Pedagogical Benefits of E-mail

Pedagogical Benefits of E-mail

MAJETIC, Senka

Key words: interaction, e-mail, communicative situation, classroom setting, FL learner ABSTRACT As many researchers have noted, e-mail extends what one can do in the classroom, since it provides a venue for meeting and communicating in the foreign language outside of class. Because of the nature of e-mail, FL learners do not have to be in a specific classroom at a particular time of day in order to communicate with others in the foreign language. They can log in and write e-mail from the comfort of their own room, from a public library or from a cyber-café, and these spatial possibilities increase the amount of time they can spend both composing and reading in the foreign language provides FL learners with more input than they would be able to expect from class time, which typically amounts to not more hours per week in most high school or college settings. By connecting FL speakers outside of the classroom, e-mail also provides a context for communicating with other speakers in authentic communicative efforts that may seem artificial in a classroom setting. They communicate in much like spoken language because of its informal and interactive nature. Yet, unlike face-to-face communication, e-mail is in written form and this can serve the language learner. As Schwienkorst (1998) stressed, "The major advantage of written communication […]" and have for future use "an enormous sample of his or her own efforts in the target language" (p. 125).

Article
PeerReviewed

IBU Publishing

2013-05-03

1975