Ghana: Interview with Kankam on Pen Pal Exchanges

Kankam Mensah Felix

Now that you've heard my perspective on my exchange with the classroom in Ghana, I'd like to share that of the Ghanaian teacher, Kankam Mensah Felix. I had the opportunity to speak with him about his experience as a facilitator of global pen pal exchanges and the impact it has had on him and his students. He works at the Lillian and Abraham Memorial Academy situated in a suburb of Accra, the capital city of Ghana. The suburb is known as Mallam. His role in the school is three-fold: he is the international relations officer, librarian, and he also teaches the Ghanaian language of Asante Twi. Read on to learn more about what Kankam is doing to improve education for his students and connect with other teachers. 

Note: If you'd like to listen/watch the interview, click here: https://youtu.be/acXH9fUzoJI

Q: Can you share how English and other languages are taught at your school?

A: Thank you so much for the great question. In Ghana, English happens to be, let's say, our first language. So students in Ghana start learning English and French. But French is not mostly taught in more schools. English is taught from nursery to grade 9 and to the university level. It's treated the same way as mathematics, social studies, and science in our classrooms. So depending upon the timetables or the schedule for the day, a class can have five periods in a week. For instance, on Monday, students will always have an English teacher going into the class.

So we have the three languages: English, French, and Ghanaian languages. The Ghanaian languages are Asante Twi and Ga. Everyone is expected to learn English and French. When it comes to Asante Twi, that is for the people who are natives of the Asante Empire or Asante Kingdom. These are the people from Kumasi. The Ga’s from greater Accra speak the Ga Language. Accra happens to be a mixed culture. We happen to have people migrating to Accra, so we have different people from all parts of Ghana. So we give them these languages to select from their own choice.

Q: Have you ever done a pen pal exchange before with your students? If so, what was that experience like? If not, what made you decide to start this year?

A: Thank you so much. When I came to the school, I introduced the pen pal exchange to my students because I used to work with the British Council way back in Kumasi, and one of my motivations to establish this programming in the school was to give students the exposure to learn what was happening outside of the classroom and outside our country. I tried to search for schools around the world and we would do a collaborative project together. We joined an organization called Yo-Ghana (exchanges for transformation). With this organization, the students were able to connect with schools in Oregon, United States.Then we also tried to talk to schools in France, in the UK, in Argentina, in Uganda, in the United States. This experience tried to broaden the scope of both the teachers that were part of the project and the students to have a sense of togetherness - a sense of feeling that "OK, we are learning here in Ghana, we have something similar with what others are learning, around the world." It gave my students, myself, and the teachers on the platform the confidence level that we are not doing something wrong. We are also doing something that the whole world is doing. It boosted our students' level of writing skills, speaking skills because there were times when we would do video recordings of some presentations that had so much impact on our students.

Q: What were your students’ initial reactions to starting the pen pal exchange with my class in the US?

A: They were so happy because one of the biggest challenges for us two years ago was access to computers and the internet. But with the help of the Helping Africa Foundation and the Friends of Yamoransa, we were able to get a 35-seater computer lab. But still we have challenges with internet connectivity. So what I mostly do is a paper exchange. My students would write, then I would scan them, and send them to the recipient teacher. They do the same thing, back and forth. So our experience with your students was so exciting! And then we were not lucky when COVID-19 struck, and we had to go back home. Then communicating with students became a challenge for me and them. But we are eager that when COVID-19 goes down, we will be able to continue our connection with you and your students.

M: I can imagine that this would make things much more difficult.

Q: So since this was a little different that they were recording Flipgrid videos rather than writing letters, how did you prepare them for the Flipgrid videos?

A: One of the things I always told them, especially when it comes to the video, is that the whole world is going to watch you. Whatever you are going to say should be very important. You have to stick to the instructions that the teacher or instructor gives. Don't go outside the box. Try to be perfect. Give the best answer you can give. Have the confidence, and speak and share your ideas because your voice means a lot to us in the world.

Before introducing Flipgrid to them, I shared a story of Malala with them. This is a young girl who tried to advocate for girls' education. We saw how powerful she was, how strong she was standing in front of delegates of awards and all sorts of platforms. With that video of Malala, it gave them the spirit to also pick up the phone to also share their messages on Flipgrid. [Note: Students in Kankam's class recorded their videos using his phone and later uploaded them to Flipgrid for my students to see.]

Q: How was ePals introduced to them? Especially since typing on a computer is very different from writing by hand.

