I taught Junior middle school students whose age varied from 13-16. The Chinese have a funny way that when you are born you are 1 year old. They consider the time growing in the mother as nearly a year, so I guess this make some sense.

My class sizes were 50+ students and with varying skills this was not always easy. A task they really enjoyed was writing letters to penpals in Canada. I set up a sister school with Bonar Law Memorial school in New Brunswick. Students there spoke French and were learning English so it worked very well. Both sets of students wrote enthusiastically to each other.

If you are interested in doing something similiar with your class by email or snail mail, remember not all school students have access to computers. There is a website www.epals.comwhere you can search for a classroom to exchange with. You can specify skill level, target language, age group, nationality. It's very easy and the students get a real kick out of it.