A Task-Based Design for Integrating E-Mail with FL Pedagogy

Abstract

A task-based approach to e-mail provides a sound pedagogical orientation for real language interactions between learners and native speakers. The literature suggests that e-mail-oriented tasks are important for successful e-mail experiences (e.g., as evidenced in Kung, 2002; Müller-Hartmann, 2000) and demands a greater pedagogical role for e-mail (e.g., Marcus, 1995; O’Dowd, 2004; Warschauer, 1995). Nunan’s concept of task-based teaching (2004) appropriately links e-mail and pedagogy. This chapter presents a discussion of e-mail tasks within the Nunan task-based framework, and follows it with evidence from a study of tasks in senior secondary Indonesian as a FL classes in Queensland, Australia. With this proposal, the author hopes to inform teachers, and stimulate research of task-based e-mail as a pedagogically rigorous teaching method. The impacts of context and a teacher’s personal theories on outcomes are areas requiring further research attention.