Penpals from US and Finland

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The students from Oulu, Finland, and the students from Janesville, US, have written letters to each other during this Spring. Because of the long distance and delivery time, students signed into Edmodo and continued chatting there.

For Finnish students being penpals with students from US it have been very exciting experience. They think that they will learn a lot of about America, different culture and people while chatting with their penpals on Edmodo and by using other Social Media Apps. Also Finnish students will learn English skills and they will understand why they study English – not only for school, but also for communicating. For us as teachers, it was nice to hear one student saying that maybe when she is old enough, she will fly to Janesville to meet her penpal. We teachers hope that she will make her dreams come true someday.

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As a communicating tool Edmodo has been a great choice. It’s easy to use for students and also we teachers see all what students are writing to each other. After summer holiday students will continue collaborating with their penpals on Edmodo and also they will send each other paper letters and some small gifts. A few of them decided to send to their penpals euro coins, because they got dollars from them this Spring.

– Jaana, Petri and their 53 students –

1 thought on “Penpals from US and Finland

  1. Marta

    Hi Jaana and Petri. This was a lovely post which got me really interested in doing something similar with my students, but so far I haven’t been able to find any communities which are dedicated to pen pal projects on Edmodo. Did you create a group for this or joined a community? How did you find the other teachers to set it up?

    I would love to do an exchange this year with both my children (8-12) and teenagers (13-17). We’re from Spain, Valencia, and are Spanish natives, but we would be doing the project entirely in English or exchanging Spanish for English. Perhaps you or a colleague of yours would be interested in another pen pal project through snail mail and/or Edmodo for next fall?
    Or do you know where I could start searching for fellow teachers who are interested in the exchange?

    Here’s my profile in Edmodo, in case you’re interested: https://www.edmodo.com/home#/profile/73191797

    Thank you very much and good luck with your groups next year.

    Marta

    Reply

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