Our Pen Pal Project

learners at St. Therese typing letters to their pen pals

Peace Corps recently matched me up with a school in Indiana (shoutout to Elwood High students!), via the WorldWise Schools program. They pair volunteers with US schools to start a pen pal program and try to reach those 1st and 2nd PC goals - informing Americans about our host countries, and informing our host countries about Americans.

I was reluctant to get started because, let's be honest, it sounds like lots of work. I was afraid I would be chasing my learners all the time and it would be a huge nightmare.

Instead, it's been totally fantastic. I feel so productive. I have never been asked so many questions about Namibia by Americans, nor so many questions about America by Namibians. My learners have come several times a day begging me to check my email to see if their new friends have written, and to open up the computer lab so that they can reply.

2 of my grade 8s working in the lab

In addition, I'm pretty psyched about the consequences of this project. My learners are practicing their English reading/writing - by choice! They ask me to edit their papers (although I don't always have time to check 20 letters) because they want to sound good when their new American pen pals read them. It's the most reading I've ever seen them do. We're also practicing geography (climate, time zones, seasons and map-reading were all on the recent geography examinations and we have worked on all of them already). Although I am only able to take the kids after school hours, it is actually convenient because it is roughly the same time our friends in Indiana have class.

4 of my absolute favourite grade 10s (who unfortunately/fortunately have finished at our school! grade 10s left in late October after they wrote national exams)

more learners, by our school's St. Theresa statue