CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Since the early 1990’s, a growing body of researches have reported on the
effects of various e-mail writing projects on different aspects of language learning.
Guided by the three research issues as previously mentioned, this chapter is divided
into following sections. First, the effects of using e-mail in language classroom in
terms of cultural awareness, linguistic gains, and students’ perceptions. Second, the
factors sustaining students’ e-mail communication after the required writing activity
is completed. Third, the introduction of the concept “willingness to communicate”
(WTC) used to investigate students’ sustainability.
2.1 Raising students’ cultural awareness
Though recognizing culture as an integral part of language learning, many
language teachers still consider introducing linguistic concepts and monitoring their
production the top priority. They regard understanding of target culture as “an
automatic byproduct of language instruction” (Brown, p.182), assuming that, with
little specific treatment designed to promote intercultural understanding in
curriculum, the cultural acquisition would automatically occur. Some teachers even
treat the role of culture in teaching as merely a temporary refresher in the normal
course and believed that playing movies and songs, or introducing the customs and
holidays of the target culture equals teaching the target culture. True, these activities
would, to some extent, help students form the knowledge, but run the risk of
oversimplifying the richness and variety of culture and never offer learners chances
to experience the lived culture of the target language speakers. As a result, what
Taiwanese students know about Halloween is not the origin of the holiday, but the
scary costumes and pumpkins. As for Thanksgiving, only the turkey but not Pilgrim
and Mayflower. In this way, the term “culture” turns out to become nothing more
than an empty word in second language classroom. The teachers seem to be unaware
that culture represents not only the material products, but also the attitudes, beliefs,
ways of thinking, behaviors shared by the community members (Kramsch, 1995).
Wilson (1982) proposed “cross-cultural experiential learning,” through which
learners will be able to compare the difference between their own culture and the
target culture, and thus develop the global view to the community, the country and
the world. Teachers must allow students to observe and explore cultural interactions
from their own perspectives to enable them to find their own voices in the second
language speech community. In line with the ideas, Liaw & Johnson (2001) stated
that “as the EFL students interacted with representatives of the target language
culture, they became aware of the process of culture in very real and personal way.”
(p. 248) However, since visiting foreign countries or studying overseas requires high
cost and great time consumption, only a limited group of learners have access to
make real interactions with people of different cultures. In contrast, e-mail, with the
features of immediacy, convenience, accessibility and low cost, provides learners
with an opportunity to build direct correspondence with the individuals in the target
culture and thus can explore different aspects of the target culture (Gonloewski,
Meloni and Brant, 2001; Warschauer, 1995; Warschauer, 1997; Jogan et al. 2001).
“Without leaving their home environment, the students acted as cultural informants
and agents of cross-cultural exchange” (Liaw & Johnson, 2001, p. 248). At the same
time, since e-mail can easily create two-way cultural dialogue, it becomes less
challenging for language teachers than incorporating the authentic meaningful
interaction with the native speakers from target culture into the class (Jogan et al.
2001).
Many studies have found that e-mail exchange projects not only develop
relationship with learners in other cultures (Liaw & Johnson, 2004) but also help
them obtain cultural information. For example, in Handle & Corl’s (1998) study, the
learners were aware of the differences and the similarities between American and
German culture, after reading the same texts dealing with the culture-related issues,
such as the school system and television watching, and then reacted to them by
sending written comments via e-mail to both classes.” Similarly, both Hertel (2003)
and Jogan et al. (2001) reported that students involved in the cross-cultural e-mail
exchange perceived the differences and similarities between their own culture and
the target one and were motivated to pursue the ongoing discovery about the other’s
culture. What’s more, Hertel (2003) even noticed that the participants were
increasingly concerned about the world problems through the experience. Following
the similar study design by Hertel (2003), Liaw (2006), too, recognized the benefits
of the exchanges and discussions with speakers of another culture and even
compared such interaction to “a journey of discovery and reflection,” (p. 60) in
which EFL students’ intercultural competence was fostered and they would be likely
to become “intercultural speakers.”
