So students are asked to always put A4 along with the week's assignment number in the subject header. This can be in the form of preparing materials for a presentation, making a report on the other student's country through e-mail interviewing, teaching each other aspects of their respective languages, or doing peer journaling. Having a correspondent, or several correspondents, close at hand and away from the student-teacher relationship reduces affective barriers and may considerably facilitate learning. Though English is the dominant language, it is possible for Japanese students in particular to find German, French and Spanish speakers seeking Japanese partners for e-mail language exchanges. HUT E-mail Writing Project is one of the better known English language Web sites.
Students can find keypal listings from all over the world.
I restricted students to having one correspondent, but in the future, I will encourage having two, three or several correspondents in order to gain a more varied perspective. Through this interactivity, debate and discussion of views is fostered and the course content becomes more interesting and important for the students. Two or three students to engage in peer journaling, sending daily or weekly messages to one or more other students in the same class, an entirely different class, or a combination of both. The advantage here is that peers can establish more intimate relationships with others and also have a private forum with which to share problems of learning with each other. A mutual support network is quite easy to establish when doing peer journaling of this type.