The first HUPE Dubrovnik Branch meeting in 2023-2024 took place at Osnovna škola Blato in Blato on December 9, 2023. 

Agenda:

1. Mirta Kos – Kolobarić: An Idiom a Day Keeps Boredom Away
2. Tea Horvat: AI is here – Now What?
3. Jelica Šeparović: Better School for Better Tomorrow– Erasmus+project dissemination
4. 31st HUPE Conference report
5. HUPE News

Fourteen members attended the meeting. Five members joined us online, through HUPE Dubrovnik Teams channel. 

The first speaker was Mirta Kos-Kolobarić with her interactive and amusing workshop, presenting several ready-made ideas and quizzes you can use in the classroom to help students learn some interesting and frequent idioms. We all gladly participated in the workshop, going from station to station, using idioms and having great fun.

Tea Horvat was the second speaker. She presented some relatively new facts about artificial intelligence in her talk AI is here – Now What? She gave us some ideas for quicker lesson planning, generating responses from Chat GPTand generating AI videos, images or even presentations with various AI tools and how to use AI in education.

As a part of the Erasmus+ project Better School for Better Tomorrow dissemination, Jelica Šeparović shared her experience of a very interesting course she had attended in Helsinki in May 2023, Introduction to the Finnish Education Model. The participants of the meeting took part in a funny interactive team activity she had first used in Finland, Goosechase.

After the meeting my colleague Fanika Arnautović organized an amazing Christmas Tea Party in our school, where we had traditional cucumber sandwiches, biscuits and tea with milk, of course. Everybody was welcome to watch Christmas Carol with us and enjoy delicious food and drink.

Jelica Šeparović
HUPE Dubrovnik Branch President

Branch reports

On December 14^th, HUPE Karlovac held its first meeting of the current school year, at OŠ Braća Seljan in Karlovac’s city centre. Eleven English teachers attended and took part in interesting and engaging activities:

1. ClueBox in your classroom
   Branka Katalinić from OŠ Brinje presented how to implement a real-life (not digital!) escape-room based game in the classroom. By solving language-based tasks, participants gather clues in order to solve a mystery. A break from the traditional classroom activities proved to be highly entertaining. Branka was accompanied by members of Alfa izdavaštvo, who graciously provided goodie bags for all the participants.

2. EPAS: Project activities and dissemination (online)
   Barbara Bošnjak from SŠ Našice held an online lecture about her experience with a project aimed at the youth of Europe with the goal of promoting knowledge about the EU. Several of our members attended via Zoom.

The blend of live and online lectures at a single meeting has proven successful and is something the Karlovac branch will try to implement in the future.

Anyone wishing to join the branch or get more information about us, can send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Tomislav Mravunac,
HUPE Karlovac branch president

Branch reports

The first HUPE Zagreb branch meeting in school year 2023-2024 was held on 17 November 2023 at the Čarobna riječ. 32 English enthusiasts and HUPE members decided to spend their Friday evening attending a 3-hour education with their hardworking colleagues repeating their successful workshops from the 31st HUPE conference.

AGENDA 

1. 
   Workshops and lectures from 7.30PM
2. HUPE info 
3. PUB QUIZZ 
4. After meeting discussion ( other )

Our first workshop was highly popular theme and very attractive topic: Chat GPT – should we be afraid of it?presented by Evelina Miščin, our long time member and known teacher and presenter from RIT Croatia. We learnt a lot about Chat GPT benefits and problems within the educational aspect, trying out the app itself and solving some interesting tasks. By sharing results and our own experiences the workshop was more than successful resulting with amazing audience reaction. Thank you, Evelina once again!

In between two workshops Zagreb branch president informed the participants about the 31st conference held in Poreč, reported on the venue, programme, sponsors .... and informing participants about the next conference in Poreč.