Jogan et al. (2001), Hertel (2003), Itakura (2004), and Liaw & Johnson (2001)
further indicated that e-mail exchange with native speakers enabled the learners to
modify existing stereotypes and form new perception of the target culture, and
“benefit the learners in different ways to develop more sensitive and complex views
on culture.” The results of Fedderholdt’s (2001) study again confirmed that
stereotypes toward another culture had been challenged, and both learners are
surprised at discovering the similarities and differences between the two cultures.
(Fedderholdt, 2001; Liaw & Johnson, 2001) However, if not carefully functioned, as
O’Dowd (2003) cautioned, such intercultural exchange can result in “a reinforcement
of stereotypes and a confirmation of negative attitudes” (p. 138).
2.2 Facilitating students’ language learning
E-mail was considered a hybrid communication - writing and speaking. The oral
characteristic was revealed not only by a conversation-like writing style but also by
certain conversation cues (wow, oops) as observed in the students’ e-mail messages
(Wang, 1996) and typographics, such as exclamation marks, capitalized words, and
creative emoticons representing smiles ‘☺’ or winks ‘;-)’ to “lend tone and feeling
to a medium of communication….as in an oral communication” (Absalom &
Mardem, 2004, p. 415). The conversational and informal style has two advantages -
one is to encourage the students in e-mail dialogue journaling to write more than
paper-and-pencil dialogue journal, which students tend to view as formal writing
(Wang, 1996). The other, as observed by González-Buneo (1998), is that students
have a chance to develop conversational–like language and even increase potential
speaking skills and oral fluency.
Though oral-like, e-mail takes place in a text-based form, in which the speech
can be permanent. Therefore, besides allowing learners to communicate
interactively, e-mail, as one of the form of the text-based Computer Communicated
Communication (CMC), can be easily “transmitted, stored, archieved, reevaluated,
edited, and rewritten" (Warschauer, 1997, p. 472) and thus offers an additional
advantage of reflection (Vinagre, 2005; Warschauer, 1997; Absalom & Marden,
2004) and the later retrieval (González-Buneo, 1998).This in turn reinforces the
overall thinking-composing-writing process. The aspects of the
speaking/interaction and writing/reflection are emerged in Handle & Corl’s (1998)
cross- cultural e-mail project. First, students both in America and Germany
e-mailed their written responses on a selected reading. Second, students reacted to
their fellow students’ comments. This required students to reflect in the process of
interaction, and the text-based communication permitted them to do so. Such
e-mail exchange unleashed “the interactive power of text-based communication” as
Warschauer (1997, p. 472) claimed. Moreover, according to Handle & Corl (1998),
subsequent in-class discussion and composition are reinforced by the prior e-mail
discussion. Learners made both quantitatively and qualitatively richer oral
exchanges and linguistic use than those of a parallel section that had read the same
texts but not engaged in the e-mail discussions; moreover, they demonstrated
“better compositions that benefited from the additional communicative
opportunities.” Krooneberg’s (1994/1995) study provided evidence of the
advantage. Integrating e-mail in the language conference between two classes, she
found that thoughts and arguments composed in writing e-mail gave students time
to reflect before the oral discussion. A student reported “whenever we have a class
discussion based on e-mail entries, I find the quality of the arguments is enhanced
and thinking is more creative than without this kind of preparation” (Krooneberg,
1994/1995, p. 23).
