This year, students in Hillary Ramming’s Grade 2 English as a New Language (ENL) class at Ellenville Elementary School (EES) expanded both their literacy skills and their social circles with some new like-minded pen pals from Duzine Elementary School in New Paltz.
The pen pal exchange idea was started more than 20 years ago by Ramming and her colleague and friend, Lynn Bartlett, who teaches ENL at Duzine.
“We have collaborated many times over the years with our groups of elementary-age English language learners to develop their social language and writing skills,” said Ramming.
There are four students at EES who are participating this year—Dhanvi Baria, David Flores Turcios, Luisa Mosnytskyy, and Nufaysah Islam—and their first languages are Bengali, Spanish, Russian, and Gujarati, respectively.
After learning letter-writing and research skills, the Ellenville students initiated their exchange in April. They introduced themselves to their new friends at Duzine, and shared a little information about their backgrounds. “I told my pal that my favorite color is pink,” said Dhanvi. “And when I received a letter back, I learned that her favorite color was lime!”
Nufaysah explained that she made her first pen pal letter special by gluing it to construction paper and adding multiple stickers to “make it fun.”
For their second letter, the youngsters researched Koko, the famous gorilla known for her utilization of sign language to communicate. They read books and watched videos about Koko and her beloved kitten, and then. Ramming led them through a lesson focused on identifying the “who, what, where, why, and how” of Koko’s story, so that they could share their knowledge with their new friends.
“I really like gorillas,” said David, whose family came to Ellenville from Honduras. “My pen pal is from Mexico, and we both speak Spanish! I am excited to tell him about Koko.”
In May, the Ellenville students received another set of letters. The Duzine students responded to the letters about Koko, and shared some new information, too. The pen pals wrote about their family’s home country and flag.
“The letters were fun to read!” said David.
Ramming was pleased with the success of the pen pal letter exchange and the positive effects it had on her students. “Project based learning involves students on so many levels,” she said. “Pen pal letters inspired the students to learn and develop their English at a faster rate, while also building new friendships.”