A: We are moving away from the old, traditional way of learning to the new digital way. So one of the introductions was I told my class that we can't always use paper to write letters. The time has come where we have phones, computers, and tablets. So let's engage ourselves. We can't type as fast we can, but when we keep practicing, one day we will be typing so fast that we will be able to give our friends good information. 

My students also love the ePals platform because the teacher can moderate the incoming and outgoing messages unlike the normal email services that we can use. ePals happens to be one of the places my students love so much. I think that the biggest challenge for us is when they go to the house, most of them don't have access to computers. Then those who also have computers, don't have access to the internet. That is the challenge in communication for us on ePals and other things that we do. 

Q: Did you hear any feedback from students about this exchange before they left the school? If so, what did they say?

A: Yes. Most of my students loved writing and making friends and sharing ideas. Those students gave me the motivation to do the things that I do. One student even told me, "We are going to miss our friends." I said, "OK. We are going to lose them with a distance, but we are not going to lose our connection with them. So I'm going to try to build my connection with a teacher." And I know that when all things work perfect for us, we will be able to connect back to them again. 

M: Yeah, I really would like to keep the exchange going. 

Q: Were students’ families involved in helping students write the letters at all?

A: Yes. Not all of them, but a few of them whose experiences are mostly interested in what I do and they are educated, and they want their kids to get exposure. Some parents don't give so much interest. Like in the United States maybe you have to ask permission from the parents to do stuff. Over here we just do things like the normal type like bring the program to the school. The headmaster or the board agrees to it. We hardly seek the consent of parents to do anything we do here in Ghana. 

M: Yes, that's very different here in the US. If we take students on a field trip or plan to make any changes, parents always need to know. It's interesting that you don't do that there.

K: It's something that is good that I do. I try to design a template that whenever I'm doing a program, I tell the students, "Give it to your parents for them to be aware of the things we are doing in the school." It's something that I learned from my colleagues, especially my colleagues in the United States of America. 

M: That's why I think these exchanges are so useful because you take the best from different cultures in order to improve yourself and your school.

Q: Given that the pandemic cut our time in the school building short, what are you doing to keep students engaged in this exchange from home?

A: It's so sad that my school has not engaged our students during this pandemic yet. But one thing that I proposed to the administrators of our school is the use of Zoom, or Google Classroom, or Edmodo, and then Flipgrid that we can use these platforms to engage our students. But the challenge comes with the lack of the tools, that is the computers, tablet, phone, and access to the internet, so we are still trying to figure out [what to do]. There are some schools that are of higher grade like, I don't know, the graduate schools that are doing that. But in my school we are not engaging the students now.

One of the things that a few teachers, like myself, do is we call some of the parents just to check on how their kids are doing, if they are reading on their own. But to engage them on a learning platform, we are not doing that yet.

M: I wonder if it's possible that when the number of coronavirus cases goes down, if it would be possible for teachers to meet with small groups of students outside somewhere, and see each other, and you can teach them that way in smaller classes around different parts of Mallam or different parts of Accra.

K: Yes, one key thing is the government doesn't instruct us that we should go back to school. And if you start doing any sort of engagement with students, and a student gets COVID-19, we will be held responsible. So we are still waiting for the COVID-19 cases to drop down. One thing that I've designed that when we go back to the classroom, the first months I am going to introduce all of these platforms to my school. That is very important that we know how to use all of these platforms so that we can engage with them. That is one thing I believe that when we go back to the classroom, as teachers, we need to do - to introduce our students to the virtual platforms so that in case we experience any COVID again, or any pandemic again, we are familiar with the tools and we can use them. Even though we will have some little challenge with internet connectivity, even if they have the resources, the tablets or internet, how to use the platforms will be a challenge for most of them. We need to continue to give education on how to use these virtual platforms as well.

 

Q: What have you learned personally as a teacher about this process? Would you do this again? If so, how might you organize it differently? 

A: Thank you so much. I am always happy to connect with other educators around the world, and I'm always learning. I'm going to share this message with you: I met these two great educators. One in Australia called Joyce Bronwyn, who is the founder of Education Elevators. She has been so helpful to me, and she introduced me to a lot of educational platforms that I used to learn with her and her students. And then there's another educator from Tenafly, New Jersey from the United States called Mark Hyman. This teacher introduced me to what we call "global citizenship." So these are some great educators. I've met a lot of great educators for the past years. Gonzalo in Argentina, I've met Fabula in Argentina, I've met Michael in the US, and yourself! I've met you. So connecting with teachers, as I always say, I learn different tools of teaching, different methods of teaching, different skills of teaching, different approaches of teaching, and sometimes even personal issues. We sometimes share personal issues about things going on in our families as educators. So I'm always going to do this unless maybe I stop teaching, but I love teaching, so I'm not going to stop teaching. I'm going to continue this program because it helps me expand my level of connectivity with other people around the world.