However, there are also studies in which learners show no positive
improvements of language performance in e-mail exchange, and Leh’s (1999)
research is one of the examples. To investigate if the reading, writing, and speaking
performance of the students using e-mail in class differ from the performance of
those students not using e-mail in class, Leh (1999) conducted a voluntary e-mail
exchange between Spanish learners in America and native speakers of Spanish in
Mexico and administered the cloze test, three written reports, and the oral
examination both pre and post e-mail. Even though the quantitative results of the
study indicated that there was no significant difference on reading, writing, and
speaking performance between the two groups, both participants and instructors
were in favor of the use of e-mail, which provided them with a good environment
for friendship, learning, and communication. Leh later still strongly recommended
that e-mail or technologies should be integrated into a foreign language course
Since e-mail is in-built with word-processing function, the electronic texts
can always be revised during the writing process. Students are thus willing to take
more risks to test the recently-learned expressions or patterns and not afraid of
committing original thoughts to paper (Greenfield, 2003; Torii-Williams, 2004).
Also, such practice of free-writing encourages students to put down what comes to
their mind and focus only on the communication (Handle & Corl, 1998;
Kroonenberg, 1994/1995; Warschauer, 1995; Wang, 1996), which makes e-mail
writing more spontaneous, compared with writing using pencil and paper (Wang,
1996). This spontaneity leads to the assumption that students’ writing might end up
in sloppiness. However, sometimes it is not necessarily the case. Particularly when
e-mail was set between two classes as a conference assignment in which students
had access to everyone’s entry, students take more care of their writing than in the
traditional writing. One student even commented “I tend to proofread more when
my writing is on the screen,” since they were aware that their writing was open to
the public (Kroonenberg, 1994/1995, p. 21). Aistsiselmi (1999) even found that
despite the length of the messages, “the learners’ ideas appeared to be organized in
a more logical and structured way than most of their paper assignments” (p. 9). As
mentioned earlier, the text-based form of communication could be accessed at any
time, which creates an opportunity for teachers to notice students’ common errors
in the e-mail entries, and design a follow-up instruction to raise students’ awareness
to the target misuses (Handle & Corl, 1998; Torii-Williams, 2004). However,
students’ errors should be treated with care. As one of the main objectives of e-mail
used in L2 classroom setting is to promote genuine communication, teachers must
be more concerned with the global comprehension rather than grammatical
correctness. This treatment is also welcome by the learners, who in Aistsiselmi’s
(1999) e-mail activity commented after the e-mail activity that they preferred
getting responses on their ideas to receiving those where every mistake was
underlined or highlighted. Thus, with the objective of focusing on content, some
teachers adopt an alternative. That is, without directly pointing out students’
grammatical errors, teachers model grammatical structures students have trouble
with or newly learned in their response, assuming learners may subconsciously
notice and acquire the target features (Krooneberg, 1994/1995; Aistsiselmi, 1999).
On the other hand, students are not the only ones that benefit from the written
features carried by e-mail. Instructors alike also enjoy using such electronic
medium. One of the reasons is that students’ writings could be saved in the
computer for later reference (Warschauer, 1995; Wang, 1996). Another advantage
for teachers is that they can see students’ writing process by organizing writings
assignments electronically based on the group of students’ names, date, or topic
names (Belisle, 1996). Besides, teachers can further monitor the participation of the
online project by asking students to send teachers a copy of e-mail intended to their
partners through the mailing list (Handle & Corl, 1998).
Because of its asynchronicity, writing via e-mail is time and
place-independent. Writers can compose and send their message at their convenience
(Warschauer, 1997; Xu, 1996; González-Buneo, 1998). Besides classroom and
computer lab, students can carry on online communication at any place they like,
giving rise to great self-initiated interaction (Warschauer, 1996). Compared with
other synchronous CMC such as instant messaging and online chatting, which
demand the urgency of communicative flow, e-mail, on the contrary, offers a
“comfort zone” (Jogan et al., 2001, p. 346) allowing students for more time in
preparation as well as in in-depth reflection (Meloni et al., 2001; Warchauer, 1997;
Beauvois, 1997). Students are able to control their own paces, and have more time to
monitor and edit their message by making use of language-related resources before
sending (Absalom & Mardem, 2004), which contributes to “greater grammatical
accuracy and coherence of ideas” (González-Buneo, 1998, p. 60). This would not be
easily achieved in the traditional classroom setting due to time and situation
constraints. Therefore, when integrated in writing courses, e-mail can enhance
students’ linguistic development. Being time-independent, e-mail in some way
creates a “conversation in slow-motion” (Beauvois, 1997) as well. Students are given
more time to think, respond, and read than face-to-face conversation, while at the
same time maintaining the communicational context.
