Pen Pals: Finishing up!

1 March 2012

One by one, each of my classes is finishing up their pen pal letters... FINALLY! This project has taken a lot longer than I had anticipated, but I think that the stress will be worth it in the end for a couple reasons.

One: kids have a greater understanding of the difference between the US and England. 

For the kids, English is England. I think some of them think that means that the US is England.

However, today, I taught a couple classes about the American flag. I told them that there are 13 stripes for the 13 original colonies, and 50 stars for each of the states in the US. The kids couldn't believe that there are really 50 states and some tried to count them.

Needless to say, there has been an increase in the number of American flags drawn, and they now outnumber the number of English flags.


Two: the kids are more excited and motivated to learn English. Kids who I have never seen participate in class are writing incredibly long letters. 


My students have been digging deep to write to their American friends. One student who never works on the activities in his book wrote a two-page letter.

Three: I'm getting the chance to see Alicante through their eyes and share that with American kids.



I saw a TON of beaches, a couple castles, and of course, the Explanada.

Four: I'm getting to know the students better. 

Since this is Spain, this means FOOTBALL... the soccer variety that is. I'm finding out who's a fan of Barca and who's for Madrid.

Drawings of football fields were common in a couple classes. Here is a Madrid fan.












Here Barca has an ungodly number of points.


I'm just impressed they know all the names of each player for both teams.