My Erasmus+ Journey

My Erasmus+ Journey

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I am an English teacher in Turkey. I started teaching English in 2010. This year was exactly year when my Erasmus+ Journey started. But this is a long journey including a lot of disappointing events inside. But finally, it was with a happy end.

In 2009, I heard about youth exchange, but I tried to learn but I was so young and unexperienced that I could not apply. In 2010, I heard about Comenius. This time was different. Immediately, I applied the programme. I was working in a college and my manager did not let me. He thought that I wanted money from him. But I did not quit it. I convinced him. He signed but my applied was rejected. This was the first rejection but unfortunately not the last rejection.

I was a volunteer leader in Serbian team in Mediterranean Olympic Games in Mersin. I was very active, and I met a lot of European people. The fire in my heart blazed out again. I wanted to go to Europe.

 In 2013, I was appointed in a small town as an English teacher. This was an opportunity for me. I started studying on National Agency Web Site. I studied so hard that our director of National Education of town asked me to present English teacher in my town about Erasmus Projects. I made several meetings with the local English teachers. I joined the several meetings of national agencies in Siirt, Gaziantep and Ankara. I wrote one KA101 Project. Then, I decided to write KA229 Project. In 2013, I called them KA1 and KA2. I found my partners on eTwinning platform. When I found my first partner from Portuguese, I screamed a lot. I was so happy that I ran throughout the house. I found my other partners. They were from Italy and Greece. We were so excited. We wrote a project about Traditional weddings and the role of woman. We made several Skype calling. We met online. First, the first results were revealed, and our project was rejected. I was so disappointed. But I had hope as I was waiting for Results of KA2 results. The second Results were revealed, and we got 69 point. It was rejected. I was so sad that I cried all night long. I could not go to the school next day. I could not speak anyone. Everyone in the town was upset as this project was going to be the first project in the town. I could not give the bad news to my partners for several days. I sent e-mails to them while crying. I gave up writing project for two years.

 I got married in 2015 and I had a baby boy in 2016. I was appointed to Mersin which was my hometown. I decided to do project but this time I did not want to get disappointed, so I met eTwinning projects. I carried out two eTwinning projects. One is "What surrounds me?". I was the partner. The coordinators were the schools from Greece and Italy. The other partner was from Portugal. The project was about the real lives of the students. The second project was called “ Different High Schools". It was a very crowded project. The project called "What surrounds me" won national quality label and Europe Quality Label. More surprisingly, It won Move2learn Learn2Move. This meant, four teachers and 10 students would visit Italian partner schools for 10 days. This miracle realized. Europe opened its door to me not through KA229 but through eTwinning. When I learnt the good news, I was in Antalya Airport because I was chosen a trainee programme for English teachers. I screamed. I called my headmaster and my students. I was so happy. I got crazy. This was dream for me.

Through 2017-2018 Education Year, I went on carrying out eTwinning projects. I met Anda from Romania. She is an English teacher. She was great. We carried out a project called " Week Week Activity". We wanted to transform this project into Erasmus + project and we applied it on Romanian National Agency.

On March 2018, we went to Italy with 4 teachers and 10 students. We visited our partner schools and we visited Venice, Bologna, Padova and Verona. It was great experience for us. When I was in Italy, I learnt that I was accepted to a Salto Youth programme called "BitriMulti" in Bonn / Germany. I was so happy. This time, Luck was with me. I was so happy.

I joined "Bitrimulti" programme in April in Bonn/ Germany. We learnt how to write a Youth exchange project (KA105). I met several European people, but my best friends are Rose from Ireland, Diana from Bulgaria and Johanna from Finland. We wrote a project about culture together. Rose wanted to be coordinator and she applied it on October, 2018.

On August, we learnt that Week Week Activity project was rejected with 60 points. Anda and I was so upset that we cried again. I could not make our KA229 project approved. Bad luck was always with me, but we never gave up. We started another eTwinning project called "3-E Enjoy English Effectively".

On December, Rose gave us good news. Our project was approved. The name of our project was "Intercultural Connections". Finally, our project was approved, and this was the first time. We screamed " We did it, we did it."

Anda encouraged me again to write KA229. I succeeded in writing project for KA105 but still I was so unsuccessful in writing KA229 and we could not meet Anda yet. We wrote a project again called "3-E".

On May, 2 teachers and 8 students we went to Plovdid / Bulgaria. It was a great project.

On June, Anda sent us a message. It was a brilliant message. She said that our project was accepted. This was great. Anda and I cried a lot with happiness. We called each other and cried again and again. 

In 2018, 8 English Language Teachers founded an Association called "Foreign Language Educators Association" to help teachers and young people. The Association joined a project in Italy as a partner. In 2019 August, we learnt that it passed ,too. I have two projects in one year. I can say that I am an Erasmus+ expert finally. 

This was dream. This was dream for ten years. I was thirty years old and during one third of my life, I wanted to be part of Erasmus+ Project. This was my dream and I succeed it. We did it. We did it.