The second HUPE Osijek branch meeting in school year 2023-2024 was held on Saturday, 16 March 2024 at the Faculty of Education in Osijek. 24 HUPE members attended the meeting which lasted for four hours.

The agenda included:

1) Katarina Berać Vuić: Acting for dummies: Fairy tales development

2) Mirjana Zubak Mičetić: Implementing Magic of AI

3) Mirna Erk & Ksenija Benčina: The road that made all the difference 20 years ago: EFL teachers to young learners in Croatia

4) HUPE news

The first workshop, titled Acting for dummies: Fairy tales development, was held by Katarina Berać Vuić from Gimnazija Županja. In an interactive hour-long workshop, Katarina presented numerous creative and simple drama activities in which our students can act out well-known stories and fairy tales in the classroom, and turn them into short plays of 3 to 5 minutes. The participants had a lot of fun trying out most of the presented drama activities culminating in the performances of different fairy tales as frozen images.

The second workshop, titled Implementing Magic of AI, was held by HUPE Zagreb branch president Mirjana Zubak Mičetić from OŠ Bogumila Tonija in Samobor. Mirjana introduced all the possibilities artificial intelligence tool Magic School can offer to teachers to help them lessen their workload, including its advantages and disadvantages. She showcased some of the practical activities and then the participants took part in a scavenger hunt where they had to explore the mentioned AI tool themselves.

The third talk titled The road that made all the difference 20 years ago: EFL teachers to young learners in Croatiawas held by Mirna Erk and Ksenija Benčina from the Faculty of Education in Osijek. Mirna and Ksenija presented the results of the survey they conducted with lower-primary EFL teachers to explore their job satisfaction, as well as the current situation in which many subject specialists increasingly teach lower-primary students. They also shared their respondents’ insightful perceptions, comments, and recommendations which started a productive discussion amongst the participants.

The participants were also informed about the news in HUPE including the winners of the 4th National Writing Competition – HUPE in Storyland, the plans to organize the teacher training course in Liverpool in July, HUPE’s new partner associations and their conferences, future professional development events such as HUPE Day planned for 20 April 2024 with international speakers, new edition of HUPEzine, and many more.

HUPE Osijek is extremely grateful to the speakers and all the members who attended the meeting, actively participated in the workshops and discussions, and created a great atmosphere for chatting and sharing ideas. Hopefully, we will see you at our next meeting in May.  

Adrijana Roždijevac
HUPE Osijek Branch President