June 7th: School Visit #2- New Cambridge School

Today we visited New Cambridge School, a private school in Cali that serves students from preschool to 12th grade. We had the opportunity to tour the campus, observe classes in action, and meet with the director of the school. In our meetings with the Director and the English program department head we had conversations regarding our mutual goal of promoting virtual exchange between our students. 

As mentioned in an earlier blog post about our pre-departure preparation; the main purpose of our project is to create connections with Colombian English teachers to develop virtual exchanges. The director, the English department head, and various educators from New Cambridge School acknowledged the value that this connection would bring to the classroom for their students, as well as for ours. Two of our group members have been working since January in conjunction with two New Cambridge teachers, establishing positive working relationships and initiating the beginning stages of planning for classroom virtual exchanges for next year.  

We are thankful for the willingness of the teachers at New Cambridge School as, as well as many other schools in Cali, to embark on this new project to benefit our students. All of our group members have been working diligently since the new year to establish these connections with Colombian educators and we are thankful to have the opportunity to finally meet in person. We have much work to do in regards to conducting these virtual exchanges in our classroom, but today's visit was another step forward to meeting our goal and to providing our students with an invaluable learning opportunity. Through this project, our students will not only be able to practice and develop their Spanish language skills, but they will have the opportunity to increase their intercultural awareness and understanding like never before.  

Meeting with the Director. 

U.S. - Colombia partner teachers