Q: Let's say we continue this exchange next year, what might we do differently to make sure that the connection stays strong?

A: One thing that I'm going to do from my end is to make it a habit. Then I'm going to tell my school because it's like a "me and the students" program, but not a school program, so the children don't add more seriousness to it. But if it's a school program and it is part of the school, they are going to add more importance to it. That's what I'm going to do when we come back so that even though we have challenges of technology, they will give us access to the computer lab every week or every time that we need to write our messages so that the communication will keep back and forth so that there wouldn't be so much of a delay in replying back to you and other friends around the world. 

M: That's a good idea. I'm also doing this with my students. It's not a school program for us either, so it might be good for me to think about doing that to make it more a part of the culture of the school to do this sort of learning. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. You really helped me think more about the importance of making these connections.

Note: The names you see are the real names of the teacher and school, and are used with permission.

Ghana: Beyond the Chocolate

I returned virtually to Ghana this year in the pen pal exchange I initiated with my 7th and 8th grade students. My colleague who teaches history focused on the history of chocolate at the start of the year. This opened students' eyes to the problematic labor laws that exist in the areas that are responsible for producing the world's chocolate in countries such as Mexico, the Ivory Coast, and Ghana. To accompany their study of chocolate, my students read The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan, a fictional story about an enslaved Malian child who works on a cacao farm in the Ivory Coast. However, I didn't want my students' takeaway about West Africa to simply be that there is a great deal of poverty and lax child labor laws that allow for slavery to occur. To expand their understanding, students participated in a culture study by looking at videos and readings written by locals and cultural experts from either Ghana, Mali, the Ivory Coast, or Burkina Faso. 

To supplement and reinforce that cultural connection, I established a relationship with a private school teacher in Ghana using the #Gridpals feature on the website Flipgrid. For those who don't know, Flipgrid is a popular teaching tool to allow for students to share their voices in a video format to respond to teacher prompts. #Gridpals is a feature of Flipgrid in which teachers can connect with each other across the world and form these virtual connections. We created a "grid," which is the equivalent of a classroom and acted as "co-pilots" of that class, which allowed my American and his Ghanaian classes to have access to the same prompt and each others' videos. The teacher from Ghana and I worked to pair our students one to one based on common interests (as much as possible), and some of my students doubled up given that our class sizes were quite different. For his roughly 30+ student class, I had 22 total (which normally is split between two classes of 11 students). 

Given that English is one of Ghana's official languages, this made the exchange of information much easier in the group. With countries like Mali or the Ivory Coast, my students would have needed to know French or one of the many African languages spoken in the region. My students were so excited to record videos of themselves sharing their interests and ask questions about their Ghanaian ePals. They got to be silly and authentic in a classroom setting in a way that they don't always get to be. Asking about the weather in Ghana seemed to be the most popular question. Do I sense a science learning opportunity here? Yes! If only I had capitalized on it sooner. I know as I continue to do more of these pen pal exchanges, I will get better at making them progressively more interdisciplinary. 

After an introductory video, students were asked to discuss what life at school is like. It's always hard to sound excited about something that is a standard routine, so I needed to encourage them to share things like their schedule, information about the projects they've been doing, and extracurricular activities. My students went into varying degrees of depth. On the Ghanaian end, students faced the challenge of needing to share a lot of information in a brief amount of time since they were all using their teacher's phone to record the video. As a result, many shared similar information, but one thing that stood out to my students is just how early the Ghanaian scholars needed to arrive at school - 6:30 in the morning. They do this to clean the school in preparation for the day. It is clear that instilling a value of respect for your space is critical in this particular school.  

After this second video, it was not long before we moved to distance learning. In the case of my school, we had a virtual learning schedule that students and teachers were expected to follow. For the Ghanaian students and teachers, the situation is much more tricky. While some students were very responsive to teacher emails to continue the connection with my school, others were harder to reach. This unprecedented response to the pandemic has hit the school hard, and their school year goes until August. We continued the exchange to a lesser degree using ePals through which students wrote letters to each other rather than sending videos. As distance learning continues to unfold, both of us as fellow educators continue to reach out to one another in an attempt to keep the connection alive.

