Vol. 6. No. 4 A-1 March 2003
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Cross-Cultural E-Mail Correspondence for Reflective EFL Teacher Education

Meei-Ling Liaw
<mlliaw@mail.thu.edu.tw>

Tunghai University
Taichung, Taiwan

Abstract

A cross-cultural e-mail project was implemented to provide a group of EFL student teachers in Taiwan with the opportunity to interact with bilingual/ESL pre-service teachers in the U.S. Analyses of the e-mail entries revealed that the Taiwanese participants obtained from their U.S. partners valuable information focused on the areas of interpersonal, socio/cultural, pedagogical, and language learning issues. The exchanges caused the students to reflect on various levels of their cultural/social assumptions as well as attitudes toward language learning and teaching. Their final reports confirmed the findings from e-mail entries and further manifested the students˙ clear awareness of their changes and efforts to become language professionals. The interactive nature of asynchronous correspondence provided an environment for meaningful long distance, two-way communication where learning was supported.

 
Keywords: EFL, Cross-cultural project, e-mail, teacher education

 

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