Developing students’ respectful and ethical minds: E-Pals (u06a1)

(The things we don’t understand or know cause fear in most people. Once we do understand and know the objects of our fear, they are no longer a problem.)

I think it is very important for us as teachers to take our students out of the classroom and into the global environment they will soon work in. To do this, there are plenty of Web 2.0 tools to choose from.

I teach Spanish, as I’ve mentioned more than once, and I am always looking for ways to give my students authentic Spanish material to work with, and opportunities to practice what they have already learned. I think that E-Pals is one way to offer them both. I joined E-Pals and put up a post saying that I am interested in working with a teacher in a Spanish-speaking country who teaches first and second year English. I already have two teachers who I’ll be working with in September. I wanted beginner-English learners because my students are mostly beginners, too. This is our plan so far:

We are going to pair our students and give them class time to write to each other once a week. At the beginning, my students will write in Spanish and theirs will write in English. That way, they all can feel comfortable using their target languages because, obviously, they will all be making mistakes. We will encourage them to help each other with their mistakes. As our students become more proficient, we hope to provide them with two opportunities a week. On one day both students will communicate in Spanish and on the other day, they will use English. In this way, they will also receive authentic material from each other. As the school year progresses, we also plan on sharing classroom videos and other activities to learn about each other’s culture. We hope that our students will become friends and enjoy this communication.

I am hoping that along with the positive linguistic results that I hope my students obtain, the project will also help them to expand their respectful and ethical minds.