The president also informed participants about the future plans for Zagreb branch meetings, this year's Zagreb branch SPA DAY, HUPE day in April and future conferences near us from our partners. The participants were invited to take part in HUPE writing competition, participate in our newsletter and HUPEzine, as well as contribute to our web page digital materials.  All members were invited to send their ELT articles and examples of good practices to our HUPE editor Ivana Kasunić via this email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to be published in one of our future editions of HUPEzine or HUPE Newsletter.

After the shot break and catching up with colleagues, the second workshop, titled It’s quiz time!, was held by Gabrijela Čorković from Trgovačka škola, Zagreb. Gabrijela informed us about various types of apps she is using while having quizzes with her students, demonstrating advantages and disadvantages for each. Our eager quiz master Gabrijela explained how and why is she using quizzes in the classroom, what motivates students and how quizzes can contribute to learning motivation.

At the end of the workshop, Gabrijela organized a pub quiz for our participants which ended successfully by giving away four conference goody bags filled with useful teaching resources and materials to our winners and to our next to the last team ( as it is a custom in Pub quiz circles 😉). 

HUPE Zagreb is thankful to the speakers and all the members who were able to attend and make the meeting a productive and enjoyable experience. Hopefully, we will see you at our future meetings in 2024.

If you are a teacher of English and would like to join HUPE Zagreb, feel free to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thank you!

HUPE Zagreb Branch President 
Mirjana Zubak Mičetić 

Branch reports

This school year's first regular HUPE Split Branch meeting took place last Friday, 1 December 2023. It started at 5:00 p.m. As many as 23 English teachers were hosted by their kind colleagues from OŠ Pujanki.  They attended three wonderful workshops.

Agenda items:

1. HUPE news – 31st Conference report 
2. Ivana Bokavšekand Anita Lasić: And the Oscar Goes To…! 
3. Ivana Pločkinić: Transversal Skills
4. Ana Kodrić Ivelićand Marija Čarija Agoli: Team Building With CLIL
5. Raffle and prizes by publishers

1. The meeting was opened by Anita Lasić, who welcomed the participants and introduced herself as the new HUPE Split Branch president. Then, she briefed the attendees about the 31st Annual International HUPE Conference programme and outcomes as well as the positive feedback from the conference participants. She informed the attendees about the already announced short story writing competition - Storyland, upcoming online HUPE Day and teacher training in Malta/Dublin that might take place in August 2024. More information about the trip will be provided once it is fully planned and confirmed. 

2. The first workshop, And the Oscar Goes To…!, was delivered byIvana Bokavšek from OŠ Spinut, Split and Anita Lasić from OŠ don Mihovil Pavlinović, Podgora. In this workshop, speakers shared the methods of how to make students improve their listening and speaking skills using film and video materials. They spoke about how to assess speaking skills, how and where to find ideas and teaching material, and how to integrate movies into the classroom. They shared the ways to include the elements of gamification and enhance students’ logical thinking, at the same time improving their media literacy.
3. The second workshop was presented by Ivana Pločkinićfrom III gimnazija, Split. She delivered a wonderful presentation about transversal skills. These skills are not considered as specifically related to a particular subject or area of knowledge but as skills that can be used in a wide variety of situations. Transversal skills are increasingly in high demand for learners to be successful at school. Some examples are critical and innovative thinking, interpersonal skills, intra-personal skills, global citizenship, media and information literacy.
4. The third workshop was prepared and presented by the host school teachersMarija Čarija Agoli and Ana Kodrić Ivelić who gladly and successfully shared their experience with CLIL. CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning. It incorporates both the learning of content and the learning of a foreign language. The participating teachers, organized in teams, got a task to design a lesson each on a given transcurricular topic (fashion, Solar System, World War II,…).
5. The last item on the agenda was organized to make attendees socialize, get to know each other better, exchange ideas as well as to initiate professional networking. Refreshments were offered alongside the raffle in which all tickets were winning ones. The prizes were obtained by our faithful publishers and other sponsors. 

The meeting was carried out in an extremely relaxed and motivating atmosphere. It was very successful and ended at 8:20. 

Anita Lasić
HUPE Split Branch President

Branch reports