We shall describe and evaluate two e-mail projects. The first, Penpal93, was a pen-pal project conducted in autumn 1993. A third project is being planned for fall 1994. Both projects, Penpal93 and EM94, are part of an English course at CUHK - Thinking Through Writing. The overall objective is to help first year college students to get the most out of their university education from a language perspective.
Students learn to write academic essays and research papers.
Penpal93 paired up 10 Hong Kong students with 30 students from three other universities. The project gave Hong Kong students a chance to communicate with students abroad and aroused their interest in cultural understanding. However, there were problems. We shall discuss the methods used and the problems encountered. Unlike the first project, there were formal writing tasks and e-mail discussion groups for students and teachers.