CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
This chapter will focus on three parts. First, the overview of the study will be
presented. Second, pedagogical implications for language teachers are suggested.
Finally, limitations of the current study and the suggestions for the future study will
be presented.
5.1 Overview of the study
As an attempt to improve students’ English writing by way of genuine
communication, the researcher initiated an one-semester cross-cultural e-mail
exchange project between two classes of the non-native speakers of English –
students in Poland (N=39) and Taiwan (N=39). After the completion of the required
writing in the project, a follow-up investigation was implemented five months later
to find if any students still willingly exercise the exchange. The data was collected
from the students’ responses in the questionnaire, the feedbacks in the final in-class
presentation, and the personal interview, and the questionnaire survey and
presentation were done with both Polish and Taiwanese students. Major findings on
the three research questions are summarized as follows.
The first question aims to understand students’ attitudes towards this e-mail
project. More importantly, the perceptions of the students in two different countries
self-perceived language improvement, and their suggestions on the design of the
activity. The results from chi-square analysis showed that both Polish (PS) and
Taiwanese (CSHS) students generally felt excited toward the project, and some also
expressed the willingness to participate in the similar project in the future. The
interactions between the two groups of students were intensive. In addition to the
regular e-mails, students felt motivated from the extra activities, such as food
packages exchanges and sending postcards. On the other hand, students believed the
project was helpful with their language competencies and cultural understanding
about each other’s countries. As for the suggestions, PS and CSHS agreed on random
matching, the necessity of assigned writing topics, and less intensive exchange
schedule (from once week to every other week). When it comes to grading, students
have diverse opinions. PS preferred being marked on each mail, while their CSHS
counterparts did not.
The second question concerns students’ difficulties encountered throughout
the study and their solutions. The difficulties were related to three aspects - language,
contact, and computer. In terms of language, far more CSHSs than their Polish
partners found expressing themselves in English challenging. As for “contact,”
delayed responses and no replies were the common problems to both groups. And the
computer-related problems caused the least troubles to the students, compared with
the other problems. In the category, the common problems were weak computer
skills and little access to the computer / Internet. Generally, students seldom left the
problems above untreated; instead, they would solve the problems on their own or
seek outside help.
The last question investigates students’ willingness to communicate in the
follow-up correspondence. According to the three students continuing the e-mail
writing, their willingness to communicate was determined by factors like
self-confidence in English, communicative competence, motivation, and the
relationship established between the e-pals.
5.2 Pedagogical implications
The findings of the study bear significant implications for teachers who plan to
carry out an e-mail project. First of all, based on the researcher’s observation, even
though students sometimes regarded topics as a nuisance, they still relied on the
topics for writing directions. Otherwise, they would not be able to come up with
anything to include in the mail and ended up giving up the writing. Therefore,
following topics seems to be necessary in the project. However, students could be
left with more choices regarding the topics. That is, besides the self-introduction
letter at the beginning of the project, teachers may just ask students themselves to
come up with several writing topics for the following exchanges. For fear that
students’ topics may not be sufficiently culture-related, teachers could once in a
while provide students with a number of culture-enhanced tasks or questions to
explore the answers by asking their e-pals for first-hand information.
Second, too frequent exchange was indeed a burden for our students. In the
current study, weekly-based exchanges schedule was too intense for the students,
which made the e-mail writing a compulsory assignment rather than an enjoyable
activity. The solution might be a year-long exchange, teachers could make a “draft”
schedule trying not to overload students with exchanges and decide later whether it is
possible to meet the deadline by taking students’ opinions into consideration. If
something goes wrong, teachers will be able to change the plan anytime or in the
second term.
Third, one of the difficulties faced by the researcher was the students who used
to delay the reply, which was quite annoying to both teachers and their partners.
Though such cases are not strange to teachers, teachers still should do something to
deal with the problem, and class mails would be an alternative. Compared to personal
mails, class mails, as the name suggests, take the efforts from the whole class.
Teachers could have each student express his/her own thoughts in 2-4 sentences
based on a topic, and it is recommended that the whole process could be done in an
after-reading session, which could help students reflect on what they have read. Since
students are not required to write much, it is easy for them to complete and submit
the responses in a short time. For the convenience of collecting and sending, the class
mail writing is suggested to be conducted in the computer lab. What’s more, through
the class-to-class e-mail interactions, instead of communicating with the original sole
partner, students could not only be exposed to different voices regarding the same
topic, but get to know other partners through the words as well. They could even take
the initiative to write to other partners coming up interesting responses, and make
more on-line friends.
