BANGKOK - BARCELONA PROJECT Mariela Bianciotti-Sennecke, Key Stage 2 Spanish Teacher
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erm 2 had a surprise in store for the Spanish classes in Year 5. We were contacted by a group of students from Santa Coloma, a Primary School in Barcelona, to participate in a language exchange. They had been learning about Thailand and after browsing different schools in Bangkok, they were so impressed by what they saw on Bangkok Patana’s website that they chose us for a joint project.
students said about the experience: “I felt really excited to introduce myself to somebody who doesn’t live in the same city, the same country or the same continent. My pen pal learns three different languages and she likes reading like me. I would really like to find out who is who in the picture.” Vaanya, 5B “The moment that I found out what we were going to do, my Needless to say, everybody received the news with lots of mind started thinking of what to write!” Zachary, 5A excitement! Getting in touch with students from another country “My pen pal taught me a few phrases in Spanish. I would was something most of our Year 5s had never done before. really like to learn some more.” Ryan, 5B This project was also a great opportunity to use what we had learnt, to communicate with students who were Spanish native speakers learning English as an additional language. Students were paired up and each of them was assigned a pen pal from the other school. Using Google Slides, they wrote bilingual messages to each other. They had the chance to introduce themselves, talk about their likes, favourite food, songs, and even learn a few interesting facts about life in Barcelona. We also exchanged class photos and the highlight was receiving their videos greeting us in English and in Spanish! “I was really excited when I first started this project because I had never done anything like this. I thought that their school started at the same time as ours but it starts at 9am and ends at 4.30pm!” Darsh, 5B “I was really excited because I don’t really get an opportunity to meet new people without actually meeting them. I learnt that in Barcelona they speak Spanish and Catalan.” Joaquín, 5A “I learnt two words in Catalan: pantamaca which is bread The entire experience was very enriching, so much so that we with fresh crushed tomato and calçots which are spring will contact them again soon. We still have lots of questions to onions.” Raphael, 5B ask them! “Next time I would like to ask her why she wears normal clothes to school.” Husnaa, 5A Here, in their own words, is a sample of what our Year 5 15/02/2019
Bangkok Patana School News
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