2.2.1 E-mail as comprehensible output
As one of the forms of networked exchanges, e-mail is text-based and learners
have the need to type or produce the message. This is an example of comprehensible
output (Swain, 1985), which creates a fertile environment for SLA to occur. Such
"comprehensible output" proposed by Swain (1985) is a learner language that is
intended to convey meaning to an interlocutor while stretching the learner's linguistic
resources and would seem to have a potentially significant role in the development of
syntax and morphology. In other words, not all production qualifies as valuable
comprehensible output. It may be important that learners have an audience for the
linguistic output they produce so that they attempt to use the language to construct
meanings for communication rather than solely for practice (Chapelle, 1998).
Furthermore, the language production on e-mail writing also enables learners to
notice a gap, a linguistic problem in their existing interlanguage capacity. The
attention was triggered either by external feedback like teachers or native speakers as
in the tandem projects or by the self consciousness. As reviewed in both the case of
Torri-Willams(2004) and Absalon & Marden (2004), students would consult the
resources when they felt the need to fill the gap in linguistic knowledge or modified
the output. For example, some students commented that the reason they learned new
expressions was because “they wanted to express certain thoughts and had to look
them up in their dictionaries” (Torii-Williams, 2004, p. 114). As a result, the
syntactic mode of processing helps learners internalize new forms and even improve
accuracy of their existing grammatical knowledge. The use of the target language
thus becomes an end in itself for the learners engaging in the e-mail tasks, and it is
generally believed to be an indicator of and a necessary condition for successful
second language acquisition.
2.2.2 Assessment / Evaluation of language gains in e-mail exchange
Generally, most of the studies did not provide an objective assessment of
improvement in language proficiency through e-mail exchange. To make learners’
writing genuine communication, instructors may prefer not grading the e-mail
assignment as they usually do to other written assignments. Even though some did
choose to grade the e-mails, the grades were based on the regular exchange of the
weekly e-mail instead of linguistic accuracy aimed at assuring students’
participation (Hertel, 2003; Torii-Williams, 2004). Krooneberg (1994/1995) made
students’ e-mail assignment part of students’ portfolios and self-assessment process.
The latter was students’ comments on their language skills and suggestions of
strategies of improvement. For fear that student’ perceptions about their progress
may not be objective, she later joined the discussion with students to examine how
the student’s writing, thinking and debating skills had developed until the two sides
reached agreement. Woodin (1997) later proposed a more comprehensive
assessment in his tandem partner e-mail project, which was also adopted by
Vingare (2005) in her tandem e-mail exchange. From the substantial data collected
for each participant, an attempt was made to assess certain characteristics of the
students’ involvement and experience that might generally be considered to be
indicative of successful language learning. According to Woodin (1997, p. 23),
these characteristics include:
" Exposure to language: The number of e-mails written and received.
" Active learning: Students who seemed involved and interested in their partner and their culture or language were considered more successful.
" Negotiation of meaning and information seeking: These characters are of particular importance in tandem learning as they help build partner relationships.
" Error correction: Participants who corrected others and received corrections were considered to be successful; error correction was regarded as evidence that their performance was monitored.
" Use of cultural information acquired by participants: students have the opportunity to use information gained from their partners in an oral presentation given at the end of the project period.
" Re-use of language offered by the participants’ partner: Re-use of information an incorporation of corrected errors in the subsequent e-mails was taken as evidence of active involvement in the learning process.
