Google states that it’s 3,724 miles from Pylesville to San Sebastian, Spain; so it’s a good thing students in Mrs. Mary Capellan’s Spanish III class are emailing and not walking.  These students started a pen pal exchange with students in Spain, and the first batch of letters have arrived.

     In Capellan’s Spanish III class, students review and study past tense and irregular verbs, along with higher level vocabulary. However, oftentimes we must dumb ourselves down to make forming sentences and communication easier.

     Capellan has been doing this project for “three or four years with Spanish.” She also did another pen pal exchange with a German school.  

     The Spanish teacher’s favorite part of the exchange is “both the students and me learning about a different place.” She stated that she has not only learned about the Basque Country from what the Spanish students tell her students, but from what the other teacher tells her as well.

     Junior Logan Shum is one of the students participating in the project. He explained that the hardest part of the exchange is “trying to use the correct grammar,” but that it’s interesting to see how well the students in Spain speak English. In the letter he received, his pen pal talked about “what she did in the summer,” her favorite study spots, and music she enjoyed listening to. Meanwhile, Shum discussed what sports he plays, what the weather is like here, and what he did over the summer.

    Another junior, Julianna Chaney, stated that the hardest part of the letters is “trying to answer their questions and trying to make it understandable.” Chaney also enjoys seeing how their culture differs from ours, especially sports-wise and what they do for fun. In the letters she received, her pen pals “talked about where they went for vacation, the sports they play, and their families.” Similarly, Chaney mentioned her family and summer vacation in her response letters.

     When asked if they would like to visit Spain, Shum, and Chaney, both agreed they would.

     The pen pal students live in the Basque Country, which is on the border between France and Spain. It is one of the oldest cultures in Europe, according to thelandofthebasques.com. It has a distinctive culture from the rest of Spain, and their language, Euskera, is totally isolated from any other language. The country is not only known for their language, but also for their food and cuisine.