Thursday, November 17, 2005
Progressing with the Pen Pal Project
It's that time again... Here's my second installment on my classroom activity. After reading through everyone's comments, I've decided to narrow my project idea to the pen pal activity. I think Meredith's comment was the determining factor in this decision. "Social interaction is very important in children's lives, even if it is through mail with a pen pal. For some students, that might be the only friend they make all year." It is a reality that middle school students endure hard times. As a matter of fact, the middle school was developed as a transitional institution to ease progression into high school. I believe this activity might help my students learn more about another culture while also upholding their self-esteem as they look forward to conversing with a friend overseas. When I was this age, I always wanted to make friends in another country and learn more about the world outside America. Daniela, our mentor, has also helped me to generate several ideas for this project. She provided a website to stimulate ideas, and it certainly helped. For one, I thought I should also try to use the Internet in an effort to locate more pen pal ideas, and I discovered perhaps the perfect website for this project. It is called ePALS, and it is an Internet based pen pal website. This site seems reliable, enabling teachers to connect their students across the world. I registered with ePALS as an aspiring teacher, and I hope to find out more about their services. Has anyone ever had a pen pal? If so, I would like to know about your thoughts on the experience.
# posted by Catherine @ 11/17/2005 12:55:00 AM 
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Daniela:
I've been doing more with my ePALS account, and I am excited to report that I have recently received an invitation from a teacher in Morocco to converse with his/her students (I hate to admit it, but I cannot tell if the name Lahcen is male or female... would you happen to know?) I am very excited about this project; I've been checking my account everyday - sometimes a few times a day to see if I've received any e-mails. I've even contacted another person from China. I thought that the only way to test this activity would be to immerse myself within it. This might be a difficult activity to organize, but I am doing everything I can so that I might be able to provide appropriate directions for teachers interested in this activity. Thank you so much for your encouragement. It's so nice to have a mentor that is as involved as you are.
I've been doing more with my ePALS account, and I am excited to report that I have recently received an invitation from a teacher in Morocco to converse with his/her students (I hate to admit it, but I cannot tell if the name Lahcen is male or female... would you happen to know?) I am very excited about this project; I've been checking my account everyday - sometimes a few times a day to see if I've received any e-mails. I've even contacted another person from China. I thought that the only way to test this activity would be to immerse myself within it. This might be a difficult activity to organize, but I am doing everything I can so that I might be able to provide appropriate directions for teachers interested in this activity. Thank you so much for your encouragement. It's so nice to have a mentor that is as involved as you are.
The ePAL I contacted from China has recently responded to my e-mail. His name is Robert, and he says that he is interested in learning more about America and practicing his English. He is 22 and is studying News (Maybe he meant Journalism?) at Hunan Normal University in China. It has been quite an exciting experience for me. I have always been interested in people outside of the United States, and so far, ePALS has been a great way to learn about other cultures. They have a discussion board where students can post questions and receive answers from people all over the world. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who would like to learn about another part of the world.
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