Penfriend Project 2011-2012

The school is year is almost at an end so we want to thank you all the students of IES Vega del Guadalete in La Barca de la Florida - Spain and to their teacher Rocio Facio Romero, to have had this great adventure this year. 

3rd year students of classes III A and III B have been writing letters to their Spanish partners having the chance of improving their writing skills but most important, having the opportunity of making new friends and of knowing a new culture. They enjoyed this project very much and, even though they weren't used to write using a pen and papers anymore, they were involved and very interested in the activity. As soon as I sent each envelope with all the letters they started asking me "teacher, when are we going to get our reply?" so they realized that an ordinary letter in not an email or a text message, nor a facebook comment and it takes time! But waiting a bit of time to get a  letter from a new friends is really worthy and their smiles when I delivered the mail is something that made me think that, having them doing this activity was a right thing to do! 

So ... we want to say a 

BIG 

to our Spanish penfriends!

The letters from Spain have arrived!

Yesterday and this morning I gave my students the letters that I got two days ago from Spain.

When I told them I had the letters the atmosphere in class changed and I could feel  enthusiasm, happiness, and my students' wish to open and read them. 

So I became a postwoman and delivered the letters! 

After having got their letters the students started reading them and enjoyed having info about their Spanish friends. They also liked the decorations and the drawings on the letters a lot.  The students were proud of their letters and showed them to their school mates.

I asked them to start writing a reply and they didn't let me repeat it: they started at once. Some of them Had time to do it at school and some other promised to do it at home. They asked me for idiomatic expressions or more complicated words, they used the dictionary and so they created their answers to be sent to their friends.

 It will take a bit of time to have all the letters ready but we hope to be able to send them by the end of next week.

Penfriend Project 2011-2012

This is the second year we send letters to Spanish students of IES Vega del Guadalete in La Barca de la Florida, Spain. 

The main aims of the project are:
- to create contacts with European students;
- to improve the use of English as a Foreign Language;
- to create real chances to use English;
- to write letters (using pens and paper!) to discover the pleasure of talking about oneself, of knowing other people, of receiving letters.

Some weeks ago 3rd year students and I created a prompt for the first letter to send to our Spanish friends.

Writing a letter

Your address

Date

Dear friend,

Opening greetings

Text of the letter

Closing greetings

Example

Via I Maggio, 1

05024 Giove

12th October 2011

Dear friend,

- How are you? / Is everything ok?

- I'm fine / I'm ok. I hope you are fine too.

• My name is ….
• I’m …. years old and I’m a boy/girl.
• I live in Giove. Giove is a small village in Umbria and it is near Rome. In Giove you can see……….
• I’m tall/short and slim/plump, I have got blue/brown/dark eyes and long/short straight/curly/spiky brown/blond/dark hair.
• I’m generous/shy/lively/talkative/friendly, nice/lazy/kind/unfriendly/happy/bad-tempered/a sportsman
• In my family there are … members: my mum, my dad, my brother, my sister ……

My mum is a housewife, my dad is a doctor.

• In my free time I play football. I play it three times a week on Monday, Tuesday and Friday/everyday. My favourite football team is Juventus and my favourite football player is Vidal. I like him because I think he is a good player.
• I have dance lessons, watch TV, listen to music, play cards, meet friends ……
• I like listening to music and my favourite singer/band is……..I don’t like ……
• My favourite actor/actress, ………
• I often wear black jeans/skirt/…. and white t-shirt/jumper…
• I have got two dogs: Pinco and Pallino.
• I go to school everyday from Monday to Friday. My favourite subjects are ……… I don’t like ……. because ……
• And what about you?
• Who’s your favourite singer …..?
• Have you got brothers and sisters?
• Have you got pets?
• Do you like going to school?
• Can you send me your photo?

• That’s it for now.

Write soon.

Bye bye.

Then each student personalized the letter at home, I corrected it and they copied the letter using writing paper. 

 Yesterday morning I went to the post office and sent the first letters!

The project has officially started,

on board!