Ruth Vilmi
The Language Centre
Helsinki University of Technology
Otakaari 1
FIN-02150 ESPOO
Finland.
Fax: +358-0-465077
Telephone: +358-0-4514292
Email: Ruth.Vilmi@hut.fi
URL http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi
Foreign language writing students need authentic audiences for developing their strategies for effective writing. This article describes an ongoing international writing project which brings students of universities in Asia, Europe, and North America together via the Internet so that they can share their insights and assist one another in writing in English on academic and technical topics.
The project, which I started in autumn 1993, developed into three email writing courses in autumn 1994: the Individual Writing Exchange, and two international, task-based team activities, the Robot Activity and the Environment Activity.
email, task-based, international teams., global awareness, communication, technical writing, intercultural, culture pages, World Wide Web, interactive
The HUT Email Writing Project is an ongoing experiment that was started in the Language Centre at Helsinki University of Technology in September, 1993. The participants in the project are mostly advanced students of English as a Foreign or Second Language at universities around the world, from Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.and some native speakers of English from the USA. For most of the email courses, the students at HUT spend four academic hours a week on work related to the project, not including homework, with half this time spent in a computer room. Scheduling varies at other institutions; for example, at some universities, all the lessons are held in a computer lab.
The project has developed rapidly since 1993. In the first term, four classes at HUT, Finland, were matched with classes of students studying English as a Foreign or Second Language in Japan, Canada and the USA, or with native speakers of English from the USA, forming triads, ideally with two students from each university involved. Each triad discussed a certain topic for the whole term and produced a research paper. There were all kinds of difficulties, particularly with matching the penpals. Some students had good partners who wrote regularly but some penpals were irregular writers and did not produce a research paper at all, or dropped out completely, leading to disappointments.
To overcome the problems, a mailing list was made for each topic in early 1994. It was agreed that the minimum number of students on each mailing list should be six, so students would always have someone to write to. It was also decided not to include a basic English class at HUT, as the project was too demanding for them. Some classes from other universities dropped out too, and the level of English was raised. The students were able to have good discussions and no one was left to work alone. The main difficulty was the forming of the topic groups, and the chopping and changing of the mailing lists required because some topics were not popular. When the lists were too small, the students were asked to join other groups. This involved considerable work for the staff at HUT, and the students themselves did not like changing topics.
At the end of this term, the two native speaker classes and one ESL class broke away and formed the Styles Project. The Styles Project was coordinated by Jim Henderickx, Trinity College, USA.
In summer 1994, an international newsgroup, alt.edu.email-project, was started by the writer and tested with teachers from the teachers' list. It was found to be unsatisfactory for the project purposes as some administrators do not accept alt.newsgroups, and different messages are accepted by different operators - there seemed to be no way that all the messages could be read by all the universities. In addition, moderating the newsgroup could entail quite a lot of work.
Hence, a new distribution system was introduced to overcome the problems caused by the mailing lists. Most institutions created local newsgroups, one university used Gopher and some used simple filters; all these were fed by a central mailing list administered by the writer, at HUT. This reduced the load in personal mailboxes and meant that students could change topics without causing administrative problems at HUT. Archiving systems were developed at HUT which, for example, sorted the mail according to university.
During the following term, for the first time, there were three separate email courses coordinated at HUT, and only advanced level ESL or EFL students, as well as American business students, participated. Again, some classes broke away and started their own project, the Cities Project, which was coordinated by Andrew Hess, New York University, USA.
The students writing individually on various topics were from France, Norway, Korea, Hong Kong and Finland. From this time on, this course has been known as the Individual Writing Exchange. It was decided not to require a research paper, but rather short reflective articles and comments, and to work in rounds lasting about three weeks.
In addition to the individual writing, two international team-based tasks were introduced in autumn 1994, the International Robot Activity and the International Environment Activity. These activities and the Individual Writing Exchange are described in more detail in the following chapters.
In Spring 1995, it was decided to concentrate on the Individual Writing Exchange and to adapt and develop the activities to take advantage of the World Wide Web. Three rounds were introduced for the discussion group and so it became even more flexible, and participation widened to include classes from Russia and Egypt. The three-week cycle of the Individual Writing Exchange accommodated widely varying start-up dates. Those universities starting in January participated in the first round. Other universities could join the later rounds without causing any problems.
The latest development in the distribution system in spring 95 was that Laurent Gaillard, a student from ENST, Paris, made a program which put the messages from newsgroup onto the WWW and updated them every two hours. From the first it was possible for students to reply to individuals directly from the WWW; later, the system was enhanced so that later in the spring, students could also reply directly to the special email newsgroup, hut.writing-project.
