This letter is going to be
about your country. The idea is not to give a geographical or
historical description, but to take a look through the eyes of the
children. They must indicate what they like and dislike about their
own country. An assignment which is even more difficult is to write
what they think of, or know about, their partner's country.
In
this respect, it would be useful to explain the concept of stereotypes to them.
There are plenty of stereotypes you could mention about European countries.
e.g. The Dutch wear wooden shoes
and eat cheese all the time.
The French drink wine, wear berets and smell of garlic.
The English wear bowler hats and fight at football matches.
The Danish are boring.
The Germans shout a lot and always drink beer.
The Italians always flirt and drive very fast.
If
you have used the previous theme, you know that the students had to answer a
number of questions. They also had to predict their partners' answers. Stress
that they should include the number of correct predictions to the questions in
letter 7 in this letter. They could also count how many times their answers were
the same and possibly comment on this.
After
writing this letter students can be challenged with different assignments. It's
up to you and your colleague to decide if you want your students to do all
or just one.
1.
gather useful internet links about partner’s country and they exchange them /
they collect useful links of their own country and publish or e-mail them to the
partners to explore the information.
2.
prepare a leaflet (booklet) about their own country:
-
each pupil will choose from
the letter they wrote to their partners one thing they like and one
thing they dislike about their country;
-
they should create
illustrations (either photos or drawings) for these two sentences;
-
prepare a booklet
called "Our country viewed by the eyes of class.(A)..";
-
all the children will be
represented in this booklet through his/her sentences as well as the
illustrations to go along with them.
3.
build WebPages about the partners' country:
-
each class prepares a
questionnaire about the partners' country;
-
organise a chat session between
the 2 classes (depending on the number of students you can divide the
class in 2 and have 2 different chat sessions);
-
the objective of the chat
session is that all the questions are answered by the partners;
-
with the info gathered
during the chat students build WebPages about the partners' country.
4.
They can organise videoconference about the topics mentioned above if they have
that technical possibility.
Remember
that beforehand you have to discuss these ideas with your partners and decide if
you want to develop all the activities or just some of them. It will greatly
depend on the technical possibilities you have at school and on the
willingness of your students as well.
