3 Help learners to get started. Probably the best way to do this is for you to
require all of your learners to e-mail something short to you, with a time
deadline. It can be worth thinking about using a short written exercise for
this purpose, in which case you can attach at least some marks to the task.
You could also send all your learners a message, to which they would need
to reply. Ideas like this can make all the difference to learners who might
otherwise not get round to finding out how to log in to the system and send
an e-mail.
4 Make learners’ efforts worthwhile. If you’ve asked all members of a class
to e-mail something to you, try to respond immediately (within a day or two)
to each message as it arrives. The fact that learners get a little individual
feedback via e-mail from you, and that they get it quickly, helps them to see
for themselves the potential of e-mail as a communication medium.
5 Point out that e-mail is a way of practising spontaneous written
communication skills. Getting students to communicate with each other and
with you using e-mail gives them an opportunity to use a written medium
for relatively spontaneous communication. Attempting to write in the highly
interactional, relatively informal medium of e-mail can make them more
aware of strengths and weaknesses in their semi-planned language use.
6 Promote the benefits of computer literacy. The information technology
revolution has meant that a much greater proportion of people need to use
computers in their everyday work and lives. Being computer literate also
means that people don’t have to rely on other people to perform various
tasks for them. For example, university-based learners who have mastered
word processing don’t have to pay someone to process their theses or
dissertations, and can keep editorial control over them, making it much
easier to change them whenever they receive some useful feedback about
draft versions.
7 Encourage learners to write using a word processing package before
cutting and pasting into e-mail. WP packages usually have much better
editing facilities, including spelling and grammar check facilities. They
allow learners to edit and polish their writing, so that they can have control
over how spontaneous the e-mail message actually is. If learners were to
attempt so much editing on a handwritten message, it could either look very
messy, or have to be written out several times before the same amount of
adjustments had been achieved.
8 Remind learners that e-mail can be viewed as environment-friendly.
The saving of paper can be significant. If the computing facilities are already
available, it can be argued that using e-mail incurs negligible costs.
9 Encourage learners to write short e-mails! One of the problems with e-
mail communication is that people only tend to read the beginning of a
message. If an incoming message is too long for immediate reading, people
tend either to file them away for later reading (and forget them!) or simply
delete them.
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