Considering assessment tools may fail to accurately and adequately evaluate
important to document (Greenfield, 2003). As one of the aspects of learning
associated with learner autonomy, self-evaluation serves double functions in the
learning progress (Vinagre, 2005). One is that it allows learner to assess his
progress, as a summative evaluation regarding the overall learning progress. The
other is that it is “a prerequisite for making decision concerning all aspects of one’s
own learning,” (p. 379) which ensures the learner autonomy in the learning process.
To obtain the students’ answers as data, self-evaluation adopted in the studies is
usually in the form of questionnaire or open-ended questions. However, the tools
did not seem to help evaluate the improvement in students’ language proficiency
objectively as they had been expected to, since the students’ answers to the
self-evaluation questionnaires and their compositions commenting on different
aspects of the project are “highly insufficient and thus inconclusive” (Vinagre,
2005, p. 384).
2.2.3 E-mail as collaborative interaction
It cannot be ignored that all the language gains through the e-mail process is
not built on an individual effort, but on the collaborative on-line interaction between
two parties. E-mail exchange represents a form of collaborative peer interaction, and
thus creates an environment “to learn language, learn about language, and learn
‘through’ language” (Warschauer, 1997, p. 471). The linguistic forms are
incorporated in the meaningful communication with either in-class peers or native
speakers from various cultures and thus become the tool for social interaction. Such
communicative context makes students aware that what they write is not for
correction by teachers, but to share the thoughts with the peers, the real audience.
Moreover, from the perspectives of Vygostky (1978), the collaborative learning,
either among peers or capable others, is essential for assisting each learners to reach
his or her potential development, the so-called “zone of proximal development.”
There are many study designs closely related to language gains in the
sociocultural context. For example, Li’s (2000) study demonstrates the positive
relationship between audience interaction and students’ e-mail writing. That is,
learners produced more sophisticated written language syntactically and lexically in
the tasks involving such interactive feedback as exchanging ideas on specific writing
topics than in those without interaction. Greenfield (2003) set up the cooperative
discussion and negotiation between the ESL students in Hong Kong (HK) and the
English native speakers in the US. According to HK participants, cooperative
learning is not only fun but also “the ‘most helpful’ means of improving English” (p.
54). Although students felt they did make progress in reading, writing, listening, and
speaking skills, whether the exchange could really improve the public exam-related
skills such as grammar usage and discrete language functions deserves further
exploration. Vinagre (2005) conducted a Spanish-English e-mail tandem learning
project, with an aim to establish a partnership between two learners who are learning
each other’s mother language and help each other improve communicative
competence on the basis of reciprocity. The learners in the study did show
improvement of language proficiency by means of “exchanging personal, linguistic,
and sociocultural information and corrections about each other’s language” (p. 369).
Not only are the native speakers’ feedback and commentary beneficial to the
non-native speakers’ language learning, but their writings also serve as models for
correct language usage and the strategies used in both spoken and written language
(Jogan et al. 2001). The results again confirm the findings from previous studies,
which recognize that on-line cooperative communication facilitates the language
learning. The collaboration also contributed to the cross-cultural understanding. As
Liaw & Johnson (2001) observed in their cross-cultural e-mail study, after students
having initial exchanges on general cultural information such as holidays, foods, and
school activities, they would then “scaffold and help their partners to associate with
something more culturally specific” (p. 247).
