Nurturing cultural awareness via e-mail exchanges in an english as a second language (ESL) reading writing classroom / Sheela Paramasivam, Kaarthiyainy Supramaniam and Geraldine de Mello

In this era of globalisation, it is necessary for students to be sensitised
of towards other cultures around the world, and this could be done
in the ESL classroom. This paper shows how modern technology
such as email, can become a powerful tool and could be used to
bridge language learning and cultures. This project involves a group
of Thai and Malaysian students who were instructed to email each
other to gather information on various themes such as religion, places
of interest, food and lifestyle. Throughout the project, they were
encouraged to share their experiences in groups and in writing
reports. At the end of the project, questionnaires with closed- and
open-ended questions were distributed to Malaysian students to get
their feedback on the email project as well as their language learning
experience. Assessment was also done on their reports. It could be
summed that they overcame their anxiety and discovered that learning
English was more than just mastering grammar. More importantly, it
fostered the perception that learning English was fun and meaningful,
no matter what culture they belonged to.