Kevin Ryan (Tokyo)

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Updated 2007-01-10

Computers & Communication

Using English to Communicate with Native English Speakers

Weeks 1 and 2 Email

Watch Kevin explain the goals of this module:

Week 1 : Sending and Receiving Email.

The most popular way to communicate on the internet is by email. Text messages are very small and quick to send. You can send plain text, or even add pictures or other files. More and more people are sending messages with html format, just like web pages. This allows you to make your text BOLD, colored, italicized, or underlined. You can add pictures along with the text, and put the text and pictures into tables.

We will use Yahoo Mail for this course. Here is how to sign up and send your first message.

Week 1 Homework: Send a message to your teacher. Tell him how much you have used computers. Here are some examples from previous years.

Week 2: Keypals

Finding a pen pal (now called keypal).

Please visit these sites and begin to make contact with possible pen pals. If you can't find a keypal here, try back at the iteslj site.

Dave's ESL Cafe List of names in no particular order.
Pen Pal Garden Can search by country, interest, study, gender, etc.
KeyPals Club (you have to become a member, get code by email and use that to sign up. Good security.
Beaumont Choose by country and age.
English Club Get names and short messages.
PenPal PenFriend Club List of short messages.

Homework: Find at least one pen pal by next week. This means you have to write to at LEAST 3 people with your self introduction. If you write to 3 people, one will not answer, one will answer only once, and the last one, if you are lucky, will continue sending email back and forth with you.

TIPS on sending a self-introduction:

Make your self sound interesting. Write about interesting things.
Make a template, a standard self-introduction, the CHANGE it or ADD to it for each person you send it to. Make it personalized.
Don't make it more than 2 paragraphs.
Add some specific questions for the other person, so they have a reason to write back.
Don't tell them everything, just little bits. They will have to write back to find out more.

Week 2 Homework: Send a message to AT LEAST three people interested in becoming a key pal.