2.2.4 E-mail offers a non-threatening environment
Most language teachers have confronted with heterogeneous group of students with
varying linguistic levels in L2 classroom, and increasing the equal participation
among the students has been of the most challenging issues. Students with weak
communicative competence are usually found reluctant to give their voice in the
discussion. There are number of factors involved in the reluctance. Besides lack of
linguistic competence, preparation and experience, affective factors should be taken
into consideration. Students with low proficiency in L2 are mostly fear of mistakes,
in lack of confidence and thus intimidated and anxious with the judgmental feedback
from the advanced peers. Due to the faceless environment provided by e-mail,
students with the inhibition and the fear of being on the spot are more willing to
express themselves and take risks than in the face-to-face conversations (Belisles,
1996; Beauvois, 1997; Kroonenberg, 1994/1995; González-Buneo, 1998; Aistsiselmi,
1999; Liaw & Johnson, 2001; Sabieh, 2002). This offers the diverse learners the
opportunity to meet their needs and styles which a traditional classroom in most
instances fails to offer. Hoffman (1996) states that the "anonymous quality of
network communication can be face-saving as well, relieving learners of the
inhibitions associated with face-to-face communication and allowing them to express
themselves more freely..." (p. 55). These observations respond to Krashen’s affective
filter hypothesis (1982), which claims that the best acquisition will occur in
environments where anxiety is low, that is, in context where the “affective filter” is
low. Aitsiselmi’s (1999) e-mail project between the learners and tutor may be the
model, where, as he claimed, the affective filter is at its lowest. Not only the activity
itself was voluntary, but learners were not evaluated on the formal correctness of
their L2 output. Moreover, the tutor also had a regular meeting with the learners to
establish the relationship of trust, so that they would be willing to make the
correspondence. As a result, in their feedback, some students found pleasure in
e-mail writing, since they treated it as a form of informal chat. The bonding between
instructor and the learners was also stressed by Sabieh (2002) and Stockwell & Levy
(2001), the latter further noted that the bond was related to e-mail sustainability. In
this way, the role of an instructor plays in e-mail communication seems to have
influence on the learners’ behavior.
2.2.5 E-mail with native speaker (NS) group v.s. non-native speaker (NNS) group
Most of the cross-cultural e-mail exchange projects have had the participants
interact with the native speakers (NSs) (Jogan et al., 2001; Hertel, 2003; Itakura,
2004; and Liaw & Johnson, 2004). Besides giving learners opportunities to
understand the target culture, as previously reviewed, e-mail interactions with NSs
help non-native speakers (NNSs) gain language competence with the linguistic input
from the NSs. According to Krashen’s input hypothesis (1985), language acquisition
occurs when learners are exposed to the comprehensible input a little beyond their
current level of competence. In this way, learners can understand most of the input
but still be challenged to make progress. NSs also appear to be the figure of authority
as sources of cultural information when learners attempt to explore the stereotypes of
the target culture (Itakura, 2004). But Leh (1999) later argued that exchange with
NSs may prove to be difficult for L2 students, for the NSs themselves may have little
motivation beyond learning about another culture, while the NNSs are concerned
about the language. The viewpoint was echoed by Stockwell & Levy (2001). On the
other hand, Varonis and Gass (1985) showed that NNS-NNS interactions resulted in
more meaning-negotiating exchanges than NS-NNS interaction. They indicated that
NNSs felt freer with one another to demonstrate their non-comprehension and thus
negotiate for meaning since they recognized their “shared incompetence” (p.84).
Based on the interviews with her NNS students after the NNS-NS networked
collaborative interaction, Lee (2004) further found that NNS prefer working with
NNSs to NSs, for the pressure of NSs’ high language proficiency levels. Thus,
Fedderholdt (2001) concluded and justified involving the NNS in the e-mail project
“when NNS exchange emails, the balance of linguistic and cultural power is more
equal, as neither group belongs to the target language culture” (p. 275).
2.3 Students’ perceptions of e-mail activity in language classroom
A number of studies have demonstrated and reinforced the positive results and
learners’ achievements brought by the e-mail project. However, students’ voices are
seldom heard and analyzed in terms of the project itself but focus on language
learning, cultural acquisition, authentic communication, self-fulfillment and so on.
