The Travel Buddy and Global Awareness

Jenny B Rúnarsdóttir

Jenny B Rúnarsdóttir teaches English at Áslandsskóli, a primary and junior secondary school, in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland.
E-mail: jenny@aslandsskoli.is

One of the most enjoyable projects I have done with my students in the last three years has been the exchange of travel buddies with classrooms around the world. Three years ago, I got a letter from a teacher in Australia who introduced this project to me and since then I have been in search of classes around the world to make this exchange with my students. What began as a simple diary exchange has now expanded in my mind as a means not only to practise writing English but to create a global awareness for my pupils. The idea itself just developed naturally as I found this project not only motivating and exciting for my pupils, but inspiring for me as a teacher. The kids became naturally curious about the country they were exchanging buddies with and I got a lot of new ideas from the teachers I was corresponding with.
The travel buddy is like the children's class mascot, a stuffed toy animal that may be a typical emblem for your country. (I chose the puffin as an emblem of Iceland). It travels with its diary overseas to visit a class in a foreign country for a semester only to return back home with its diary filled with information about its experience and what it's learned on its journey.

It is the children in the classroom that help the travel buddy write its diary. They take turns in taking the travel buddy home for the night and write an entry in its diary about all the things they did or experienced together.

The content of the diary often varies depending on the level of the pupil's English. When I started this project with my 4th grade students their level of English was Beginners. They wrote a simple text about themselves from the first person narrative voice and what they did together. For example, "Hi my name is Gudrun. I am nine years old. I like to play outside. Today when I came home from school I played computer games with *****. Then we went outside to play. Then we had dinner and watched some TV. Then we went to sleep."" It was very simple. The lower level students who had little help at home wrote in their native language and I pasted a translation into English next to their text. But that was only for a couple of pupils. A lot pupils received help from their parents and others really made an effort to write on their own. I was amazed at how enthusiastic the students were.

The following year, I decided to challenge them some more. They were to write in the third narrative voice from the point of view of the travel buddy. Today, I went home with Gudrun. She is a really nice girl. She likes to play outside with her friends. She has got blonde hair and blue eyes. She is also learning to play the piano. After dinner we . . . " I even wrote a letter home to the parents encouraging them to help their children if they needed or wanted help and also making them aware of what was expected of the pupils. The result was amazing.

Since then I have done this with more of my classes. And the responses of the pupils were always the same. They were really enthusiastic, inspired, and curious. They waited their turn in anticipation to write "When is it my turn to take the buddy home?" they asked.

Furthermore, what was also intriguing was their natural curiosity: "Where is this buddy from? ""Where is this country?" "Can we see it on a map?" Suddenly, I found my discussions in class were about geography.

I also found that the teachers that I was exchanging buddies with were experiencing the same thing with their pupils: Experiencing this natural curiosity of children. They somehow began to associate the buddy with their experience of life. It triggered off unexpected discussions of who had been where and who knew someone who had been there and suddenly the world seemed more personal.

It has also been such a great experience to work with all kinds of different teachers all over the world that bring new ideas into the project which have inspired me and taught me a lot. And just to give an example of the few ideas that teachers have added to this project, has been giving;

- Additional information about their country to diary.
- Additional information about the animal (the travel buddy)
- Creating a passport for the travel buddy
- Sending photos of the travel buddy while working on the project to continue inspiring the children.
- Sending brochures about their country.
- Sending little gifts from pupils (eg pencils, flags)
- Sending the travel buddy in a little handbag ( to keep the children from losing it)
- Creating little stories about invented travels the buddy has made in that country.

Teachers around the world have never ceased to amaze me in how they cleverly have incorporated additional writing tasks to this simple project and in my experience; I have found that the "learning aspect" for the pupils has first and foremost been the actual writing. They are keener to write about themselves knowing that there is someone in another country ready to read what they wrote.

Furthermore, teachers who correspond to one another may also want to keep their students motivated by sharing photos of the buddies in their new environment while working on the project. This year our school sets on creating a world map on display that will show where what buddy is travelling in the world today and what can be more visually motivating than actual photos to add to that display?

A project like this, collaborating with teachers around the world, makes you really aware that "no man is an island" and we really do and can inspire each other, teachers and pupils, by working together to achieve a simple goal. We, in essence, really do learn a lot from each other only to discover the similarities that binds us all together as human beings whether it be from the children's point of view or us, as teachers, struggling to achieve the same goals; broadening our pupils' horizon.

To finally sum up this experience, when the buddy returns home, it comes back with its learning experience. It inspires and arouses curiosity in our pupils not only for what they've learned but through the teacher's enthusiasm, for more adventures and it subsequently becomes a learning experience because not all children have that privilege to experience first hand travel around world : They can, however, travel and experience the world vicariously through their buddy. It is eventually up to the teacher how he will further make use of this experience in his teaching. For me personally, it meant to accumulate the information gathered to create a portfolio: "When I was at school we had a buddy and these are these are the countries it travelled to and this is what I learned through its experience."

Finally, to answer the burning question in the teacher's mind "How do I find a class to share a travel buddy with?" Well, the answer is simple: Become a member of www.epals.com. It is a school safe environment, no trash mail, just search and you will find. And although this may sound like an ad, it is not. Just me sharing an idea that has worked wonders for me and has hence benefited by pupils. I am confident that teachers who are members and have made use of this site will agree with me whether or not they have used this as a source to find a travel buddy.

Please check the Methodology and Language for Primary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the What's New in Language Teaching course at Pilgrims website.