ZoomPals make great friends, and language seems to be no barrier. Students in Advanced Spanish Literature and Advanced Latin American Literature, taught by Upper School Spanish teacher and senior Grade Head Yadiner Sabir, have developed a correspondence with Argentinian students, and the connection goes beyond exchanging email .

“I met Ms. Sabir when I started working with the academy in North Carolina, she was my counterpart there, which was our, Quilmes, introduction to exchange program,” Fernanada Eguinoa, English teacher and Head of the exchange program at Quilmes High School, said.

“When the pandemic hit us all, I had to think of how I could somewhat recreate the experience my students would have in my classroom speaking Spanish to me, since it is much more limited in an online format. Given that none of us could travel, I reached out to Fer and proposed the idea of a Virtual exchange and we got things going right away,” Sabir said.

The correspondence with Quilmes High School in Buenos Aires started in September. Each student in the two classes is paired with a student in Argentina. 

“My teacher, Ms. Sabir gave each student the email of a student in the exchange school so we started talking,” senior Julia Polsky said. “At least for me, I speak to them in Spanish, and they respond in English, so we can both practice while also just getting to know them.”

The students were assigned projects to complete with their exchange partner. “We’ve done a few projects, group projects, where we present on something. Like we had a project on the planet, and we’ve done them on other topics,” Polsky said. 

The first assignment, on the environment, was meant to show how much they all had in common.“We gave them a picture of a sick earth and asked the students to answer why it was sick,” Eguinoa said. “They gave us responses like the environment and about the oceans but also about social issues, common issues we all face no matter where we are.”

One of the aims of the assignments was for both students to get to know someone from so far away and understand the different cultures. 

“The most valuable thing that I am getting from this experience is the chance to meet new people from a different country and being able to share things from our lives, our likes, cultures, traditions, etc,” student at Quilmes High School, Gaudalupe Moreira, said. 

“It’s really interesting to see what kids from other cultures, literally halfway around the world, do,” Polsky said. “It’s cool to see that my partner from a totally different part of the world has a very similar life, listens to a lot of the same music, watches some of the same stuff, and just is very similar to us.”

Because of the flipped seasons, the program came to an end in early December when the students at Quilmes go on summer break, however, that doesn’t mean that the correspondence will.

“I like speaking with my pen pal,” Polsky said. “Over the past few months we have become friends, and I think I’ll continue to talk to them even after we are no longer required to.”

As the program ends, there are several things linguistically or otherwise that students got from the program.

“What students get the most is the things that books can’t teach, the fluency, the informal, colloquial language that isn’t as common in the classroom,” Eguinoa said.

“ I believe this is an opportunity that you don’t get everyday, so I’m very thankful for the experience and for the partner that I got,” Moreira said.