Travelling 5,875 miles from Piedmont to Sérignan, France, letters connect teenagers across the globe.

Students in the first four levels of French have sent and received letters to and from high school students in France starting last November, as well as connected with them using social media, in order to apply their French in a situation outside of the classroom and learn about French culture.

Each student was paired with at least one pen pal from one of two high schools in France, one in the suburbs of Paris and one close to the city Béziers in southern France, in continuation of a program that French teacher Christele Poppas brought when she came to PHS two years ago.

“The first round of letters were basic presentations to introduce themselves in the target language, so my students wrote in French and the French students wrote in English,” Poppas said.

Poppas, who taught in Danville before coming to PHS, began the pen pal program there with a teacher from France who had been doing it for 10 years to help students in France get to know host families ahead of their visits to the United States.

“I’m also doing this because I had pen pals growing up in France from English- and Spanish-speaking countries, and it really helped me find the inspiration to learn the language,” Poppas said. “It really opens up your mind. It’s not just, ‘I have a test and I’ve got to get a good grade,’ it’s, ‘I want to do this because it’s interesting and people actually speak this language and I’m learning stuff about the world.’”

Besides writing letters, students often reach out to their pen pals on social media outlets like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

“On Snapchat, it was a lot of showing them our classrooms and they were just like, ‘Oh, that’s cool!’” said French IV student junior Claire Reichle.

French IV student junior Elie Docter found her pen pal on Facebook.

“I asked my French pen pal the other day, ‘Do you watch the Oscars?’” Docter said. “It’s weird to think about what’s so natural or common to us and whether it is to people in France.”

Reichle noticed that French teens are more stylish than Americans.

“It’s fun to connect with people from a different part of the world and see their different culture, and there are definitely some similarities,” Reichle said. “It can be a little awkward though since neither of us speak the language very well.”

Poppas incorporates discussion about these cultural differences into her classes.

“What we do in classes, because some of our curriculum is culture-based, is compare what the textbook says with what real people say,” Poppas said. “Do French people really do this? Is this really a big issue in France?”

French III student sophomore Claire Laymon noticed cultural differences as well when she hosted two French students last year.

“In French class every week we learn and sing French songs; there’s this one song that my class was obsessed with and would listen to all the time,” Laymon said. “After dinner one night with the two students, we were talking about music, and I pulled out my phone with that one song and the two girls started dying of laughter. I was so confused, and they said the artist was the equivalent of Justin Bieber in France and that everybody there thought he was a terrible musician. I was a little bit personally offended. We didn’t really appreciate music the same way.”

Despite this mild affront, Laymon feels that she gained a better perspective into French culture.

“I went to France last summer, and it was cool seeing a lot of the same stuff applied but reversed because I was an American in a French setting,” Laymon said.

In general, Reichle feels that their English is slightly better than her French.

“I love reading their letters and they have some mistakes in English, but it’s fun to see them trying and I know I’m making a ton of mistakes too in my letters,” Reichle said.

Poppas is glad that her students can get so excited and interested in their pen pals.

“I want to make them more curious about the world,” Poppas said. “Kids by nature are curious, but you guys are just sitting in classrooms so many hours a day, so anything that can spark your imagination and make you want to learn more is one good point for the French program. It will make them sign up for the next level and open their horizons.”