Germany: Interview with the Teacher

I interviewed the German teacher who was my collaborator in our German-US Pen Pal Exchange described in my previous post. You can read her thoughts on the exchange below:

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.

Q: What were your students’ initial reactions to starting the pen pal exchange with my class in the US?

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 :). 

When I told them we are going to write with an American class they were excited, highly motivated and eager to find out more about their way of living and couldn’t wait to see what they looked and lived like.

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.

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.

Q: Did you hear any specific feedback from individual or groups of students about the impact this was having on them throughout the year? What did they say?

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.

Q: What was your approach to supporting students through the linguistic challenges?

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.

Q: How were your students’ families involved in supporting their children's understanding of the letters we sent?

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.

Q: Towards the end of the year, did you have a chance to reflect with them on the experience? If so, what did they feel they learned or gained from the exchange?

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.

Q: What have you learned personally as a teacher about this process? Would you do this again? If so, how might you organize it differently?

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.

Germany: From a 2D Textbook to a 4D Exchange

I conducted a very different kind of exchange with Germany this past year in my school. The students I taught, this time, were 7th and 8th grade students in a more typical small private school. Anti-bias education is a core part of the school’s mission and with that comes empathy. In history class, students spent a great deal of time learning about the Holocaust and World War II. What better way to show how far Germans, especially young Germans, had come from the era of oppressing and killing Jews and other minority populations than to have my students interact with their German equivalent?

We began the exchange through snail mail. It was an opportunity for students to practice their writing skills and for the German students to practice their English writing skills with their English teacher who led the charge. Once again, I found the teacher through ePals, and we quickly established a routine of how these letters would go. The excitement on the students’ faces when they received their first letters in the mail from Germany was contagious! As they read and looked at the pictures that were included, they became curious about what others wrote as well. It was clear that soon enough, these kids across the ocean became real for them.

The German students beckoned from a town just an hour outside of Bremen, which may sound familiar if you’ve ever read the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale, “The Bremen Town Musicians.” It also happens to be a classic Russian cartoon that was a favorite of mine growing up in a Russian household. I showed my students a segment of this cartoon, and I’ll never forget their laughter when the donkey sings, “yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah” at the end. This fun little tidbit even made it into some of their letters back to the German students.

On a more serious note, there was a moment of growth that my students and I experienced in the process of this pen pal exchange. At one point, my students felt that they were not getting the same thoroughness of responses they felt they were putting into their letters. While I hadn’t taken the time to read all the German students’ letters, I did have a fairly good idea of what my own students had written. I glanced over a few German letters and at first reminded them that English was not their first language. They felt there was something more to it, so I inquired with the teacher about what it could be. In her response, the German teacher was shocked and upset by my remarks. She then went into full detail about the effort that some of her students put forth in writing their letters. She explained how she sat with some students for hours at a time deciphering the meaning of my students’ letters before crafting their own response. Others needed to request help from their parents in order to compose their letter. She pointed out how some of my students sent letters that were quite short for native English speakers and without photos to add that personal touch. I shared the contents of this email with my students and there was a moment of pause felt when they realized how difficult it can be to learn a new language and write lengthy responses in that language. Some of my students are already bilingual and many have been learning Spanish from a young age, but some truly took what I said to heart. On my end, I encouraged students to write more detailed responses in which they shared more stories about themselves rather than just recounting individual, unrelated facts.

The art of letter writing is not a frequently applied one, and while it came naturally to some, others needed idea upon idea for how to expand what they had written. In the age of Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram, I wonder how unacquainted some of these kids are or will be with personal or even casual writing that spans longer than 140 characters or a caption on an image. Furthermore, in the spirit of building that personal touch, to end the year, I filmed students saying a few parting words to their pen pal and sent it to the German teacher to share with her students. They reciprocated and even went so far as to film themselves showing off their school campus!

While some students felt they had not gained a great deal from the experience because of the infrequent letters and occassional moments of miscommunication, others wanted to continue the exchange past the end of the school year. Some have shared their social media handles and names they use when playing interactive or online video games. Through the imperfections of the system, I learned about the importance of setting clearer expectations around letter writing and what sorts of things are worth sharing. My students learned about how things can be lost in translation, but also how much they can have in common with kids their age from a foreign country. As many of them enter high school, they know that they have a contact in Germany if they ever need it, and they have just a bit more knowledge of how different Germany is now from the one portrayed in their studies of World War II.