Collaboration

Communication between Cultures


 WHAT - The project is going to be a Pen-Pal Project about school systems in the students' own country and in another country. It's going to be set up so each student get a pen-pal from the other school, which they will exchange letters with back and forth.  


The students are going to learn about their own country's school system, and attain new information about a different school system.


We chose this subject because it's a great way of using communicating skills for English, and it may be interesting for the students to learn about how the school system works in a different culture.


The Pen-Pal Project is suitable for international collaborative work, because there exists a multitude of different education cultures around the world, and being able to identify your own system, it will be easier to meet and understand a different education culture.


The two teachers are going to arrange the amount of letters the students will write, but it HAS to include the following 4 letters at a minimum:

-Introduction Letter

-Letter about own school system

-Letter with questions about the sister school's system

-Postcard from own country as a wrap-up for the project period

-Email with pictures from the exhibition 


The project is going to take 6-8 weeks. In the class, students are being divided into small groups to exchange ideas about what to ask, how to ask, and why to ask. The students will write and exchange letters on an individual basis, but will ongoingly confere with their project group to exchange ideas.


Ultimately the students will do a group presentation about the school system in their sister school's country.


By sharing the ideas and information through letters with another school from a different country, the students can then learn more about education cultures and improve their written communication skills for English.


After the presentations they will create a portfolio with the letters and pictures they've exchanged throughout the project period. This portfolio they get to keep, bring home and share with their families.


In this Project the English Teacher from each class will have to participate and the students in the English class - Also the parents will probably help with the letter writings along the way. The pupils will work most of the time at school with the teacher, but a continuous work can also can be done at home, including finding informations about the school system and about the exchange country. This project is not just a work provided by the teacher, students must take this as an opportunity to open to new knowledge. This is why parents will also play a role in this activity by helping their children.


The teacher will introduce the Project during the first semester but it will start in earl-mid January and end in February. We have chosen this period because there isn't any event at this moment like Christmas, Easter, etc. 

The project will be a success as soon as the pupils get letters from their pen-pal because that is the main issue of this Project. At the end of the Project, they will have learned a lot of things about an other school so the goal will be even more successful.


After this Project, students can continue to communicate with their pen-pal if they want to. They could also organize a meeting with them or a trip in the exchange country by their own or with the school if that is possible. It could be a future project to institute...


Jeffrey Jensen, Kjartan Clausen, Martina de Vecchi, Fiona Jungo

core concepts:

Collaboration: Collaboration means people working with other people towards a common aim.

 No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you. —Althea Gibson

 Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success. —Henry Ford


Global citizen: It defines people, citizens, who see the world as one big "state". They want to communicate across borders, and don't think they are important.


Internationalization: Society is becoming more international and it is our work as a teacher to be open-minded to other cultures because it allows us to learn a lot of things about the world that surrounds us.