Many culture classes have adopted pen pals to gain a better understanding of the culture and language that they have been studying, despite a language difference that could exist between these factions. One of those classes is the upper-level French class at McCallum, which has adapted the pen pal process through exchanging letters and videos with students in France when French teacher Charlotte Favrin introduced the program to the school four years ago.
“I have a partnership with a teacher who works at a school in Paris in the 13th district and she’s an English teacher, so she teaches her students English,” Favrin said. “We met about four years ago and we decided to do an exchange with her students and my students.”
The students started off sending traditional letters back and forth but, due to the time and cost of sending these letters, they switched to videos, audio files and emails — a more modern take on pen pals. For Favrin, part of the benefit of having students talk with other kids their age is their ability to converse instead of just learning the material.
“When you have a pen pal, you’re in contact with real people who speak French,” Favrin said. “It’s exciting, and it’s interesting for them to get to know those people and see how they speak, how they dress, how they act, what they do in their free time. So I think the benefit is really language but it’s also culture exposure.”
Favrin also thinks that being in contact with French students helps to improve her students’ vocabulary and comprehension because they hear how people in France speak and the slang they use day to day.
One of the students participating in this program is junior Nathan Howard. Howard, who has been learning French for five years, has maintained a relationship with the same pen pal as in previous years. This consistency has allowed Howard to build a friendship with his pen pal since they first met.
“We both are really into music, he plays the upright bass,” Howard said. “We’re also both into nature, though he seems to get around it a lot more than I do.”
Howard sees this experience as a way to learn about a culture fully removed from his life. He is getting exposure to a culture he isn’t around and that hasn’t been influenced by this country.
“Despite living in such a melting pot of cultures here in the United States, we don’t see the complete differences [between different cultures],” Howard said. “There’s always some kind of similarity. It’s nice to see and talk to someone as different as you can make it from you.”
Howard has also noticed improvement in his French skills and ability to talk to people in the language. He has texted and written in French, through the letters, he picked up texting acronyms and equivalents to English phrases and sayings. Along with just getting better at the language, a long-term benefit that Howard has observed is that if he ever travels to France, he’ll have a better understanding of the language and culture.
Sophomore Milane Boudou will be getting a pen pal for the first time this year. Boudou was born in France but moved to the U.S. when she was a little less than a year old. She is looking forward to meeting new people and gaining a better understanding of the French school system.
“I already know about French culture, but I moved before I could be exposed to how education works,” Boudou said. “I also don’t know many French people from my generation so it’ll be interesting to see how people my age in France are different to teenagers in the U.S.”
Boudou has some ideas on teen life in France from family, but feels that isn’t the same as direct experience. She hopes to learn this experience from different perspectives, such as letters from students in France. She also wants to share her own culture and exchange the similarities and differences between the two countries. To Boudou, learning about different cultures and ways of life is extremely valuable.
“[Different cultures] give us a better understanding of how different countries and people do things, which I think gives us a better understanding of how the world works,” Boudou said.
For Boudou, there is also the added benefit of getting to know her family members’ experiences of growing up in France. In the summer, Boudou plans to return to her birthplace and stay with her grandparents for six weeks. She hopes to return after high school and eventually move back given she is already a citizen. She wishes that her pen pal will help her better learn about French college application processes.
“One of my main goals is to go to college in France,” Boudou said. “I definitely want to live there for at least a part of my life. I want to experience both the American way of life and the French one.”
