My Inbox

The objective

To read authentic e-mails and respond accordingly

The language

(Depending on e-mails presented)

Informal language/imitation of spoken language:

I´m pretty darn excited/How´s it going?/Any new news?/argh!

Email language: lol (laugh out loud)/btw (by the way)/fyi (for your information)

Abbreviated words: legit/ info

Incomplete sentences: Or not so much?/Talk to you soon!/Any suggestions?

Informal greeting/closing: Hi Zach/Zach/-Jim

No logical order to paragraphs

The set-up

Go through your inbox and copy up to three e-mails with a similar function (to give information, to ask for information, to update, the say hello, etc.), or that are part of an "e-mail conversation" (highly recommended)--that is, one which has a message, response, response. They should all fit onto one page, so you may have to edit them a bit (especially if there´s anything personal). Print out enough copies for everyone in the class.

The low-down

Tell students about the background of the e-mails. In the case of the "e-mail conversation", give the most basic background of the "story"--who the other person is and whatever information students will need to understand the "conversation". Tell students that they will have to respond to one of the e-mails (or the last one). But first, put students into pairs, hand out the e-mails and ask students to write down as much information as they can infer about the sender of the e-mail, and/or what they can infer about the context of the e-mails. If they are a chain of mails, you could have printed them out of order and then ask students to first put them into logical order (deleting, of course, the dates). Check in open class what students decided and add information if necessary. Next, ask them to underline any interesting phrases in the emails and decide what they mean (focus on "chunks"). Check in open class. Finally, add to those mentioned any phrases which might be useful for them to use generally.

Now what?

Now it´s time for them to respond, again, in pairs. It´s going to depend on the e-mails you´ve presented just how they respond so you´ll want to think about you would write. It doesn´t have to be a long response but should focus on accuracy and sounding as natural as possible. When they´re finished, ask students to share their responses with each other. What were the differences? Why were they different? Were they accurate? Could they have used phrases from the three examples?

Time to teach

The teaching is going to begin with the focus on language in the e-mails and continue throughout the writing process, helping students with accuracy and finding natural phrases to use. You can finish by asking the pair who you thought wrote the "best" answer to read aloud their response and ask the class to think about what was good about it (language use, organization, etc).

More talk-time

How often do you write e-mails...in English?

What´s e-mail good for? What´s e-mail bad for?

What´s the most difficult thing about writing an e-mail, as opposed to speaking on the telephone?

Do you know anyone who doesn´t use e-mail? What´s the reason? Do you agree?