Therefore, whether the participants involved all embrace the technology and agree
upon the benefits advocated by the researchers were not known clearly. To bridge the
gap and gain a comprehensive understanding of students’ perceptions, Greenfield
(1997) designed a comprehensive student-oriented questionnaire and personal
interviews about (1) changes in attitudes towards computers and language learning;
(2) effect of computer background on attitude, interest, and motivation; (3)
perception of their acquired reading, writing, speaking and listening skills; and (4)
attitude towards cooperative learning. Generally, in coincidence with the previous
studies, the majority of ESL students in her study also used positive adjectives, such
as useful, enjoyable, and helpful to describe their feelings toward the exchange. Two
weaknesses mentioned by students were that the project was not long enough (12
weeks) and they did not receive enough letters from their keypals. The former was
interpreted as a positive response, which meant students wanted the project to be
more and proceed for a longer period of time. When asked what part of the project
they would change in order to make the project better, learners showed highly
content with the project itself, but not with their partners due to the lack of response.
Additionally, the four language skills were improved especially the writing skill,
which was in correspondence with the conclusions of other researches. Yet, there was
a mild disagreement with the statement that the exam-related skills had been
improved as a result of the project based on the mean score of the survey on a Likert
scale. Some students even mentioned that they did not believe the discretely taught
skills about grammar usage and vocabulary had been improved to the point of
helping them on the public exams and prefer to learn the language function sills that
would be tested on the exams. The researcher later explained that the exchange was
only a part of the curriculum, and the exam-related skills would still be taught in
classes when they did not conduct the exchange. She also argued that it was
impossible to integrate all the elements of the “national curriculum” in the exchange
while addressing the real-life communicative skills at the same time. In fact, she had
adopted a comprise solution to the problem. That is, she included the most important
items from the curriculum to the exchange, and the rest topics had been mandated in
3 out of 8 periods of regular English periods each week.
2.4 The sustainability of e-mail interactions
Several studies mentioned that the participants showed willingness to join the
e-mail project or kept writing to their key-pals after the closure of the project (Leh,
1999; Hertel, 2003; Torii-Wiliams, 2004). But they did not further investigate what
factors contribute to the students’ sustainability of e-mail interactions. That is,
whether the participants sustain the long-term communication and the reasons behind
such sustainability are still largely unexplored. Lamy & Goodfellow (1999) did show
concern to the sustainability of threads of online discussion forum. Their
interpretations of why threads end were many, some of them were the end-of thread
messages, discourse mishaps, syntactic errors, and participants’ failure to read new
messages. They indicated that unlike real-time oral conversation, computer-mediated
communication, in lack of body language or intonation to sustain the interaction,
required more explicit discourse triggers to elicit the response. Aware of the research
gap, Stockwell & Levy (2001) involved 48 learners of Japanese and 34 native
speakers in 5-week e-mail interactions, and proposed tentative reasons affecting the
sustainability in the NS-NNS interactions. In the study, students were required to
exchange messages regarding a weekly topic and beyond the set topics. The range of
messages produced by NNS over 5-week period was varied from 0 to 30. After
analyzing students’ end-of-thread messages, several factors related to sustainability
were identified, such as proficiency, computing experience, in-country experience,
and topic. The students who sustained high-interaction tended to be more proficient,
have more computing experience, in-country experience, and deal with topics outside
the assigned topics. Stockwell & Levy’s (2001) study did help us gain insight into the
factors contributing to the sustainable e-mail interactions. However, there was no
follow-up investigation of students’ e-mail interactions after the 5-week research
period expired.
On the other hand, according to the survey of 167 university students in 12 ESL
and EFL academic writing classes, Warschauer (1996) found that the strongest
motivating factor of using computer was communication, which, obviously, was one
of the inherent natures of e-mail exchange. By communicating with native speakers
or nonnative speakers in other countries, classmates and teachers, the students thus
felt part of a community, developed thoughts and ideas, learned about different
people and cultures, and from each other. The other motivating factors were
empowerment and students’ feeling that computer could help them learn better and
more independently. However, will these factors motivate students to sustain the
follow-up e-mail interactions? Despite the existence of the motivating factors,
spontaneous and sustained e-mail interactions are not ensured. It is likely that
students may cease the correspondence once they are not involved in any e-mail
project. That is, whether students will willingly carry on the interactions themselves
without any extrinsic motivator, such as the interference of instructors and grades,
remains unknown. Also, if the communication is sustained, then what are the
contributing factors? Students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) might influence
their engagement in communication when they have the choice to do so.
