This low-tech chat between students in Gig Harbor and Taiwan took off. Here’s why
In world full of communication tools, it’s posts on Google Docs that recently captured the attention of students in Gig Harbor and Taiwan.
They’re not speaking to one another through social media platforms or video calls. They’re practicing language skills simply by typing to one another through a makeshift chatroom that their teachers created and oversee in Google Docs.
And the kids love it.
There were quickly well over 100 posts the week Chinese teacher Heidi Steele started the exchange last month for her students at Gig Harbor High School and Kopachuck Middle School, and it’s continued to explode.
Students at Taipei Municipal Zhong-Lun High School ask questions in English, and Steele’s students respond in English. Steele’s students post questions in Chinese, and the students in Taipei respond in Chinese.
“I had just been really wanting to do something with my students to make the language real for them,” Steele said. “… It’s a very homegrown, organic kind of thing.”
She works the exchange into lessons here and there, but it’s largely students chatting with their new friends overseas on their own time for fun.
“I just get the sense that students are really hungry to reach out to one another,” Steele said.
She said they’re curious, want to talk about their lives and seem to find a “pure joy in connection.” It’s sort of like everyone is at a big table talking, she said.
They explore similarities and differences in their daily lives. One thread is about hobbies. Another is about food.
There’s a 16-hour time difference, but they still often find they’re typing back and forth to one another in real time.
Steele fields questions, sometimes on the weekends, to help with translation as needed. When there’s a miscommunication here and there, she said, she’s proud that students have been exceptionally kind and helpful, instead of teasing one another.
“I asked about family life, about school life, and I thought some of their questions were interesting about entertainment,” said 17-year-old Lily Rosing, one of the Gig Harbor kids.
Students learned they listened to a lot of the same music and watched the same TV shows, she said.
Meanwhile, she’s learned a lot of new words.
One particularly memorable response was to a question about pets.
A Taiwanese student wrote a long, darkly funny post about her family’s trials and tribulations with pet ownership.
“I just hope we can continue,” Rosing said, adding that she’s always wanted pen pals. “This is one of my favorite things that we’ve ever done in class.”
‘It’s made the language more real for me’
Especially in these times, students say, it’s nice to make the world smaller.
“I find it to be particularly interesting, because it’s just so different from English,” 17-year-old Ryan Farber, one of Steele’s students, said about studying Chinese.
He said it’s almost like a puzzle.
Teachers point out that for students who might not yet be very comfortable speaking Chinese or English the Google Docs allow them to craft questions and responses at a comfortable pace.
“It is very exciting when I see a new response or when they have responded to my question,” 18-year-old Yijia Lan said from Taipei.
The chat has helped students challenge assumptions. Taiwanese students said they learned the Gig Harbor students don’t eat fast food as much as they imagined. Gig Harbor students learned apartments are the most common type of housing for residents of Taipei and that students there have much longer school days.
“I think during this pandemic era that it’s important that teachers try hard to find a way to have designed this kind of program for the students to have the opportunity to have cultural exchange,” said Chingching Liu, principal of Taipei Municipal Zhong-Lun High School. “… We need to find every possible way to make friends with friends in other countries.”
Meanwhile, students are helping each other improve their language skills.
“I really have the opportunity to talk with a native speaker,” Yijia Lan said. “… I would like to visit them face-to-face if I have a chance.”
Mia Morente, 15, said sometimes she goes into the exchange document and sees students in Taiwan typing.
“It’s made the language more real for me,” she said.
Pei Chia Sun, a 16-year-old student in Taipei, said she’s interested in studying sociology and found a Gig Harbor student who wants to do the same.
She hopes they can keep in touch.
“I think this exchange is really interesting, because my parents want me to go abroad for college, so I want to learn about your life and differences from our school life,” she said.
Cole Fischer, one of the eighth graders at Kopachuck, said via email: “It was very interesting talking to each other because we were all very curious about each other’s culture. We are having a fun time talking.”
That’s fun for Steele to see.
“As a language teacher, it comes to the absolute heart of why I teach,” she said.
