Teaching Email Writing through Online Teaching Platform

Abstract

Email communication has been widely used in tertiary education as a mean of interpersonal communication (Huang, 2011; Baghestan, Indriyanto & Asfaranjan, 2016; Robinson & Stubberud, 2012). However, the lack of understanding of proper etiquette in e-mail writing results to frustration because students fail to convey their message effectively and professionally, hence unable to receive anticipated feedback from their lecturers (Kim et al., 2016). The necessity of email writing as a subject for English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom is essential; unfortunately, this has been rarely addressed in classrooms. In addition, conventional style of teaching that is chalk and talk, only results to ineffective teaching of email writing etiquette. This is because through the advancement of technology, the designed educational system does not suit the students of today. The current students are known as digital natives who are impatient and prefer to receive instant information. They are also great at multitasking and appreciates instant gratifications.  There is a need for an effective method to convey lessons on email writing etiquette to students to ensure that they are able to grasp the lesson better and are able to write effective emails. This study will shed light on the method used to teach email etiquette to first year foundation students using online teaching platform namely Blendspace, Padlet and Kahoot!. The results indicate that with these online teaching platforms, students’ etiquette to email writing etiquette improve significantly. Clearly, technological infused learning along with active and collaborative learning employed by the instructor enables effective learning to take place.