Guidelines and Suggestions For The Global Classroom Connection

In General: The Global Classroom Connection is designed to promote greater cultural exchange and understanding as well as encourage interest and practice of English among non-native speakers. Students, with the guidance of their teachers, will use the joint web site to share thoughts and ideas with their sister classmates, engage in dialogue, cultural exploration and joint projects.

The joint web site and the web building software provided by the GCC are tools, which have been purposefully left open in terms of form and content in order to allow each classroom to decide for itself how and in what manner to proceed. Below are a number of suggested activities, however, each classroom is encouraged to post and design any manner of content they believe would be appropriate and interesting to their sister classroom.

Minimal Requirements: In order to properly initiate the exchange, we request that the participating classrooms post pictures of each student and teacher along with a short essay by each individual introducing themselves to their foreign classmates. Once that is completed, the teacher will control the other common areas of the class web site (Home Page, Projects, Photo Gallery, News) while each student will be able to post individual material onto their own student page. Everyone is encouraged to ask questions, provide information or simply join in with an opinion on the discussion board.  We wish you all an enjoyable and exciting exchange!

Some Suggested Ideas:

1. Festivals & National Holidays. It is likely that your sister classmates do not know much about the festivals and national holidays you celebrate and observe. One idea is to post pictures that show either your personal participation or observance or simply typical events and activities and have students write brief essays explaining the origins, history, or activities particular to the occasion.

1. Personal information. Student may want to post photographs and explanations showing introducing their family, pets, neighborhood, etc..

1. Hobbies and Sports. Students may want to include on their web page, photos, graphics and information about their hobbies or any sports teams they might participate on.

1. Share Your Work. As a regular part of your class curriculum, you may want to share with your foreign classmates the subject areas you are studying, for example historical photos and explanations of a period in history your are studying; photos and explanation of the geography of your country; how the political system of your country operates; post photos of class art work or projects etc..

1. Share Your Language. Create a page that introduces your English-speaking classmates to typical and useful words and phrases in your language.

1. What's in Your Refrigerator? An interesting idea first used by a student in Thailand, is to photograph and explain the contents of your family refrigerator. You will be surprised how much is different and how much the same. Do the same thing for the contents of your bedroom or what's in your backpack.

1. Travelers Information. Post photographs, maps and information from your own vacation to interesting locations in your country so that your foreign classmates can get an idea of the fascinating places to visit.

1. What's For Dinner? Post photographs, recipes and descriptions of typical (and favorite) meals. Take a trip to your local market with your camera and share it with your foreign classmates.

1. Field Trips. If your class takes a field trip, bring along a camera or two to record the event and then share it on your class web site.