Promoting the Sustainable Development of Rural EFL Learners’ Email Literacy through a Facebook Project

Ming-Fang Lin, Yuan-shan Chen and Yu-Ting Lai
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Ming-Fang Lin: Language Center, Kaohsiung Campus, Shih Chien University, Kaohsiung 845050, Taiwan
Yuan-shan Chen: Department of Applied English, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung 411030, Taiwan
Yu-Ting Lai: International Intercollegiate PhD Program, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300044, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: Promoting the sustainable development of rural EFL students’ English ability is a vital issue in the general curriculum guidelines of Taiwan’s 12-Year Basic Education. This study aimed to investigate the effects of a Facebook project on developing rural EFL learners’ email literacy in English. There were two participant groups: (1) six university English majors and (2) 12 ninth-graders from a rural junior high school. The instruments included a multiple-choice awareness task (MCT), a written discourse completion task (WDCT), a perception questionnaire, interviews, and teaching journals. The university students first received a training session on email literacy, and then they taught the ninth-graders invitation email-writing through Facebook interactions for eight weeks. The results showed that after the project, the ninth-graders made significant improvements when completing the MCT. As for the quality of their emails, the ninth-graders not only scored significantly higher in the post-test but also made qualitative progress in their invitation emails. Furthermore, both participant groups had positive perceptions of this project and indicated the strengths and weaknesses of their participation. This paper concludes with pedagogical implications for English education in Taiwan.

Keywords: Facebook; invitation; email; pragmatic awareness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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