CATEGORIES:
BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism
The use of email
1. The benefits of email 2. Basic email skills 3. Using email with learners out of class 4. Using email with learners during class 5. Keypal projects
The benefits of email Email is one of the most used and useful Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools around today. Most of us probably write emails in both our personal and professional lives, and the same thing is true for many of our learners. Email allows us to keep in touch with other teachers around the world via mailing lists and discussion groups, thus helping in our professional development (see Chapter 11). It also allows us to communicate with our learners outside the classroom, for example setting, receiving, marking and returning homework and other written assignments. Typically, email will be used outside class time. For example, learners will email work to their teacher or to other learners from their home or from an Internet cafe. However, in the case of keypal projects - email projects set up between learners in different classes or countries - and when learner access to computers outside the teaching institution is very limited, a school computer or computers may be used in class time very successfully. Reading and writing emails either in or outside class time gives a learner more exposure to the target language, and interaction is 'real' in the sense that learners are writing to real people - either the teacher or other learners - using a'real' medium. In addition, if learners are writing to learners in other countries, as in a keypal project, this allows them to make contact and interact with people with different first languages and from other cultures. One of the biggest advantages of using email with learners from the teacher's point of view is that the technology is relatively simple to use, and most of our learners will already be familiar with it. If our learners are not familiar with email, it is not difficult to teach them to use it, and the technology is both ubiquitous and free. Basic email skills Before starting to use email with learners, you will need to check that your learners have certain basic skills in place. Learners need to be familiar not only with the mechanics of sending and receiving emails and attachments, but also with the kind of language used in email, as well as the 'rules of engagement', or netiquette, required in email use. Basic skills may be considered in two groups: communication skills and technical skills. Communication skills It is a good idea to remind learners that, as in traditional letter writing, there are levels of formality in email writing. An email written to enquire about a job vacancy will have a different level of formality to an email sent to a close friend. While the email to a friend may include abbreviations, emoticons, misspellings or lower-case characters such as i, these are entirely inappropriate for a more formal email. If you are using email with your learners - for example to receive homework - you will want to negotiate with them the level of It is also a good idea to teach your learners some of the basics of netiquette. These are 'rules' for effective online communication. Well-known netiquette rules include: • not using only capital letters, which is perceived as 'shouting' online. • being sure to respect others' opinions. • avoiding 'flaming' - ongoing arguments which become increasingly personalised and possibly public. • making sure that files sent as email attachments are not too large, as the person receiving the email may not be able to download them. Composing an email has the added advantage for learners of allowing them to draft and edit before sending. Research shows that this part of the writing process - so much easier than with pen and paper - is something that learners appreciate. But communication by email is, of course, still very fast. Technical skills Apart from basic word processing and typing skills, learners will need to have an email account. Many learners will already have a personal or work email account that they will be willing to use for their language classwork, but others may need help with setting up a new email account. There are several free, web-based email services, through which it is easy to set up and use an email account. The best known are Yahoo!, Hotmail or Google Mail, although Google Mail currently requires you to receive an invitation from an already registered Google Mail user for you to be able to open an account. Once learners have their email accounts, they need to be able to send and receive email, and to attach and open documents in email. It is also useful for learners to have basic ICT skills, such as knowledge about viruses sent by email, and spam or unsolicited junk email-what these are, and how to protect themselves from them. Depending on your teaching context, you may want to first give your learners a questionnaire to assess the overall email skills of the class, and then to review basic email skills based on the results of that survey, either with the whole class, with individual learners or by pairing up an experienced email user with a novice and asking the experienced user to teach the novice basic email skills outside class time. If the language level of the class is low, there is a case for providing this basic technical skills training in the learners' first language if you teach in a monolingual context. On page 64 is a suggested questionnaire that you can adapt for use with your own learners, to gauge their level of skill in using email, as well as finding out about how much access to email they have, and what they know about viruses and spam. If the overall email skills of the class are low, you should leave out references to viruses and spam, and concentrate only on the most basic email skills of sending and receiving, and of sending and opening email attachments.
