In order to further the mission of our school of developing Global students I would have them contact students in a Spanish speaking country and ask them to share what a typical day in school is like. Our school actually takes frequent missions trips to a sister school, in Mérida, Mexico, we have established a relationship with. Our first exchange student from this school just completed a semester of studies with us here. Students can use their Spanish vocabulary to develop relationships with students there in Mexico that are in an English or Spanish class. Daily life and culture in Mexico, from the viewpoint of youth, could be shared with my students while the student practices his Spanish through this correspondence.
How would I know if this was effective or not? To track their correspondence I could possibly designate a particular area of the blog to foreign correspondence. Or, if my students communicate through Facebook or another means, they could cut and paste their weekly exchanges into a post on my blog. I would know if this was effective by the number of posts I receive, amount of comments brought up in class discussion or assignments dealing with culture, and just by the enthusiasm my students display when I bring up the topic in class. Other ways of assessing effectiveness might be to include questions dealing with their reflection upon the values or topics they have learned as a result of their correspondence with partner.
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