In 2003, Susanne Pratscher was nominated Teacher of the Year of all Vienna Business Schools and was appointed as the Spring Day in Europe co-ordinator for Austria. Spring Day in Europe is a project where students learn about the European Union (EU). In this project, she got students in her class to create posters about each EU country. This involved collecting a wide range of information about the culture, the economy and the politics of all EU member states and candidate countries.

1. Why should schools get involved with eTwinning?

Schools should be involved, because twinning is a fantastic opportunity for students and teachers to get to know other cultures and to come into contact with students and teachers from another country. Twinning is a lot of fun for students. If some money is available, even a visiting trip to the partner school is sometimes possible. Although e-mail contact is wonderful because it is so quick, personal contact makes a big difference! If we are lucky, some students keep in contact on a private basis for a long time.

2. How will eTwinning change European schools?

Hopefully it will change students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards people in other country and their culture. It always makes a big difference to get to know someone personally. People who have prejudices get a real chance to overcome them. Schools can widen their horizon and offer students a wonderful chance to get to know people, their school life, their private life and leisure activities. They can also learn about another country and the political situation in this country.

3. What are the expected results for schools, teachers, pupils?

Students can communicate via e-mail, they can collect information about the city and country of their partner school, they can travel and get the chance to show their partners their school and their home town. They can learn a lot about the culture of another country. As we are a business school, we are usually especially interested in businesses which play a major role in the economy of the partner country.

4. What concretely can be done?

Results can be measurable, e.g. statistics about a school. We recently drafted a questionnaire in which we asked students about their mother tongues and the countries of origin of their parents. It was fascinating to find out that 481 students speak 29 languages! At the moment we are cooperating with a grammar school in Smorgon, a small city in Belarus. At the beginning of our cooperation, our partner students planted a tree in their school yard as a symbol of our friendship.