From Poland to Tenerife: Anna's success story
HE: My name is Frank Sellingsloh. I am CEO and co-owner of the FU International Academy, a school that teaches Spanish and Digital Marketing under different brands, runs a coworking space and has been hosting European mobility projects since 2004. I learned about EYE through our knowledge of Erasmus programs. I have always enjoyed helping young people develop their ideas. In our digital marketing courses, we have already given dozens of young people the impetus to work in the field. The EYE project makes coaching particularly exciting because it is a complete project and the person behind it has a maximum interest. Working with Anna was particularly promising, as her idea of English learning for children has many overlaps with our current project "Let's Speak Spanish" and she was therefore also able to help us further develop it. After talking to her via Skype, I knew that we could help each other very well.
NE: My name is Anna Wroniecka. I graduated from Napier Edinburgh University in a course with Languages & Business focus. I discovered EYE through a friend who has taken part in the programme and highly recommended it. When I heard about it, I instantly knew it was a perfect opportunity for me. I have had a business idea in mind for a few years but I felt that I lack necessary knowledge and time to explore the topic. I expected the programme to provide me with some hard skills necesarry for carrying out my business idea, knowledge of setting up a business as well as inspiration and motivation to carry out my idea. I picked Frank Sellingsloh as my HE because we share interest in languages and online children education. Frank is an experienced entrepreneur with a lot of knowledge in marketing and new tools/technology. Moreover, the company is based in Tenerife and has international clients. I can work using, Spanish, English and German – the three languages I would like to keep using on a daily basis.
ANNA: EYE programme has been a life-changing experience that has led to me rethink my career path. Thanks to the guidance and support of my HE, I started to work on my personal project, and gained new perspectives and skills. Moreover, thanks to being surrounded by a different setting, language, and culture, I gained new inspirations and ideas.”
Activities undertaken during relation: HE: On the very first day, right after our meeting, Anna set to work with great enthusiasm. I have rarely seen someone who has accomplished so much in such a short time. Without any prior knowledge, Anna designed her own website, created countless videos for kids and promotional videos for herself and for us. She wrote all the content for her website, plus manuals, email templates and promotional copy. In particular, it is worth mentioning that she supported us for a complete day as an online trainer in the area of "screencasting and video editing". From this alone, you can see talent and maximum efficiency. NE: The relation has been rich in various new insights, knowledge and skils. I explored the topic by early language teaching. I started to create videos for my online course, using different tools, recommended by Frank. I wrote songs, poems for kids and started to create a curriculum for my online course. I recorded the audio and songs with a bilingual English speaker. I tested the video classes with children and implemented feedback from their parents. I created my own website and created a promotional video for my business as well as for HE’s business. I created content on early language teaching both for myself and HE and worked on my copywriting skills. I have given an online course about Video Creation. I looked into functioning of online language classes and management of the processes behind it. I took part in Online Marketing course run by HE’s company. During our meetings with Frank I would get valuable feedback, learn about marketing strategies and new tools.
Benefits achieved: HE: I could not be more pleased with the result of our cooperation. The most important thing for me is to see that Anna, with my help, has advanced her own promising project to the point where it no longer needs my support from now on. Apart from this satisfaction, Anna has helped us a lot to start our own project in the field of "Spanish for children". Her texts on marketing and ideas for further development have been extremely valuable to us. I am also very happy that we will continue to be in contact and support each other in the future. NE: The programme not only has let me gain needed knowledge on the process of opening and running a business, but also has provided me with inspiration and motivation to start working on my project. During these few months I have learned many new hard and soft skills. I learned a lot about video creation and editing, about marketing, website development, SEO and I had a chance to look into internal processes of running an online teaching platform. I got to work with the following programms and tools: DaVinci Resolve 16, InVideo, Audacity, Animatron, Freedcamp, Vectera, Acuity. I deepened my knowledge on early language acquisition. I learned many valuable lessons on running a business, management and marketing from Frank. There are also other intagible benefits, like gaining more self-confidence and independence in shaping my career path.
Frank: For the above reasons, I can only conclude that the cooperation and the result achieved were a complete success. If the chemistry between NE and HE is right and both can support or complement each other in important points, there is always a win-win-win situation, winner Nº3 is the society and Europe. After the good experience, I am ready to host EYE again, even though I don't think that the result of this round can be surpassed.
