A few words about ESL learning in Germany:
German students first start learning English in 3rd grade. The first two years are only listening, first words/phrases/concepts and lots of play. In 5th grade the real deal starts and they have four 45-minute lessons every week.
The first three years (year 5-7) concentrate on British English and British culture. In 8th grade the entire school year is all about the US and also American English and spelling. 9th grade will be about Australia and 10th grade introduces a variety of English speaking countries where English is not the only spoken language such as South Africa and India.
A few words about my English class that participated in the exchange:
I have taught these students since 5th grade and will keep them until they graduate from our school in year 10., so I have known them for a few years already. It is not common to teach them for one year only.
A: Most of our English class had evolved around Britain and they were excited to explore a new country now. Since most of their knowledge of any English speaking country is basically based on fictional characters in their ESL books I have been wanting to do a letter exchange to get them to truly experience and use the language what it is actually intended for: communication. The students know that I lived and taught in the US so I was able to share with them lots of my personal experience and I could show them pictures and we baked and cooked American food beforehand. I do think they identified stronger with the US because of that, but that may only be my biased perception :).
Q: How did you present the expectations around letter writing for this exchange?
A: One of the topics in year 8 is writing letters and emails. So we talked about and practiced letter writing parallel to writing the “real” ones. It would have been good to do one after the other. That is something I would do differently next time. The fictional letters had specific topics that were supposed to be addressed and I noticed they wrote these fictional letters with more ease.
I did not foresee how much they would struggle to write their “real” responses because these were “real” and they did not want to embarrass themselves by writing poor English. They were very perfectionist in a way that hindered their creative outlet and the words did not come easily. The language barrier was a huge issue for many students, more so than it usually was in the typical classroom context. I am guessing their (teen)age is a large factor for the inhibition they experienced here.
Next time I would definitely do the unit on email and letter writing prior to a real exchange to reduce insecurities.
A: One of the topics in year 8 is writing letters and emails. So we talked about and practiced letter writing parallel to writing the “real” ones. It would have been good to do one after the other. That is something I would do differently next time. The fictional letters had specific topics that were supposed to be addressed and I noticed they wrote these fictional letters with more ease.
I did not foresee how much they would struggle to write their “real” responses because these were “real” and they did not want to embarrass themselves by writing poor English. They were very perfectionist in a way that hindered their creative outlet and the words did not come easily. The language barrier was a huge issue for many students, more so than it usually was in the typical classroom context. I am guessing their (teen)age is a large factor for the inhibition they experienced here.
Next time I would definitely do the unit on email and letter writing prior to a real exchange to reduce insecurities.
Q: Have you or they ever done a pen pal exchange before? If so, what was that experience like?
A: Yes, I have done two pen pal exchanges with the US before. I taught 5th grade English at the time and we partnered with my former school in the US, which is a German Immersion School. So we wrote in German and English. The students were definitely less afraid and more carefree. As I said the age may be a large factor here. But of course it was a dual language exchange so they were always able to switch to their native language. Plus they saw errors coming from the US side and that really helped with overcoming their own inhibition.
I have also done two pen pal exchanges with Sweden with grade 9 students. Those were very rewarding and a great experiences because we actually visited each other as well. Even though both groups use English “only” as a second language the students’ language learning went through the roof during that one week in Sweden and when they had their pen pals visiting them here.
A: Yes, I have done two pen pal exchanges with the US before. I taught 5th grade English at the time and we partnered with my former school in the US, which is a German Immersion School. So we wrote in German and English. The students were definitely less afraid and more carefree. As I said the age may be a large factor here. But of course it was a dual language exchange so they were always able to switch to their native language. Plus they saw errors coming from the US side and that really helped with overcoming their own inhibition.
I have also done two pen pal exchanges with Sweden with grade 9 students. Those were very rewarding and a great experiences because we actually visited each other as well. Even though both groups use English “only” as a second language the students’ language learning went through the roof during that one week in Sweden and when they had their pen pals visiting them here.
A: The students really enjoyed this experience and getting letters. A few students connected via online games and started chatting online. Some were less interested in the actual writing process because they struggle in this area.
When we did the videos at the end of the exchange all students were highly motivated again. Seeing their pen pals definitely had the highest impact on them. In return they filmed different locations at school and showed their pen pals around virtually. If I were to repeat it I would definitely include videos more and probably try to make the first video right at the beginning. It just brings the whole experience more to life for them and the language barrier somehow is easier to cross for them.
I know a lot of my students would have liked to keep in contact, but it is rather difficult on our end due to very strict European guidelines and rules regarding personal data. My students are not allowed to give out their personal email or Instagram without the parents’ written consent. In order to avoid any legal turmoil I asked them not to share it at all. In this case I felt it was better to be safe than sorry. I’m sorry I failed to explain the data guidelines to you. They are new so I had to kind of figure them out as we went. Next time I would make sure that the US side knows that if they wanted to keep on writing after the school year ends that they would have to send their email first and then my students can respond without legal problems.
A: We had the luxury of actually discussing email and letter writing as a topic parallel to this experience so we talked about important phrases, collected ideas for sentence starters and later into the school year learned about writing better sentences. We introduced necessary vocabulary where needed, but it was highly individual and sometimes hard to keep track of for me to be honest.
A: We have a diverse student body. Some parents were involved, most were interested, some speak German as a second language and have little to no knowledge of English. But even some of those parents who did learn English in school struggled to understand tricky sentences. So most students would come to me, ask their classmates or use the google translator if they didn’t understand parts of the letters.
A: Yes, we talked about the exchange and all thought it was valuable to them. They enjoyed the videos the most, they were more interested and personally involved if they received photos. Some were disappointed because they didn’t receive answers (One student was very motivated at first and then completely lost interest because his pen pal didn’t respond). Some were disappointed if they didn’t receive pictures. Photos were very important to them, way more than I had anticipated. They did say that it was a great effort to complete longer replies and that it was sometimes poorly timed in regards to tests they had to study for in other subjects.
When I told them about the disappointment on your side they were very surprised and some even shocked. They felt it was unfair and said they put in so much effort and named the effort they put in like going to the store to print photos on actual photo paper so they would look nice. Some are not very strong academically and did the best they could to compensate the lack of content by coloring or adding drawings and photos.
A few were hard to motivate to write from the very start so I would have to agree that their pen pals would have every right to be disappointed ;-). I started an exchange with my 9th grade a little after ours and to avoid a clash in motivation we agreed on a star system we used in the initial letters:
2**) If you are highly motivated to write and will put in extra effort draw two stars next to your name.
1*) If you are interested in writing and you will participate in all class activities draw one star next to your name.
0) If you are solely participating because you have to don’t draw any stars.
This way we achieved pen pal partnerships that matched well.
A: I would definitely do this again as it is very rewarding for the students. I do have to admit that it is a lot of work if the group of students is as large as ours was. I do have to check every letter at least once and that is a lot of correcting on top of the usual work load. It is worth it and if the groups both put in some effort it is a great tool to get first-hand information about another country.
