Events, News & Newsletters
Macclesfield High School Students Link with Students in France!
One of Macclesfield High School’s Year 9 classes has been “linked” with a partner school based in Grenoble, France for the past 8 months. Students have already forged strong links with pupils from Collège Claude Debussy.
Students have exchanged letters, e-mails, photographs and video diaries of themselves via Ms Frank, their French teacher. In return, they have received post, presents and
e-mails from their French friends.
Year 9 students from Macclesfield High School pictured with
letters they have received from their French pen pals.
This “link” was organised through the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) of which Macclesfield High School, with its twin specialisms in the Arts and Technology, is a member. The scheme has now been running for six years, with Macclesfield High School taking part since March 2006. Current Year 9 students studying both French and Spanish have been linking with Collège Claude Debussy since that time, and, as the experience has been so successful, a Year 8 class is due to link with the same school in addition. All students in both classes have a French pen pal. Whilst Macclesfield High School students take part in the scheme in order to improve their French, their French friends, apart from improving their English skills, also learn history and geography in English!
The students have sent their pen pals small gifts and information about Macclesfield. Their pen pals have, in return, sent our students some brochures about their region. Ms Frank, the students’ French Teacher, said that she had “never seen her students so excited or motivated to write French. They have even done extra homework to finish off letters to their French pen pals and can now see the relevance of learning French”.
Elspeth Sage thinks the “partnership” with the students from Collège Claude Debussy is “good because you can see how they live in France compared to England”.
Chris Graves says that “it is good having a pen pal because you can actually say you have a friend in a different country. It helps to learn about their way of life”.
Jordon and Sheri Brookes think that having a French pen pal “makes French more interesting because you are actually talking to someone from France. They teach us and we teach them. We are both writing to the same French girl but she writes us separate letters back”.
Rufus Trevena thinks that the partnership with Collège Claude Debussy is great because “you can see all their mistakes and correct them and they can see all yours, so you can both learn from it”.
The programme gives students more self-confidence and enables them to improve their skills in communication, presentation and problem solving. The activities contribute greatly to higher cultural awareness, better motivation for language learning and increased interest in visits and exchanges. Macclesfield High School students certainly display pride in participating in the scheme. One of the aims of the programme is to encourage virtual communication between schools. Future plans are for students to write to their pen pals each time they complete a topic and also to use the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) to correspond over the web. It is also hoped that there may be the opportunity for Macclesfield High School students to take part in an exchange with the school at some time in the future.
November 2007