July Teacher Interview: Daniela Bunea

Deep down, I have always wanted to become a teacher – I have two younger sisters and when we were growing up I always liked to help them with their homework. Even before that, I remember “teaching” my dolls about order in the room – insisting on proper places for things… However, getting into university – to obtain a teaching certificate – was not an easy task in the ‘80s under Romania’s communist regime, the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu. This dictator constrained the population to live at a rather low standard of life, without any degree of freedom. After graduating secondary school I just went to work in one of the factories in my native town Sibiu. Romania’s economy was characterised by generalised “socialist” (state and cooperative) ownership, excessive centralisation, rigid planning and low efficiency back then. After a year, the December 1989 Romanian Revolution fell upon us, the dictatorship was pushed down and a democratic political system was re-established. Since then I would say that we as a people have encountered both numerous incentives and varied obstacles. We have experienced a decrease of population because of migration and the decrease of birth rate, plus a decrease of accessibility of health services accompanied by limited social policy for the elderly. We are however part of important international organisations like NATO (2004) and the European Union (2007). Back to 1990, it was then when – at the advice of some friends, who were on the same ‘wavelength’ with me as far as the future possibilities in Romania would be – I applied and got accepted at the prestigious Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, at the Faculty of Letters. I graduated 5 years later with a BA in Teaching English Language and Literature. I have been teaching English as a Foreign Language ever since.

Romanian language learners, like language learners everywhere I imagine, can be either demanding or unmindful. I have taught in just a few schools in my life, four to be exact, and they were all good schools with the first type of students. Romanian language learners as I know them are interested in and keen on learning English, motivated and pragmatic, hard-working and studious. Starting learning English at a very early age, at pre-primary level sometimes, and being supported by concerned parents cannot but help spur their pursuit and enthusiasm in many cases. English does open doors for them, doors that were not even foreseen 30 years ago or so, when most students learnt Russian or at times French at school. Nowadays the Romanian language learner is learning English as part of a set of key competences necessary at the beginning of the 21st century. Of course they study a second foreign language as well, usually either German or French, thus developing their abilities for communication and intercultural understanding. In my experience, this competence is better fostered through eTwinning projects. eTwinning is part of Comenius, the EU programme for schools. The portal went live in January 2005, and more than 200,000 European teachers are registered users today. eTwinning is a

virtual meeting point for the exchange of information between European schools and provides numerous tools and services tailor-made for schools to find partners, resources, advice, help, information, and to build eTwinning projects in partnership with each other. I have been involved in a plethora of eTwinning projects for six years, and been an eTwinning ambassador for more than three now. My students have collaborated with many peers across Europe, and each year we plan, implement and develop collaborative projects with European schools, being rewarded in terms of competences gained and skills developed. Students plan, then actively launch into learning, then present their work and reflect on what has been achieved. There are always final products, which are arrived at by creatively employing critical thinking and problem solving skills. It is creativity, passion and the fact that each student is a composer – this is what eTwinning is for us.

At pre-universitary level, teachers in Romania do not have an array of job opportunities to choose from – when they obtain their Teaching Certificate, they can apply and take an exam to work in a state-owned or private school as a full time teacher. As for English language teaching and learning, there are additional prospects over the 12-week long summer holiday, and not only for Romanian teachers, but especially for native speakers I would say – Scots, English, Americans come to Romania and usually teach conversational English to teenagers in summer camps (I also know of native English speakers teaching drama). The incredible diverse Romanian landscape and the relatively intriguing political history here do appeal to many. I have known many such teachers. They are confident and friendly, customarily well-organised, and consistently open-minded team players. They offer Romanian students real-world learning experiences while working on project topics, which can vary widely. And they gain a valuable insight into Romania, its people and its culture.

