How do I set up a pen pal program between students studying each other's languages?

Question

I attended american school and I am now in France teaching english at a French school. The students want pen pals. What would be the best way to work this out? Would the students write in their native language or the language of the receiver? (They are at about the same level.) Is email better or snail mail better? I prefer snail mail because of the anticipation of the letters and the possibility to send photos and other souvenirs. What do you think?
The ages of these students are middle school/high school.

Answer 1

If you post on FLTeach or on the babillard of the AATF (frenchteacher.org) you will probably get a bazillion answers. (I'm up for it--middle school French!)
I think it may work better for the students to write in their native langauge (we had a partnership last year and the kids kept trying to use a webtranslator rather than write in 'baby French.' Then they laughed at the funny English they received!)
We mostly did e-mail, but from my school I needed to have all their letters sent electronically to me and then I sent a mass-email to their teacher. All the students in france sent letters to me and I printed them for my students. In my school I needed to assure the principal that the students would not be exposed or produce inappropriate content, and, since I wanted to continue to be employed, I watched the e-mails.
We did send some snail mail in order to send some souvenirs, but pictures go through e-mail just fine! We had plans to set up a French website about our school, but the school year ended, my students moved on and I haven't been able to reconnect.

The kids loved it though, and my current students are craving a partnership...
(but do be careful. There are predators out here!)

Answer 2

Go to www.epals.com which is a site specifically for this purpose, as well as handling email exchange in a safe manner. We've been using it to connect with students all over the world. You can exchange snail mail or email through the epals account, plus they have lots of extras to work in class settings. They even have a decent translator program built right in, so the languages are not a problem. Go have a look, I think it's perfect for what you want to do.

Answer 3

epals.com looks great as suggest above my response, however, I believe that kids would rather send emails then snail mail. Think about it....they live on computers. Plus, it'll help with their keyboard skills for later in life. If some day they really want to send an item to that person, then they can exchange snail mail addresses. As for pictures, they can send those through their email account.

Also, think about looking into building your own web site for this project. I'm sure one of the kids will know how to build one. If you purchase a web hosting account through say GoDaddy.com, each one of your kids could have their own email address, say for instance, [e-mail] It's very cheap, about $5 a month for a ton of email accounts and the web hosting.

Good luck though! Sounds interesting.

Answer 4

Ok, I might advocate placing "International pen acquaintances" right into a seek engine. I'm definite a few outcome might pop up. As a long way as exchanges is going, there's a institution known as "American Field Exchanges", which units up international scholars,(commonly of prime university age), with American loved ones for a minimum of a yr. As a long way as languages are hindrance, take a category at a local university. If now not, there's a application known as "Rosetta Stone". I comprehend it is luxurious however well.