THE FIRST HUPE OSIJEK BRANCH MEETING REPORT

13 December 2021Branch reports

The first HUPE Osijek branch meeting in school year 2021-2022 was held at the Faculty of Education in Osijek on 4 December, 2021. 17 members attended the meeting. The agenda included:

The 29th Annual International HUPE Conference report
Mirta Kos Kolobarić: Nurture a love of reading
Selina Geli: Early English language learning outcomes of young learners exposed to two differentEnglish language teaching approaches - CLIL in Austria and traditional ELT in Croatia
HUPE news

At the beginning of the meeting new HUPE Osijek branch president Adrijana Roždijevac informedthe participants about the 29th Annual International HUPE Conference, which took place in Valamar, Poreč from 12 to 14 November, 2021. She reported on the conference programme, venue,workshops, social events, raffle, sponsors, as well as on an overall positive feedback the HUPEOrganizing Committee has received.

The first workshop, titled Nurture a love of reading, was held by Mirta Kos Kolobarić from the Secondary School of Economics from Slavonski Brod. In a one-hour workshop, Mirta demonstratedhow the choice of a contemporary short story with an intriguing topic combined with the choice of engaging reading tasks can motivate students to read, reflect on the story, relate it to everyday life, and boost their digital skills. She offered various creative and ready-made activities adaptable todifferent levels but mostly focused on secondary school, which the participants could try out for themselves.

After the coffee break, the second presentation, titled Early English language learning outcomesof young learners exposed to two different English language teaching approaches - CLIL inAustria and traditional ELT in Croatia, was held by Selina Geli from Primary school “Dr. FranjoTuđman” from Beli Manastir. Selina presented the research she has conducted with the students of grade 4 in Austria and Croatia where the students are taught English through different teachingmethods. She talked about the similarities and differences between the two countries and foreign language learning, as well as about the listening and reading tasks the students were tested on. The research results show that the Croatian young learners could comprehend English better than the Austrian students, which started a very interesting and productive discussion among the participants.

At the end of the meeting, participants were informed about the news in HUPE including thewriting competition HUPE in Storyland.

HUPE Osijek is thankful to the speakers and all the members who were able to attend and makethe meeting a productive and enjoyable experience. Hopefully, we will see you at our next meetingin February 2022.

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

Adrijana Roždijevac
HUPE Osijek Branch President

OSIJEK BRANCH 2020-2021 REPORT

13 December 2021Branch reports

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, during 2020-2021 school year, former branch president Kornelije Juranić was not able to organize any live meetings at HUPE Osijek. However, HUPE Osijek participated in organizing and carrying out the virtual meetings that HUPE held in 2020 and 2021, including 28th HUPE Online Conference and three HUPE Days. Currently, our branch has 35 members with active memberships. Our members actively participated in all the virtual events, including the Writing Competition, where two of our members and their secondary students were awarded for their excellent writing skills.

HUPE Osijek elections were held online via Zoom on September 3, 2021 at Annual General Meeting during HUPE Day. There was only one candidate for the branch president, Adrijana Roždijevac from Primary school “Josip Kozarac” Soljani. She introduced herself to the 13 members that were present, after which the voting was held and she was unanimously voted the new HUPE Osijek branch president.

We are thankful to all the members for participating in online events and we are looking forward to seeing all of you in person soon.

If you are an English teacher and wish to join HUPE Osijek, feel free to contact me at hupe . osijek@ gmail.com.

Adrijana Roždijevac
HUPE Osijek Branch President

Meet HUPE Split

29 September 2020Branch reports

HUPE Split Branch President

Tatjana Bandura Tajana Bundara has been teaching English and German for two decades. Her teaching experience embraces different school types from high schools, elementary schools over to schools for foreign languages and language camps.

She strongly believes the basic qualities can be cultivated through effort and challenges should be embraced as the path to mastery. Her driving force is her passion for work and her motto – Change is the only constant in life.

Erasmus +; One project, a thousand possibilities

Erasmus+ program has been a part of our school lives for many years, but still lots of our colleagues have many unanswered questions about it. This workshop aims to give answers to such questions in order to educate, encourage, inspire and empower teachers to take part in Erasmus+ projects.
During the first part of the workshop you will see a short PowerPoint presentation tackling most common questions individuals have in respect of Erasmus+ projects in general, and more specific guidelines such as how to participate as a partner in a project or create a project of your own.
During the second part of the workshop the participants will have the opportunity to develop a project idea in small groups.
Lecturers: Ružica Kandić, prof.,univ.spec.oec. and Marijana Gudić, prof.

Creative writing workshop

How many times have you had such gifted students and wanted to give them more than regular lessons provide? This creative writing workshop will give you some ideas, that you can easily implement during your additional English lessons.
The workshop aims to give ideas how to engage your students in a creative writing process, which incorporates all their previous knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure and writing skills and takes them to the whole new level.
During the first part of the workshop the participants will have the opportunity to see the product of creative writing process made by the students and their mentor. They will be introduced with all the phases of the process from the beginning to its end.
During the second part of the workshop the participants will take part in creative writing exercises in small groups.

Lecturer: Ružica Kandić, prof., univ.spec.oec.

SPLIT BRANCH MEETING REPORT

The sixth HUPE Split Branch meeting was held at Osnovna škola don Lovre Katića in Solin on 3rdOctober 2019.

The agenda included:

Election of the Branch President
Tajana Bundara: Good Practice Example

Eight members attended the meeting and voted for Tajana Bundara as the new HUPE Split Branch President. She presented her work through a good practice example workshop. The topic of the workshop was ‘Fostering critical thinking through IT tools’.