The lessons I consider memorable are mainly those during which I guide the learning process in such a way that students find out knowledge and how to do this and that through hands-on activities. I believe my students acknowledge them as being memorable too as it is about these lessons that they talk about at home in more detail – parents keep saying this during parent-teacher conferences/meetings. Project work is one of many students’ favourite, and I prepare and deliver countless project-based lessons. One example would be the celebration of Consumer Day on March 12th this year. It was a special day, when my sixth graders did our 2 English classes with three teachers and Mrs Rusu, the librarian in our school. The students had been asked to bring to school ads from newspapers and magazines, and wear T-shirts with ads on them. They also took to school bags with ads on them, and brought pictures of ads in the city on sticks or stored them online. We started the lesson by showing these to everybody on the big screen in the library, helped by their ICT teacher, and then I got the ball rolling and we talked about the advertising business and the effect ads have on everybody. Of course, there are other kinds of ads: there is skywriting, there are ads on the Internet,  etc. So we started talking about video clips. We watched five mobile phones video clips I had prepared, and I was happy that the students realised – when filling in the worksheet prepared for the lesson – that there are three main tricks of the advertising business: catchy slogans, funny jokes and famous people, and that advertising is responsible for a great illusion: the freedom of choice. Still, we must not allow ourselves to be manipulated! We should not just accept everything we see and read and hear as truth! We need to ‘read’ all ads critically, to protect ourselves as consumers. We need to ask ourselves: “Are there not alternatives?” Become a thoughtful consumer and a critical citizen in the future! In groups, assisted by the teacher of Arts, students then tried to draw a few effective ads, by answering these questions: What are you selling and what makes it so unique? Who do you want to sell it to? Why should people buy it from you as opposed to your competition? The posters were amazing! The students drew and/or collated suitable images, and wrote as persuasively as they could – persuasive skills, just like critical skills, are essential for anybody to participate in a democratic society. Some of the groups appealed to logic, others to morality, others to emotions. Some of the students used slogans, others made jokes, another group named a famous person…They enjoyed the two-hour lesson very much! And the most important thing to remember was understanding how we are persuaded.

Being on holiday right now – 12 weeks summer holiday in Romania! -, I am taking the time to care for my personal blog in terms of evaluation and planning, and of the Romanian eTwinning ambassadors’ blog and site, which I organize and coordinate, by refreshing it, adapting it to the new needs that have arisen, putting it to more uses really, even rearranging parts of the site. I am also collecting and editing quite a lot of eTwinners’ articles – as the editor-in-chief – for the annual eTwinning newsletter on project visibility; this will be the third issue. Thereon, I have been invited to a teachers’ conference in October and I am currently preparing my workshop, and during the autumn months I am planning to work hard on the preparations for an eTwinning symposium that I am co-organising in May 2014 – we still need to find more partners and/or sponsors. In September a new school year will begin, so learning units will be planned, shaped, delivered and evaluated; new projects will be born, cared for, and developed, and will have their value measured; latest teaching techniques will be tried out; new tools will be examined and taken up or dismissed – I will gladly, for instance, enhance the significance of using Glogster as a Glogster EDU Ambassador (I was honoured with this title and responsibility just last November); added partnerships with other organisations or with classes of students from Romania and/or abroad will start afresh. Of course people cannot plan everything, novel things will roll in I am sure, but I am confident I will be able to take each and every one of my engagements one at a time. Perhaps Facebook and/or Twitter (I am @DanielaArghir on Twitter) will gain more room in my life, helping me to start building that personal learning network I have been reading about lately; I could start teaching English online, this is one of my shrouded desires, I have only taught online courses – on web-based video, intergenerational learning, and iPad use – so far; in my one-iPad classroom I may spring towards using the device more stenuously. The future will tell.

I do not believe there is a perfect student for me, and this is especially arduously evident when I plan, organise, deliver and assess project work in class. It is then, more than any other times, that I think of my students’ learning as being kaleidoscopic – pursuing this fluid technique to enhance their learning I acknowledge that most of their characteristics are melted and reborn in the process with new facets. I love the “perfect students” when they are confident and adventurous without being disdainful, I adore their diligent working in teams and their bold final presentations, I treasure those many moments when I am delighted with, or even surprised by, their industry and performance.

I would invite them to come to Sibiu and teach English here! Sibiu was European Capital of Culture in 2007, which entailed many renovation works in the city. Piata Mare  (“The Big Square”) is considered the most beautiful renovation in all of Romania. The Medieval Sibiu counts five defense towers, which are a significant attraction for tourists. Nowadays the inhabitants of Sibiu are proud of their medieval ancestry, and so am I. The medieval period represented a prosperous time, both from an economic and administrative perspective. All joking aside, teachers of English would find here in Sibiu students who possess an appropriate basis for learning according to many criteria, who are open-minded apprentices, and who progress relentlessly. Arriving into the teaching profession is not an easy task these days. I would advise new teachers anywhere to strive to be fluent in their pedagogy, and flexible really – at the moment I think teachers need to be able to readily shift perspectives. Originality would not hurt either. The ability to promptly build on existing ideas would also be of help. I believe this is the kind of pedagogy that leads to motivation and promotes lifelong learning.