Writing and Culture in CALL: 21st Century Foreign Language Learning via Email Tandem Exchanges

Abstract

This chapter discusses the importance of writing as a key ability to address in the foreign/second language classroom. The need to design and implement projects and tasks that foster authentic cultural learning through the meaningful use of written production is addressed, and a project that meets these criteria is presented. This email tandem exchange project was conducted between 94 intermediate-level students (47 pairs) from Columbia University/Barnard College in New York and the Universidad Autonóma de Madrid in Spain during the Fall Semester 2010 (and subsequently in 2011 and 2012). There were several goals to this project: to help improve students' writing skills; to encourage them to learn about culture through authentic and real exposure to the target language (TL onwards, understood as “direct contact with a native speaker”); to foster progress in their use of the TLs through peer-to-peer corrections; and to take an active part in their own learning through self-assessment. Based on students' opinions, this project had a very positive impact on the way they viewed the foreign/target culture on both sides of the Atlantic. It also helped them enhance their written proficiency and acquire a new lexical mastery that would have been impossible through the limited and less-real scope of the classroom.