Korean Job Discussion Forums

Goku · Joined: 10 Dec 2008

I just had two of my favorite students come to my desk and ask me where they can get some email penpals.

Does anyone know a SAFE and decent website to get penpals for these girls. I don't want any creepy exchanges and want to find other girls their age (they are middle school) they can have an English exchange.

richardlang · Joined: 21 Jan 2007 Location: Gangnam

I have thought about this before. One thing you might do is email an old elementary teacher in your country asking him or her to connect your students with potential penpals in his or her classroom. This way, you know it's safe, and you can connect a bit with your past teacher.

I recently got in touch with a few middle and elementary teachers who taught me in America. It was a good thing. It's easy to find them on the internet nowadays.

I never said 'nowadays' in America. I must have picked it up here in Korea. Ahem, carry on.

Goku · Joined: 10 Dec 2008

Goku · Joined: 10 Dec 2008

PRagic · Joined: 24 Feb 2006

Get the parents involved. Have them find their kids suitable pen-pals. Or how about the primary Korean teacher?

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

Contact ESL or English departments in schools of the same age group in your home country. I'm sure you'll get a response and effective action by at least one.

That is one of the safest routes to go.

I set up a pen-pal exchange for all my ESL students in an American high school by going through this forum. My goal was to use the first two or so exchanges as a writing grade and then encourage students who wanted to keep it going on their own.

It worked well as a class grade project. It was too new for me to tell how well it worked long term for the individual students.

nathanrutledge · Joined: 01 May 2008 Location: Marakesh

I'd try and find some penpals in another country that DOESN'T speak English as their first language and they are learning English, too. The vocabulary level and linguistics of a native speaker would either confuse the learner, or the native speaker might get bored with "dumbing down" what they write. Another EFL student though wouldn't have the same problem. Besides, these kids learn about the west all the time, but if they write with other EFL students, it opens up a whole lot of other options.

I was looking into this last year for some of my students. If you search on google, there are a few teacher/student penpal websites.

Murakano · Joined: 10 Sep 2009

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

On Nathan's idea, I disagree in part. I taught ESL in high school in the US, and I had students ranging from survival English to high advanced. And this was in a small town by Georgia's standards. If you contact TESOLers in big cities in your home country, you should be able to match student levels fine...

roll_eks · Joined: 31 Aug 2009 Location: Seoul from Nevada

craigslist

n�fara · Joined: 14 Jul 2007 Location: The Island

You could also try www.epals.com

I've had luck finding both classes wanting pen pals, as well as penpals for just a couple of students. There are classrooms from all over the world on there. It's a good website for teachers, not only is it for finding penpals and keypals, but there are also projects and exchanges to be found on there, too.

tenchu77491 · Joined: 16 Mar 2009

http://lifeinkorea.com/Boards/list.cfm?BoardID=18

For free sites, it's as safe as it comes I guess. Better for middle school and high schoolers.

PS, if I were you, I would track down 2 people for them and then let them exchange after you speak with the fellas. Just my 2 cents~

pkang0202 · Joined: 09 Mar 2007

Have your students use Omegle. Its free, anonymous, and they can type anythign they want.