Fourth, besides students’ writing itself, the researcher was also concerned about
whether students would keep up with the e-mail schedule planned by the teachers. As
a result, students’ e-mails were graded to ensure the regular exchanges, which was
also adopted by the previous studies (Hertel, 2003; Torii-Williams, 2004). However,
the students in the present study, according to their responses in the questionnaire,
did not approve of the assessment. In view of the negative feelings, teachers may
consider replacing the grading with having students’ construct personal portfolios on
e-mail exchanges. In the portfolio, each student could organize the correspondences
systematically either by date or by topics. Collected over time, the portfolios can
serve as a record of growth and progress, which allows the teacher to get better
understandingof each student’s participation and correspondence. Students alike can
reflect on their own progress and prove their involvement throughout the exchange.
On the other hand, the portfolio could be complemented with sessions held for
students to share their findings with the whole class about the other culture and their
e-pals. The sharing with the peers to some extent could motivate students to get
involved in the exchange. As found in the results of the present study, the final
presentation was one of the most impressive parts in the project to some students.
Last but not least, as the Internet has transformed the communication all over
the world, teachers should take advantage of the e-mail, one of the most available
and commonly used Internet applications, in English class. Admittedly, introducing
e-mail to class may be challenging to some language teachers, but it worth the efforts.
Johnson, Johnson & Holubeck (1994a) proposed two important reasons for ESL
teachers to embrace technology: firstly, to prepare students to love and work in a
world permeated with technology, and secondly to change the education to reflect
need of the future workplace and society-especially trends towards collaborative and
global perspectives.
5.3 Limitations of the study
First, the current study did not integrate the exchanges into the English lessons.
When the project is integrated into the overall design and goals of a course, there can
be many gains for learners. As Roberts (1995) states, "when the e-mail classroom
connection processes are truly integrated into the ongoing structure of homework
and classroom interaction, then the results can be educationally transforming" ( as
cited in Warschauer, 1995). In this way, students will be given more chances to
communicate with their partners and have more topics to discuss compared with the
current weekly exchange.
Another weakness of the study was that it did not provide comprehensive
assessment on students’ language gains. The researcher had the students self-evaluate
all aspects of their own learning in the questionnaire, which had also been adopted by
several researchers in the similar studies (Krooneberg, 1994/1995; Vinagre, 2005).
However, no further discussions between the teachers and students were held to
decide on students’ real improvements, for students’ perceptions may not be
objective. Besides, students’ e-mails in the present study were graded to ensure
students’ participation and their writing qualities. No matter what the purpose was,
the grading seemed to make students feel the exchange more like an assignment than
a communication. After all, progress in language is difficult to measure over such a
short period of time in the natural setting without supplementary and deliberated
instructions.
A final limitation was that there were no equivalent qualitative data from Polish
students, so that it is not possible to study students on both sides in equal details.
Since the Polish students graduated from school at the end of July, shortly after the
implementation of the questionnaire, it was not convenient to contact them and ask
for further information. Therefore, when it came to the follow-up investigation on
students’ voluntary exchanges, only Taiwanese students’ responses from personal
interview were available. In addition, the questionnaire was administered
anonymously with Polish students, and the lack of identities prevented the researcher
from making further analysis and interpretations, such as the relationship between
the language proficiency and students’ responses. Despite the fact that the researcher
had access to most of the e-mails exchanges between the students, there were short of
the natural observations of the Polish counterparts.
5.4 Suggestions for future studies
In response with the limitations stated above and the students’ feedbacks, three
suggestions are recommended for the future studies:
To begin with, future studies could conduct a e-mail project - one integrating
into curriculum and the other exchanging conventionally – as to find out students’
preferences and compare the effects brought by different treatments.
The results will shed lights on the integration of e-mail exchange into English
courses.
Second, since Polish students were leaving for high school, and the Taiwanese
students would be the seniors busy with the studies, the project is limited to the
length of one semester. With the 12 exchanges, though most students failed to attain
the number, and being physically distant, it was hard to establish a solid friendship
within such a short time, and thus most students did not continue the follow-up
correspondence after the required writing completed. The future studies are
suggested to extend the time for e-mail exchange, at least for a school year, to
investigate if the length of time would contribute to more students’ spontaneous and
sustained e-mail interactions.
Last, in addition to the regular e-mail writing and package exchanges, as had
done in the current studies, other forms of contact, such as exchanging class letters,
video-conferencing and on-line talking with SKYPE, could be added in to increase
the interactions between the participants. Once the partnership has established,
students will feel more motivated to communicate, as suggested by the current study.
After all, the teachers should see their roles as inspiring the students to communicate
via e-mail to explore the world beyond the exam-oriented English education
environment.