2.4.1 Willingness to communicate
Willingneess to communicate (WTC) was originally introduced by McCroskey
& Baer (1985) with reference to L1 communication. It was conceptualized as the
probability of engaging in communication when given a choice to do so. McCroskey
and associates considered WTC as a fixed personality trait that is stable across
situations, such as communication apprehension and perceived competence. But later
when MacIntyre et al. (1998) extended WTC to L2 communication situations, which
is intended to explain individual and situational variables that have the potential to
influence a person’s WTC. The situation-based variables representing “an intention
to communicate at a specific time to a specific person” (p. 559) need to be
considered, since L2 use introduces the potential for significant situational
differences based on wide variations in communication competence and inter-group
relations (Macintyre et al., 1998). MacIntyre et al. (1998) adapted WTC to the L2
situation in a heuristic model to account for stable and situational-based influences
on willingness to initiate L2 communication. This model was constructed as a 6-layer
pyramid, illustrating the interrelated variables in L2 use - social and individual
context, affective cognitive context, motivational propensities, situated antecedents,
and behavioral intention (Figure 1).
As Macintyre et al.’s (1998) concluded, the concept of WTC was expected to be
extended to include other modes of communication. Besides, the WTC construct
could pedagogically and practically help us learn the factors influencing the “real
world” contact. Therefore, when MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) model is extended to L2
e-mail setting, it is hoped that the model will tentatively offer the explanations to
students’ WTC, their sustainability in the follow-up correspondence.
Figure 1. Heuristic model of variables influencing WTC ( MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei, & Noels, 1998, p. 547)
2.5 Conclusion
Based on the literature reviewed in the chapter, we can conclude that e-mail
writing is helpful to enhance students’ understanding toward different cultures. Also,
no matter what class activities it is incorporated with (e.g., cross-cultural e-mail
exchange project, e-mail dialogue journal, language conference), e-mail is always
ready to provide an authentic communicative context through the real interaction and
collaboration with their key-pals, which contributes to significant language
acquisition quantitatively and qualitatively. Even though many researchers involve
native speakers to interact with the non-native participants in the cross-cultural
e-mail exchange projects, some still preferred NNS-NNS interactions, for the
linguistic and cultural power is more balanced in such collaboration. On the other
hand, learners may have a chance to get exposed to a different culture aside from
English-speaking countries. E-mail should be evaluated objectively, and a
comprehensive assessment proposed by Woodin (1997) in his tandem e-mail project
and learners’ self-evaluation are both adopted in the literature. As for students, their
perceptions of e-mail project are generally positive. Especially for those of inhibition
or low language proficiency, they can find shelter in the faceless environment offered
by e-mail, which in turn lowers their affective filter. The enjoyment can motivate and
sustain the correspondence till the required e-mail writing is completed. However,
the factors sustaining of e-mail interactions deserve further investigation. The
addition of willingness to communicate (WTC) to the literature is expected to help us
learn the factors influencing the voluntary L2 communication.
The current study is a case study that investigates if two groups of non-native
speakers perceive themselves making any linguistic gains and acquiring cultural
information through a cross-cultural e-mail exchange project. If there is any case of
sustainability found after the required correspondence is completed, WTC model will
be applied to tentatively interpret the contributing variables that have the potential to
affect such behavior. Besides, I’d like to examine if the factors related to
sustainability in the current study are consistent with those identified in the study by
Stockwell & Levy (2001), who limit their investigations to 5-week e-mail
interactions period.