E-Mail Project

Thinking of appropriate ways to use media in the English lessons, we have spent a session on creating an e-mail project for year 5 students.  Our first preparation was to discuss the following question in class on EtherPad: “How can writing e-mails in English be facilitated for year 5 students?” Our instructor gave us some links to find a partner group and to inform ourselves about other experiences in e-mail projects. With the help of these links we agreed on the topic “Introduce Your Pets” which is suitable because year 5 students are mostly interested in pets and also know or learn the relevant vocabulary at that time. After reading http://etherpad.com/6SR5e25Mte, http://www.schule.de/englisch/tipps_neu.htm and http://www.lehrer-online.de/erste-mailkontakte.php we took a closer look at this general structure of e-mail projects between two classes.

<<c>> Stephan Schuller, "Global lernen -E-Mail-Projekte im Geographieunterricht",
in: Praxis Geographie 11/2001, S. 23 - 28

Then we (Sofia and I) created our own project on “Introduce Your Pets” in partner groups:

Session	1	2	3	4	5
Topic/Phase	Learning vocabulary “pets“	Describing pets	Pet- Pictures	Comparing pet cultures	Power Point Presentation
What is your class doing?	Student groups talking about favorite or disliked pets	Sending e-mails describing pets; Using dictionaries	Drawing pictures of pets, showing photos of own pets,  searching pictures on the internet	Collecting similarities/ differences between pet cultures in two countries	Preparing power point presentations including descriptions and pictures pet cultures
What do you expect from the partner class?	Introducing  “pet” vocabulary	Collection of characteristics of pets	Shooting  videos of pets	The same as  my class	The same as my class
Which e-mails are sent?	Introducing oneself and the pets	Describing pets	Photos/pictures/ videos	Final questions/ comments	Power point presentation and good bye letter

Working with e-mails is not only a change in teaching and learning a foreign language but also a skill pupils have to command in their daily routine.  Of course, nowadays even year 5 students know how to send e-mails but I am sure they will feel safer if they also use it at school, think about it as a serious tool of communication and if they get the feedback that they can successfully attach videos or pictures. I think they will like exchanging their work with people making the same effort. Besides, communication with native speakers of English will improve their language skills and encourage them to continue contact with other speakers of English.

The VLZ (Virtuelles Zentrum für Lehrerbildung) supports and adds my positive opinion about this creative teaching method by explaining the didactical background of  e-mail exchange projects:

Teachers who organize an e-mail project support their students to learn Language Competence (language awareness), Intercultural Competence (cultural questions), Method and Media Competence (handling the computer, e-mail programs, search engines etc) and Social Competence like group work.

Students benefit from the authentic communication because they practically produce language , test their vocabulary , learn shortened forms and internet language (e.g. CU l8ter) and they “develop a wish for correct language because someone other than the teacher really reads it”. May be they become interested in the culture, the foreign students present, and want to know more about it.

Taking these advantages into consideration, doubtlessly it is profitable for teachers to prepare an e-mail project.

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