French teacher Sarah Finck creates pen pal program for her French 4 students

On Oct. 8, the students of French teacher Sarah Finck’s French 4 class sent letters to their new pen pals in France.

“It’s a great occasion for the students to communicate with real French people,” Finck said.

Finck was chatting online with her French colleague Nathalie Grancher when they decided to set up a cultural exchange. Grancher works at Lycée Claude Monet in Le Havre, France, where Finck worked in 2002 to 2003 as a teacher’s assistant. The class in France, “Classe d’Europe” consists of sophomores in high school that focus on European languages. The Classe d’Europe will send correspondence in English, while the French 4 students will reply in French.

“The required exchange is once every couple of months,” Finck said. “But, I’m hoping that they’ll email [each other] or become Facebook friends or have regular exchanges.”

Junior Alexandra Lin believes that the pen pal exchange would make learning [French] more [useful] to life.

“I’ve never had a pen pal before, but when you have someone who actually knows the language, it’s cool,” Lin said.

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