you get involved in eTwinning?

Alena: I heard about eTwinning from my colleague, who is an experienced “eTwinner”. I hoped that through this project I would learn some new methods for teaching PE as well as new games to teach the students. I also thought that the students would be very interested in such a project.

Kostas: To tell the truth, I have become a bit envious of other teachers and the headmaster at my school when I heard them talking about new ideas and experiences they exchanged with their eTwinning partners at Česká Lípa. On top of wanting to embark on a similar experience, I saw that eTwinning was an opportunity to use ICT tools, and as I enjoy working on computers and communicating with people through Internet, I thought this would be ideal.

Have you experienced any problems during your project? If so, how did you cope with them?

Alena: I have difficulties when it comes to speaking English, and so that was problematic from time to time. However, because of the project, I began attending language courses and am currently working on improving my English.

Kostas: I still have to improve my use of desktop tools and English. Fortunately, the headmaster and the English teacher have been helping me to overcome the little problems I faced.

What advice would you give to teachers who want to start an eTwinning project on the themes of sports and games?

Alena: They should be as enthusiastic as me! They should not be afraid to try new things because making new friends and being able to exchange emails with teachers and students in other regions in Europe is really exciting. I wish all of them the best of luck!

Kostas: I am sure that sports and games are ideal themes for international school collaboration projects because the foreign language barrier is overcome by body language. Nevertheless, I would recommend teachers of any subject to start an eTwinning project; they will learn a lot more about the subject they teach, which will in turn give them a sense of fulfilment. They will also learn to use technologies and foreign languages in a very enjoyable manner. Finally, they will find out that European teachers do have a lot in common.

	Web Editor:	Katerina Bavorova

	Published :	23/05/2006

	Last changed :	08/02/2007

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