Eva Doenges, Madison Geary, Audrey Laberge
On January 20, two Grade 4 classes from École Notre-Dame and Heritage Elementary School in Huntingdon met for a pen-pal activity.
Heritage students were bused from their school across town, where they met with their pen pals in the school cafeteria at École Notre-Dame.
“It was stressful but also exciting,” said one Grade 4 student from Notre-Dame.
The students first met with their pen pals and did an icebreaker activity together. Then the students played board games and were able to colour and make friendship bracelets.
The classes began sending letters back and forth in October, and they are now working on their fourth correspondence.
This is the second group from the two schools to participate in this program, which was initiated by the Montérégie West Community Network (MWCN).
“The goal of the project was to build inclusive communities by promoting language learning, cultural exchange, and meaningful relationships between students from both linguistic backgrounds,” said Nadya Kovacs of the MWCN.
Kovacs said the best part of the project in the first year was when the students finally met face-to-face. “This year’s program was extended to include multiple visits, allowing each school to host a meetup, and ending with a joint celebration at our local park,” she explained.
“It was very, very loud, and there was a lot of chitchatting, but it was very fun because we got to do a lot of activities together, and there were a lot of snacks,” said another Grade 4 student from Notre-Dame.
“It was cool because we could talk to people we didn’t know, to get to know them a little better. If you spoke French, they could teach you to speak English. And if they speak English, we taught them to speak French,” said a third Notre-Dame student.
Julie Doucet, the English teacher at Notre-Dame, was also excited about the pen-pal activity. “I think that this project is an amazing opportunity for the students to advance their writing skills and to make friends,” she said.
Doucet said it was also important that the students from both schools come together. “We all live in the same community, so this is a chance to get to know each other,” she explained, noting there are not a lot of opportunities for both schools to meet.
The students are now waiting for their next letters and are looking forward to meeting again.
“I think that the best thing about this project is that we can learn a lot and get to know each other, and we can practice talking in another language,” added a student. “It’s a good activity to do something else other than work in class on a sheet of paper.”
* This article was written by Grade 4 students at École Notre-Dame as part of a partnership between The Gleaner, the Montérégie West Community Network, and the Centre de services scolaire de la Vallée-des-Tisserands.