In attempt to meet the demand for developing 21st century skills Tajana Bundara presented how to implement IT tools in fostering critical thinking skills. The topic of the lesson was Teenagers and Money and it referred to cultural differences. The central teaching strategy was debate with a debate-video-clip on thesis 'Should children be paid for the house chores?' as the debate-trigger-point. She underlined the importance of using online dictionaries, demonstrated how to use QR codes, implement mobile phones as a powerful classroom tool, conduct peer assessment and formative assessment. The final objective of the workshop was to inspire and motivate colleagues to open their minds to new teaching challenges and strategies.

Thank you all for coming and hope to see you at our next meeting!

If you are an English teacher and want to join HUPE Split, feel free to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Tajana Bundara
HUPE Split Branch President

SPLIT BRANCH MEETING REPORT

2nd HUPE Split Meeting

Venue: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Split, Poljička cesta 35
Date: 23 January 2020
Time: 6.30 pm
Agenda: Present-day Challenges in ELT – Ana Bakašun
Number of participants: 7

Summary:

People talk about ‘21st-century skills’ across disciplines, but what this term actually means is not always clear and implications it contains are often quite daunting for teachers whose learning histories are often at variance with their students’ learning experiences. Technological, social and cultural environments have changed rapidly during the last twenty-something years. Can we, the ‘old school’ teachers, still provide meaningful and relevant educational practices for today’s EFL students?

Overall impression:

Ana provided insightful information to this question, approaching it from the perspective and experience of a language instructor at the Department of English Language and Literature (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University in Split).

I believe we all enjoyed exchanging valuable and various teaching experiences, resulting in the unanimous educational imperative for fostering thinking skills.
Thank you all for your support, effort and enthusiastic engagement!
I look forward to seeing you all again soon.
If you are an English teacher and want to join HUPE Split, feel free to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Tajana Bundara
HUPE Split Branch President

Report - Karlovac Branch

12 March 2020Branch reports

The second HUPE Karlovac Branch meeting in 2019/ 2020 took place on 19 February 2020 in an online format using CARENT Adobe Connect virtual room.

Our first speaker was the new HUPE KARLOVAC Branch president Marijana Smolčec who had a presentation on HUPE novelties and upcoming HUPE conference. She was later joined by HUPE President Anita Jokić who gave even more information and answered some questions. Both of them announced that the HUPE conference will again be held in Poreč, Valamar Hotels, from 24 – 26 April 2020.

Before the end of the 2^nd meeting Marijana Smolčec introduced the members to the Europeana website. She explained that Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitised items – books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help anyone find necessary information. Some of the most popular themes that can be found there are on art, music, fashion, World War I etc. She also announced a possible workshop on Teaching with Europeana and suggested members to explore ideas among many interesting e-scenarios written by European teachers.

In the end HUPE Branch president announced the 3rd meeting to be held on 14 March 2020 in Karlovac. The guest speaker and workshop leader will be Dora Božanić Malić.

Marijana Smolčec
Karlovac Branch President

ZAGORJE BRANCH MEETING REPORT

17 February 2020Branch reports

The second HUPE Zagorje meeting this school year was held at Bedekovčina Secondary School on 14^th February 2020.

There were three workshops held as well as the introduction to the 28^th HUPE Annual International Conference. The first one was a workshop held by Melinda Tupek, a great fellow teacher and enthusiast who works in OŠ Sesvetska Sopnica. Melinda’s workshop titled (Old fashioned) Games in the ESL Classroom was great fun and all of the tired teachers attending it had a good time trying out the numerous games she provided for us. In this workshop Melinda presented an array of fun and interesting games that could be applied to any classroom at any level of students’ knowledge throughout the curriculum, no matter the subject or lesson. As we were having fun doing the activities and playing the games, so will our students when we try some of these great ideas.

The second workshop was held by Barbara Hanjilec, from ŠUDIGO Zabok, an inspiring colleague with tones of experience and great ideas as always. Barbara’s workshop A Wee Talk on Northern Ireland was focused on culture and how to bring it closer to our students in the classroom. As we probably all focus too much on Great Britain, London, The USA, New York or similar more prominent elements of culture in our teaching, this workshop was an eye-opener and a much-needed inspiration to do something different in our classrooms.

The third workshop was held by our branch president Gordana Bujanić Tretinjak, aka myself. The workshop titledWHYs and HOWs of Making Short Videos in the Classroom IATEFL focused on putting students’ mobiles to good use – how to teach them to make video materials that could be used in the classroom or for any learning goal you wish. All the weary and tired colleagues cheerfully took out their phones, and following the instructions, had fun in making their (sometimes first) short videos. Students are motivated to do such activities since they activate their creativity, their knowledge of digital tools and gadgets but also it sparks their interest in English and boosts self-confidence.

The last part of our meeting was dedicated to HUPE Conference News. The colleagues were informed on all the news about the Conference ahead of us. We discussed ideas about the HUPE Zagorje part in the From Us to You social event in the conference and had some great ideas from our members – join us at the Conference and find out!

The energy at the meeting was great as always, so much so that when the meeting was over (on this Valentine’s Day mind you!), people were still chatting and drinking coffee, reluctant to leave.

HUPE Zagorje is thankful to our members and the speakers for coming. HUPE Zagorje will continue to inspire and hopefully become a bigger branch in the future.

If you wish to join us, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Gordana Bujanić Tretinjak
HUPE Zagorje Branch President