Taiwan – Texas Telecommunication Project:

Fu-Jen Catholic University – Texas A&M University

Contact instructor in Taiwan: Doris Shih

Email: [email-masked]

Contact instructor in Texas: Gina Chen

IM: Yahoo (visitginahere); MSN (visitgina); AIM (visitginahere)

Email: [email-masked]

Objective

Enright (1991) has pointed out that foreign language learners learn language and culture if instruction is facilitated by supportive individualized learning activities that address the learner’s current language and literacy capacities. Using electronic mediums to teach and learn cultures is becoming a trend. In this project, you are given an opportunity to physically experience the individualized online learning with a native speaker so you would know the pros and cons of the online instruction.

Requirement

The duration of this project is 9 weeks, from the week of March 5th to May 4th 2007.
(1) In the 1st half of the project, you and your partner will email back and forth as often as needed (minimum of 2 e-mail messages per week).

(2) However, in the 2nd half of the project, you will add Instant Message (IM) sessions to replace some of the email correspondence. Work with your U.S. tutor to arrange which program you would like to use to do text chat (e.g., MSN Messenger, Yahoo, Messenger, or AIM) and the time of online meeting. Because of time difference, we WILL NOT work on text chats in class time.

(3) Hand in a reflective journal every two weeks (by using the journal template given to you). You can tell us what you have learned or problems encountered.

FAQ

Who am I interacting with?

Your partner will be a preservice teacher （師資生）of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He or she would be from humanity departments such as English, social studies, or political science. You two should be about the same age. He or she will be your penpal as well as tutor.

What activities will I work on with my tutor?
There will be 4 tasks in total (including two mini units) for this 2-month project. For Task 1, it is just an ice-breaking unit for you and your penpal(s) to get to know each other better. Your tutor will teach you other tasks. His or her focus is to assist and to guide you through your task-completion process.

Always go to our project website: http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_2007S/network/telecom.htm
and also the Texas website: www.ginachen.com
Feel free to browse around, you will find additional resources or supports.

What will happen if I do not get responses from my tutor? I have the fear of losing the control of my own grades.
It takes the commitments from both sides to make this pen-pal relationship work. If you do not hear from your partner for over a week, you will first report this to your instructor, Doris, and the TA in Texas, Gina, to begin the investigation process. Do not worry about being penalized by counting off the grades, as long as you are not the non-responsive or irresponsible one. If your penpal acts difficult or unavailable, then you will report the fact to your instructor and reflect on it in your weekly journal. Do not stress out because of your partner. Of course, you will remind him/her of doing his/her work once or twice. However, you are not responsible for his personal decision (you are at the same age). As long as you keep your instructor informed, your grade will not be counted off. If s/he is reported more than twice, that person will lose his/her privilege participating in this project, and you will be doing an alternative project starting from any point of this semester.

Sometimes my penpals and I can not meet the expectation because it's just hard trying to find a time to text-chat with them online since there is 13-14 hrs time difference between here and there. Will my grade be affected?
As noted above, in the 1st half of the project, you and your partner will email back and forth as often as needed, hence the time difference really shouldn’t bother you at all. However, in the 2nd half of the project, you will add some text-chat sessions to replace some of the email correspondence. We are aware of the time difference and the commitment issue on their part. You two will need to make plans/appointments for the real-time communication (IM). Emailing each other explicit reminders to confirm before each IM session will definitely help. Nevertheless, if you two really have problems meeting the minimum requirement, you should inform your instructor ASAP. We will have to solve the problems case by case.