¡Hola a todos!
Recently, Spanish students in years 9, 10, and 12 received our first emails from our Penpals from the Company of Mary School in Granada. This is as part of a very exciting language exchange scheme, in which we can help each other to learn our target languages before meeting each other during our Spanish trip to Granada in May.
I absolutely love the concept of Penpals – I adore getting to know different people from different places, especially if at the same time I can practice my Spanish. Luckily, the amazing Mr Fernandez always gives us plenty of opportunities like this.
For example, two years ago, we were given the opportunity to have a Penpal as well, but with the Company of Mary school in Seville. Although I wasn’t able to attend that trip, I was able to connect with an absolutely wonderful Penpal online, and I still talk to her very frequently to this day. Although we haven’t met yet, we have actually been able to exchange a couple of letters and presents to each other, which one of our friends (and Mr Fernandez) exchanged for us. She is absolutely brilliant, and we always seem to find a lot to talk about.
My lovely Penpal from Seville is not my only Spanish speaking friend which I have met through the school. One year ago, Mr Fernandez arranged a visit from the Argentinian Company of Mary School, in which they came to talk to us and take a tour of our school (guided by us – that was very fun). I still talk to one of the students who came today (almost daily), and I have no doubt that having friends like this has really helped me with my Spanish, especially with fluency and learning conversational phrases.
I find it absolutely wonderful to learn about their different cultures, their traditions and festivals, food, and daily life in a different country. I think that it is opportunities like this which we have to take advantage of, because it is really rare to find chances like this to talk to people from different places. I know that I definitely wouldn’t have learnt so much about life in Seville and Argentina if it wasn’t for my amazing friends, and it actually really helped when we represented Argentina for Model UN in December.
Although we only started our Granada Penpal scheme recently, I can already tell that my Penpals are lovely, and that I am very excited to get to know them better (I have been paired with two). It is very important to remember though that these opportunities all require a huge amount of planning in the background, all thanks to the efforts and time of Mr Fernandez, without whom I never would have made these wonderful friends.
¡Muchas gracias!
