Learning English in the age of pencil-paper. (PEN-PALLING:)

Learning English in the age of pencil-paper. (PEN-PALLING:)

We are the Age of Transition. If you say what it refers to, this is a definition of my generation. Neither were we born distant from technology, nor in the middle of it.. Even if we are using technology so often nowadays, we used to live in a non-technological age in our childhood.  Our meeting with technology started with telephones in our houses sometimes. We made jokes by changing our voices to the receiver as to make the person to believe the caller is a stranger. And many more strange jokes among our friends can startle a teenager in these days. If you have a relative living in foreign countries, this was the only connection to the other countries. There was no chance of meeting or talking someone from a different country.

As I started high school, Our English lessons became more important. Let me explain. The first year of my high school, there were 5 lessons in my curriculum. My native language and literature (Turkish) for 4 hours, 18 hours English, 2 hours music, 2 hours art, 2 hours P.E. English was the biggest part for achieving success through the first year. Our first meeting with the HOTLINE Course book (Oxford University Press)and English culture. We were learning people who had pen-pals from different countries. It was so strange I thought. How could you write someone who you haven’t met before? It was a miracle for me and deeper inside me I wished I had a pen-pal but how?

Not always dreams come true but mine was accepted. One day I was in the school cafeteria with friends from the upper class, they were carrying some papers in their hands. They told us that there was a company (IYS = International Youth Service) organizing students to have a pen-pal. This was unbelievable!!! I listened them attentively and applied for to have one.

Rules:

1.       You have to pay 1.10$ for one pen-pal.

2.     You have choose 5 countries.

3.     You can select gender, age.

Finished! That was all. I filled out the form immediately. But they told that if you write countries speaking English as their first language, the pen-pal may not find interesting to write. Write countries using ESL (English as a Second Languge) I didn’t listen to them and I wrote USA in my first choice and took the risk of it. Two weeks later, They sent my pen-pal address.

“What to do next! Ebru” I said to myself- Go home and write a letter as soon as possible with your pre-intermediate English. I wrote a very formal letter with my hand-writing and described my family and me most. The next step was to post it and wait for the hopeless reply. Days went by, our postman in the village knew my father very well. It was unfamiliar for someone getting a letter from a far-away country. Everyone got excited when I saw the name “Jenny Wong”.

 It was her. She was my pen-pal. She replied to me. I took it and went to my room with an English dictionary.

I read the letter several times. This was the beginning of my story with Jenny. 

We kept writing through four years. We sent many little presents to each other. The extensive use of internet through the world made people forget writing letters.

     During the years I had 2 more pen-pals one from Finland,

 and from India. I have to admit that I couldn’t find more energy for the other ones and my story ended then.

     Even today I kept many of my letters in my box and never thought getting rid of them. If I find time, I go back to the old days and read the sentences written by Jenny. Last year I put all my letters in to a file to show my students. That was not much intersting for them and found boring. But I try to understand them as they have many technological opportunities under just one click !!! I believe Letters will never die!