The Curriculum Through ICT Program

Ideas Bank

Secret ePals

THE TASK

Over a whole term, each student exchanged fortnightly emails with a partner in another school (teachers matched the pairs), providing personal information (physical appearance, friends, interests, hobbies, sports) and developing a profile of their secret ePal. The profiles were used to identify the partner when the classes met for a combined excursion at the end of term.

This activity could be completed in any written language, most easily those that use Roman script.

In this example, students each opened an email account with a fictitious Indonesian name to disguise their identity and worked in teams to read messages from their partners and to plan, compose and edit their messages.

Before the two groups met, students role-played asking and answering questions related to these personal profiles. On the day, the students had to discover their secret partner by using spoken Indonesian only.

ICT ENRICHMENT

• Email provided a level of immediacy and engagement not found in a mail-based penpal exchange.
• Word-processing enabled students to edit their work more quickly and easily, so that they concentrated on their written language production.
• The etiquette of email messages was taught and practised in a purposeful, real activity.

ASSESSMENT

• All messages sent were saved and could be assessed against the Writing outcome.
• Reading was monitored through students' responses to email messages received and summaries in English.
• Listening and Speaking were monitored as students role-played asking and answering questions and on the meeting day.

LEARNING AREA OUTCOMES

Languages Other Than English
Listening and Responding, and Speaking
Viewing, Reading and Responding
Writing

English
Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing

Learning activity developed by Jane Yates and Ray Denholm.