The English Club at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Taman is going to have pen pals from New York, so Fulbright ETA Rebecca Barr held a meeting to prepare them by introducing students to letter writing, and they practiced writing their own letters to a peer in the English Club.

This English Club meeting started off by discussing the four main parts of a letter: the greeting, the introduction, the body, and the closing. After discussing these components, students were given an example letter and looked for each of the main parts in the letter. Next, students were paired up and asked to write their own letters to their partners. To support their writing, students were given sentence starters and question prompts. They also used a checklist to make sure their letters included all four components.

Once their letters were complete, students exchanged them with their partners. They identified the greeting and the closing in their partner’s letter and starred two new things they learned about their partner. Finally, students shared what they had learned with the class.

This club meeting provided students with an introduction to writing letters to help prepare students to write to their pen pals in New York. Muhammadiyah 1 Taman students will be writing to the students of Rebecca’s friend from university who is now a teacher. With this pen-pal project, Rebecca hopes to facilitate cross-cultural communication and help students develop their English writing and reading skills.

Rebecca Barr is currently teaching at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Taman, Sidoarjo, Jawa Timur.