A little bit of search on twitter... I met with John Fritzky from New Jersey who is a 5.th grader teacher. We decided to have a skype call on a certain time. Then we switched our questions which were mostly about their lives in America via email. Since there is a 7 hour difference, we had to stay in school about an hour and they had to come to school early about an hour.
Our students, English teacher Cevher Uzunöz and I worked on these questions for 4 hours. Finally, we were ready for our skype call and of course very excited.
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| This photo has taken while we were preapering our questions for American students. |
We started skyping exactly on time. At the beginning there were a couple of obstacle such as broken internet connection, bad voice reception. Hopefully it took only a 5 minutes which was a half an hour to me to solve the problems.
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| I was trying to figüre out what the problem was... |
We skyped almost one hour until they said they had to leave because of starting their school. But still we had enough time to asked and answered all the questions. My students were quite nervous, that was not easy for them to talk in English with the native speakers. Even though they were very happy and enthusiastic about skyping again.
The most enjoyable moment for my students was the time our students teaching them how to say " hello/merhaba " in Turkish. After they say merhaba, my students got really excited and applaused them.
One of our question was about their folk dances. They offered recording themselves while dancing and send the video to us. Even I was surprized and excited by this offer. İn such a short time we had the video which they were dancing with "cotton eyed Joe".
They were very kind dancing just for us.
Thanks to Mr. John Fritzky and his class for this opportunity, it was a great pleasure for us to chat with American friends. We never forget this experience ever.
Here are some of my students' comment:
It is very nice to see different nations in the same class. I like this very much. If we had the chance to speak again, İ would be very happy. I like that they have a class pet. I have never heard the Bamboo before. It was very interesting to see that they use Bamboo for their maths lesson.
I wonder that what is the difference between Bamboo and smart board? What advantages does it give to the students?
Yagmur Ergin
6-B
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I am glad that we had this conversations with our American friends.
The most amazing thing was that all the students are from different nations and religions.
They use Bamboo especialy for their maths lesson. This is the first time I saw Bamboo in my life.
One thing that I had difficulty in understanding was their fluent speaking.
Asya Nur Ceylan
6-B
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I am very happy to meet and actually see our American friends. Thank you for answering our questions.
The most exciting thing that I was impressed was Bamboo pen tablet.
I was so excited when you say "merhaba" in Turkish. Even though we asked all the questions in our mind, I still wonder your class rules. I would like to see if there are any differences between ours and yours. Another thing I wonder that how you spend your spare time with your family?
Thanks a lot for everything.
Mine Bayraktar
6-B
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It is very nice and interesting to talk someone from a different country. This was the most amazing experience I've ever had in my life.
We learned a lot of things about them. The most interesting thing I learned from yesterday that they use Bamboo in the classroom. I have never heard that before. The other thing I learned from this experience that we are all different and live differently, when people see this as a colour of life, life would be better.
Thank you very much to Mr.Fritzky and his class and to my teachers who makes this happened for us.
Burcu Ay
6-B
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I think Bamboo is very strange and very impressive invention.
You said the word 'Merhaba' very quickly and very nice. That is impressed me a lot.
Mehmet Ali Tahtaci
6-B
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I was very happy to meet and talk to you. You were very friendly with us. With this experiment, I had a chance to see that I could actually comminucate with people from different country.
İnterestingly, I saw a kind of tool called Bamboo which is being used for math lesson. I wish I could use it in my class too.
We thought how to say "hello" to American friends. When they say "merhaba" we all got very excited.
I wish we could see eachother again and talk some more...
Dilhan Çolak
6-B
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We were very happy to see you. İt was a bit strange to us that we talked people from different country.
We sometimes had dificulty in understanding your fluent English but those times our teachers translated for us so there were no problem.
We were very excited about this meeting. We stayed for an extra hour after school and they came early to their school.
It was very interesting that they use a tool call Bamboo.
After this conversation I know a little bit more about the life in America. I hope some day we could meet you all in person too.
Cansu Ünnü
6-B
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I'm very happy to meet you, because you are very caring and nice people.
We were impressed by the use of bamboo. When we speak eachother, I felt myself very close to you because of talking the same language.
I am very curious about the class rules you have to obey.
I hope you have enjoyed speaking with us as much as we had with you
İrem Tekeli
6-B
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