HUPE CROATIA- EVE-ELT Joint Leadership Mentoring Project 2023/24

Project description

As presenting at conferences or professional events is one practice of leadership, and in collaboration with EVE group, HUPE CROATIA will offer a leadership mentoring programme to train 8 selected Croatian female classroom teachers to become professional conference presenters. The selected participants will receive mentoring offered by EVE-ELT mentors for 3 months. The aims of this mentoring are to equip the participants with the necessary skills to present at international conferences, online and local professional development events. Upon their successful completion of the training, the participants will be added to the HUPE CROATIA list of webinar speakers where they share and showcase the knowledge and experience gained from the mentoring programme. After the success of this first pilot mentoring, and to maximize the benefits of their successful participation, HUPE CROATIA and EVE may encourage the successful trainees to apply for the IATEFL conference scholarships and support them through the process to present at IATEFL or HUPE CROATIA International conferences. The successful trainees will also be granted a complimentary one-year-membership of HUPE CROATIA.

HUPE CROATIA aims to empower Croatian teachers to share their knowledge and expertise locally and internationally. However, one challenge remains; that is identifying members who are capable of innovation inside their classrooms but are not visible enough because they are shy or may lack the public speaking skills to share their ideas and expertise through actively participating in professional conferences and organized professional development presentations. By bringing these examples of successful classroom teachers to the forefront and training them on presentation and public speaking skills, HUPE CROATIA aims to highlight the amazing work done by Croatian classroom teachers and inspire others who may be intimidated to become professional conference presenters to share their stories.

The successful candidates should have the following:

Experience as classroom teachers, preferably in a rural area (connectivity issue may be a challenge though)
Evidence of active participation in their local teacher community or teacher association (initiated a project or led a teacher club, etc.)
Willingness to learn and receive critical feedback to improve performance
Commitment to cascade the training they receive with teachers in their school/community
Internet connectivity that allows them to participate in the online mentoring

Important Dates:

Programme start time: January 2024
Duration: 6-10 hours of mentoring over 3 months

How can I join the programme?

Complete the application form you can find here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vGrqj4nuf_LMEhHEeIs-vJdTqqmVB3hiAImOHWUO7QM/edit

Here you can find more information about EVE: https://evecalendar.wordpress.com/

Schedule for EVE and HUPE Croatia Mentoring Programme

What	Who	By
Open call	HUPE Croatia	22 December 2023
Selection of mentees	HUPE Croatia	10 January 2024
Matching of mentors and mentees	EVE	14 January 2024
First meeting	HUPE Croatia/EVE	20 January 2024 (Saturday)
First rehearsal	HUPE Croatia/EVE	17 February 2024 (Saturday) (6 weeks after the first meeting)
Final presentations	HUPE Croatia/EVE	16 March 2024 (Saturday)

The first HUPE Osijek branch meeting in school year 2023-2024

The first HUPE Osijek branch meeting in school year 2023-2024 was held on 25 November 2023 at the Faculty of Education in Osijek. 24 English enthusiasts and HUPE members decided to spend their Saturday morning attending a 3-hour mini conference rerun with their hardworking colleagues repeating their successful workshops from the 31st HUPE conference.

The agenda included:
1) 31st HUPE Conference report
2) Mirta Kos Kolobarić: Are you a copycat or a busy bee?
3) Ana Katruša: Supporting Gifted Learners: Strategies, Tips & Ideas
4) Ksenija Benčina: It makes you look old!
5) HUPE news

At the beginning of the meeting the HUPE Osijek branch president informed the participants about the 31st Annual International HUPE Conference, which took place in Valamar, Poreč from 20 to 22 October 2023. She reported on the conference venue, partners and sponsors, programme, plenary speakers, workshops, social events, raffle, as well as on the overall positive feedback the HUPE Organizing Committee has received.

The first workshop, titled Are you a copycat or a busy bee?, was held by Mirta Kos Kolobarić from the Secondary School of Economics from Slavonski Brod. In an hour-long workshop, Mirta presented an engaging way of introducing ‘animal’ idioms to describe people's personalities through learning stations and various tasks and activities. She also shared ready-to-use materials for the learning stations on the topic of body idioms.

After the coffee break and catching up with colleagues, the second workshop, titled Supporting Gifted Learners: Strategies, Tips & Ideas, was held by Ana Katruša from Primary School kralja Tomislav in Našice. Ana talked about different types of gifted students and how to meet their unique needs, especially in the early years. She also presented, and the participants took part in, differentiated activities and games, as well as critical thinking strategies teaches can use with their gifted students.

The third talk titled It makes you look old! was held by Ksenija Benčina from the Faculty of Education in Osijek. Ksenija gave insight into the grammatical an lexical changes in the English language occurring in the last few decades highlighting the need to keep pace with these changes in order to effectively teach English.

After the workshops, participants were informed about the news in HUPE including the highlights from the AGM, as well as the upcoming events such as the 4th national short story writing competition HUPE in Storyland taking place from 1 December 2023 to 15 January 2024, HUPE Day planned for 20 April 2024 with international speakers, and workshops and talks for all levels, as well as the 32nd Annual International HUPE Conference that is taking place in Valamar Poreč from 15 to 17 November 2024. After HUPE’s very successful teacher training courses in London and Edinburgh, the participant were informed about the plans to organize the courses in Dublin or Malta in August 2024. All members were also 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.

At the end of the meeting, the branch president organized a short Kahoot quiz to test the members’ knowledge about the 31st HUPE Conference in order to give away four conference goody bags filled with useful teaching resources and materials.

HUPE Osijek 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 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

HUPE in Storyland writing competition

Dear HUPE members,

the time has come to announce the start of our fourth HUPE in Storyland writing competition. The competition starts on 1 December 2023 and finishes on 15 January 2024. The winners will be announced on 8 March 2024.

How to apply?

Go to the HUPE web page (https://hupe.hr/index.php/competition-1/competition-temlates) and download the template form. Once downloaded, fill in the required details. After completing the form, generate a password. This password must be used as the title in uploading the document and it has to be incorporated in the document itself.

All stories must be completely anonimous. No school, mentors or students names should be revealed before the date of the announcement, 8 March 2024.

After announcing the winners, you will be asked to resend your students’ short stories to prove your identity. Check the HUPE web page for the published ranking list, complete with passes, to ensure your students' rankings are accurate.

There are three categories in the competition, make sure you select the category you are applying for.

1st HUPE Osijek branch meeting invitation

Dear colleagues,

I would like to invite you to our first HUPE Osijek Branch meeting in the school year 2023-2024, which will take place on Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 9 am at the Faculty of Education in Osijek (Fakultet za odgojne i obrazovne znanosti, Ulica cara Hadrijana 10, Osijek) in Room 21.

Agenda:

1) 31st HUPE Conference report

2) Mirta Kos Kolobarić: Are you a copycat or a busy bee?

3) Ana Katruša: Supporting Gifted Learners: Strategies, Tips & Ideas

4)Ksenija Benčina & Mirna Kurtović: It makes you look old!

5) HUPE news

For those of you who were not able to join us at the 31st HUPE conference in Poreč two weekends ago, and those who did not have time to attend all the workshops at the conference, we have prepared a mini conference rerun with the interesting and practical workshops prepared by our hard-working colleagues.

If you would like to attend the meeting, please, register by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.by Thursday, November 23, 2023 at 8 pm the latest as the number of attendees is limited. Thank you.

I’m looking forward to seeing you.

Kind regards,

Adrijana Roždijevac
HUPE Osijek Branch President

1st meeting 2024 final