Pen Pal Project

What did we do?
The students from YL 12 wrote letters to students in England. The students in England attend  Ferney Lee School, Todmorden, Lancashire.

The YL’s wrote letters telling the students all about Cambodia and wrote about many topics including football, culture, history and music. The letters included pictures of Cambodia as well as lots of interesting facts about teenagers in Cambodia, thus giving an overview of Cambodian life for a teenager.

The letters were then sent electronically to England where they arrived at Ferney Lee school. The students there were given a letter from a student who was a similar age. The students then read the letters and wrote replies to our YL’s. The letters discussed life in England and depicted how teenagers live in England.

These letters were then sent to Cambodia where they were greeted by the happy faces of the YL12 class who had anxiously awaited the reply.

The YL’s read their replies and were amazed that they shared many common interests. The students were astonished that the students loved the same football teams, games, and music (especially One Direction). However, one student in the YL12 class could not comprehend why the English students did not share the same passion for K-Pop.

Throughout the project the students gained confidence in writing. One student proclaimed that he didn’t think that native speakers living in England would be able to understand his writing. With confidence sky high the students set out to complete their projects, cumulating with the production of a beautiful poster project and presentation.

Overall, the project was a resounding success and helped the YL class hone some key skills, such as informal letter writing. The most amazing thing that the students gained from this project was that their confidence rocketed and the students were delighted that they were able to communicate with native speakers in an authentic context.

Both schools were happy to participate in the project and the school in England has since asked to do the project again as part of their ‘Asian Studies’ module.

Safety on the internet.
It is very important to ACE that our students are safe in all environments, so all of the emails were sent by the two teachers of the class so that the children did not exchange personal details, and all of the letters were read by the teachers prior to distribution so that the content was not inappropriate and that there was no personal data being shared.

Letter from students

Dear Pen Pal                

Hi!  My name is Amy. I am 12 years old. I live in Phnom Penh. I`m a girl. I study at Ace school. On my freetime I like to watch tv + listen to music. My favorite color is purple, blue, green and orange . What is your favorite color ?  Also my favorite song is wide awake from katy perry. Plus my favorite Idol is lea Michele, katy perry . The channel that I watch is starworld , cartoonetwork. In starworld I like to watch “Glee ”. The other channel is “Brain game”. I like to play the game called “ Minecraft”  This is just some picture of our temple.

This temple is called “Angkor Wat ”. Which was built by Cheyvorroman ti 7 .He was a king that control the temple. It uses to be a city where all the people live there. Now am going to tell you about the museum. This is a picture of it!

In Cambodia we have only one museum and one palace. In this museum we have old stuff that was left from along ago. Some are from the temple and other stuff. Plus there are a lot of fish too. And now am going to tell you about the king palace.

What is your name? How old are you? Do you like Cambodia? I hope so. What do you do on your freetime. Are you boy or girl? What is your country look like? What is the weather like there? Good luck!   
Have nice day too!

A reply from Pen Pal

Dear Lyhuong and Amy…

Hi my name is Ema Lodererova and I am from Slovakia (this country is near Poland).I moved to England when I was 3, so I also speak two languages. I am now 9 years old. I live in Todmorden which also has many famous landmarks such as the Town hall or Stoodley Pike. The weather here spoils it though it always rains well most of the time.

I also listen to music. Don’t find this weird but I like Spanish songs, I know a lot of them. I am a bit different to you because my favourite person is Eugenie Bouchard a famous tennis player.
I am a sporty person and very good at tennis.

I also like to read in my free time. Moreover, I also watch TV (mainly all the ones that no one watches!)
Moving back to sport, one of the most popular sports are football which I hate!!!!!!

Now, because I am from Slovakia my favourite food is called  “brinzove haluski.” They are really nice!!!!!!!!!!

That is all from me and hope you have a nice time in school.
P.s I really like the sound of Cambodia.