Interesting that they're still called Pen Pals. I've been using a site called MyLanguageExchange.com for several weeks now and am trying to decide if it's worth my time and effort. So far, I'd say yes. On this site you create a profile that expresses the language(s) you currently speak and those that you would like to practice. Optionally, you can add your age and where you live but, perhaps more importantly, you indicate how you want to communicate--by email, by audio telephone, by text messaging, or by video (Skype). Lacking the chutzpah it takes to interact with someone via video, I signed up for emails only.
The surprising thing about this is that I feel it is helping me. One of the hardest things is to filter out people you want to practice with. With French and Italian the choices can be overwhelming, so you have to try to find someone you think you'd be compatible with (in other words, someone who will talk to you :). And for Spanish, even when you filter with a lot of criteria, you get a huge list. You can also filter by country. So many people of practically every country want to learn a little English, that it's easy to entice people to write to you by assuring them that you'll help them with their English. It has also helped that I mention I have an advanced degree in it in my profile. One inconvenient problem with the site is that you're very limited if you don't fork over a few dollars to become a Gold member. You can use the site for free, but that means that you can only send "Hi's" to people. In order to exchange full emails, one of the two correspondents has to be a paid member. Still, if you can get a paid member to email you even once, then you're good to go and won't have to pay anything at all. Since I want to be able to choose who I want to write to, I went ahead and paid the fee. It's for a whole year.
The reason I feel that this has not been a total waste of time, is that for the first time since college I find myself actually trying to express things in the target language. First of all, I'm not one of those people who think you should completely ignore grammar, writing, and reading and concentrate on nothing but speaking. I know that's all the rage in language instruction now, but if you ignore grammar and writing, you won't be able to read traffic signs or menus. Nor will you be able to read a novel in its original language. This is especially true of French, which looks very different in writing. Still, language is meant to be spoken and there is no getting around face-to-face oral practice. At some point, when I have a bank of correspondents that I feel comfortable with, I'll try the video method. I've done enough classroom teaching that the prospect of face-to-face interaction does not frighten me. The main problem is that I'm not much on chit-chat and I have to struggle to think of something to say--unless I have some kind of rapport with the person I'm conversing with. Anyway, even with strictly emailing I've had a much better experience with the language. With textbooks, you often learn words and expressions that would rarely come up in a casual conversation. It's been a real eye-opener to struggle (even when writing, something I'm usually very comfortable with) to express even very simple things in the target language. The main reason for this, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is that you cannot translate from English to another language word-by-word. It will end up sounding artificial and sometimes even intelligible to a native speaker. So, in essence, I'm reasonable happy with my pen pal experiment. I especially enjoy writing to a fellow in Mexico. I've been to Mexico a couple of times and am familiar with the country. I'm much more likely to visit Mexico, pretty close to Florida, than to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
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