Using email with learners out of class There are many ways of using email with learners, from simple administrative tasks such as the submission of assignments or homework via email, to more complex email projects, involving classes in different countries over a number of weeks, a semester or even over an academic year. Below we outline some ideas for using email outside the classroom. The ideas require learners to have their own email accounts, and access to a computer outside class time, either at home or work, in a self-access centre, or in an Internet cafe. • Learners can submit classwork as attachments by email, which can be marked by the teacher, and returned by email. Learners can also share classwork/assignments by email. • The teacher can email learners a summary of classwork, plus homework or extra material, or updates on classes, after each class or on a regular (e.g. weekly) basis. A teacher blog can also work well for this (see Chapter 7). • The teacher can email learners regular newsletters about the class and themselves. This is especially useful for keeping in touch with learners during holidays. The emails could include 'diary' or 'journal' type information about what the teacher has been doing in their spare time, and be sent to learners weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Learners can be encouraged to send each other emails of this type, too, either to the whole class, or to a partner. • Learners can use email to prepare before class. For example, the teacher can ask pairs to prepare information on a topic, which they can do via email. • Learners can use email to send queries about a topic, or a grammar area, to the teacher before a class. This can help the teacher prepare a class that focuses on and addresses specific learner issues. • A class mailing list can be set up for general discussions out of class time. (See Chapter 11 for more on mailing lists.) Regular email programs can also be used for this, with learners simply setting up a class group in their email program address books. • Email can be used as a collaborative writing tool. For example, in groups, learners are asked to produce a story based on a painting, with Learner 1 starting the story, which is then forwarded to Learner 2, who adds to the story, then forwards it to Learner 3, who adds to it, and so on. It is important to ensure that all group members are copied into the story from the beginning, and that each learner knows when it is their turn to contribute! Note that a wiki can also work well for collaborative writing (see Chapter 7). Using email with learners during class Using email during class time is worth doing if more complex projects are being set up and if your learners have limited access to computers outside the classroom. Below we describe two examples of data collection projects. These can run over several classes, weeks or even months, and require quite a lot preparation on the part of the teacher. A data collection project requires learners to send emails to real companies, individuals, organisations or websites to solicit information. This information is then collated for comparison, and a presentation or written report is prepared on the topic. Given that the chances of unsolicited emails not being answered is high, it's important to ensure that you choose a topic that requires your learners to send emails that stand a good chance of receiving a response. Here are two example data collection projects for learners with an intermediate or higher level of English. Given that emails for data collection projects need to be written with a fair degree of accuracy, they are less suitable for low levels.
Key pa I projects Keypals is the term for pen pals who use email to communicate, and described below is a project between two groups of keypals who are learning English in different countries. Email provides a simple and effective way of putting learners in touch with other learners of the same age and level in other parts of the world. Learners can talk about their experiences of learning English, and, of course, email is the perfect medium for cross-cultural communication. Keypal projects should be started in class but thereafter could combine a mixture of in-class and out-of-class work. Keypal projects issues Here is a checklist of things to bear in mind when planning a keypal project. Some points have already been mentioned. • Ensure that you agree on clear deadlines and time frames with your partner teacher for emails to arrive, and stick to these. There is nothing more demotivating for learners than to put in the effort of writing emails, and to then get no response, or a slow response. • Negotiate groupings with your partner teacher, and decide whether emails will be written by individuals in one class to individuals in the other class, in pairs or in groups, or even as a whole class (good for very low levels). • Decide which languages will be used in emails, depending on who the learners involved are. For example, if both classes are learning English as a foreign language, with one class in Chile, and the other in Germany, English will be used for all of the emails. If one class is native speaker, then it's worth trying to pair up the languages - for example, a group of English-speaking learners in the UK studying German with a group of German-speaking learners in Germany studying English. In this way, half of each email can be written in one language (German) and half in the other (English), with learners writing partly in their mother tongue and partly in the target language, which can feel less threatening. This kind of exchange is easiest to set up at secondary school level. • Ensure that all learners have the basic emailing skills and knowledge of email netiquette outlined earlier in this chapter. • Keep the keypal project short and focused. The keypal project outlined above runs over five classes. Ensure that your learners know how long the project is to last, and when it will be finished by - don't let things drag on. Focus is provided by having clear tasks for each email, as in the outline above. Don't expect learners to simply write an email to a stranger without any guidance as to content or language. Discuss with your partner teacher to what extent there will be teacher involvement. Will the teacher vet and approve each email, and to what extent will accuracy and 'correct' language be an issue? This also needs to be made clear to learners, especially if their emails are to be used in any sort of assessment procedures. • Discuss with your learners the issue of possible misunderstandings across cultures. For example, do emails come across as too direct or blunt? Do they sound rude? If so, what might cause this, and what writing conventions do we need to use in English to avoid this? Responding to email using the reader's first name, for example, and signing off in a friendly fashion, is important. Again, this relates to the area of netiquette. • In terms of general email etiquette in email projects, it is worth reminding learners that it is always a good idea to remain polite, and to not respond to aggressive or insulting emails - although this is unlikely to be a problem if a keypal project is set up well, and monitored. However, misunderstandings can and do arise in email communication, especially when a second language is being used between two different cultural groups, so it is well worth making your students aware of the dangers.
Lecture#6 Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1663
|