In addition, in 1995, students from Lehigh University in the USA, Sogang University in Korea, and HUT, Finland, cooperated to create WWW Culture Pages. The Culture Pages from the universities involved were linked to a main menu at HUT. These can be viewed at URL:
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/spring95/culture/index.html
The HUT Email Writing Project is an ongoing project. Both the technology and the writing tasks are continually being developed, based on student and teacher evaluations. All participants are required to evaluate the course and to send their evaluation to the international forum. Improvements are discussed in detail by teachers on the HUT teachers' list, which was made mainly for this purpose. Many of the problems encountered earlier, like overloaded mailboxes, or too few responses, have now been solved.
We have discovered that the students need specific tasks and frequent deadlines, as well as very clear instructions. Most important of all, the teachers must agree on the aims and requirements and grade their students according to their performance. Ideally, all the teachers will help with the planning, too.
The trend seems to be to use the World Wide Web more and more, so further changes in the distribution system are expected. It is also intended to increase the use of real-time activities, by using Internet Relay Chat and MOOs .This will probably make the students' responses not only faster but more personal and informal.
This task-based team writing project involved university students from Finland, France and Hong Kong: undergraduates in a technical English class at Helsinki University of Technology, graduate students in the Department of Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing, INSTN (Institut National de Sciences et Techniques Nucleaires) Saclay, France and undergraduates from various technical disciplines at TheChinese University of Hong Kong . The co-ordinators were Ruth Vilmi from Finland, Linda Thalman from France and George Jor from Hong Kong. The students had studied English for 6 to 10 years as a second or foreign language. Thus, most of the students had fairly advanced technical and language skills.The students met three hours each week in a 13-week term. At HUT, the students were sponsored by Nokia, a local telecommunications firm. A small sum, 600 FIM, was offered for the winning team in Finland.
1) to find a robotics solution to a real world problem;
2) to experience cross-cultural communication with students from other
countries;
3) to participate in an international team;
4) to practice technical writing in English using e-mail;
5) to present the international team's solution orally to peers and outside
visitors;
6) to publish the final documents on the World Wide Web.
1) an introductory letter or Curriculum Vitae.
2) an evaluation essay of the project.
1) the International Team Report
a. Definition of the problem and why it needs to be solved. (250 words)
b. Promotional Brochure, including:
i) narrative description of the robot
ii) specifications
iii) operating instructions
iv) technical drawings
v) cost estimates
2) an abstract of 250 words for an international conference on Robots and Applications
3) a formal business letter ( e.g., to invite the sponsors to the Robot fair)
4) a record of how the project work was divided, both nationally and internationally.
All final international reports were to be submitted by email to all teachers and students, by means of the special email newsgroup, hut.writing-project, by 11 November 1994 and classes would vote on the best report. Results of the voting from each class were to be sent to the teachers' mailing list by 25 November 1994 and winners announced on the newsgroup. The winning team would receive a virtual or real money prize. The best report(s), together with student evaluations, technical drawings and photos of the students themselves would be published on the WWW.
In practice, many students were late with these deadlines, but all the reports were good and were published as planned. They can be viewed at the URL:
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/robots.html
For all the international classes the term schedule was as follows:
Week 1) Class divided into 3 home teams. Email addresses sent to msi@hila.hut.fi
Home teams discuss and choose a real world problem.needing a robotic solution. Prepare CV or introductory letter. Prepare report on problem selected, about 250 words, to send to international team .Take photos of teams.
Week 2) Send off CVs and home team report on the robotic problem to the international team. Classroom discussion on procedures for:
1. decision making, e.g. which problem to select
2. scanning photos, scanning , ftp ing drawings etc.
Home teams report to international teams on methods discussed. Read and discuss reports from international teams. Make international team decisions on:
a) problem to work on. b) technical methods to be used for 1. and 2. above
Week 3) Home teams have brainstorm on solutions to the selected problem.
Send the best idea (s) to international team for discussion..Make international team decisions on solution to work on.
Week 4) Teams divide up the tasks for the project and get to work. Team members stay in contact to relate facts and progress. As project outlines become more complete, draft proposals are passed back and forth. Draft documents go through peer review for comments and revision.
Week 5) Bring drafts to class and discuss with peers. Discuss criteria for good technical writing. Exchange criteria with other teams via the local email-project newsgroup.
Send photos/ drawing by method agreed on.
Week 6) Research and draft stage continues. Agree on writing criteria.
Week 7) Give personal/ snail mail to Ruth and Linda (they will meet in Paris )
Start preparing final documents.
Week 8) Continue preparation of final documents. Show documents to own teacher for feedback. Prepare oral presentation and material for fair. Discuss criteria for a good presentation.
Week 9) Oral presentations During each presentation, the team is the consultant group recommending the robot in question. Peers vote on best presentation. Input from teacher and peers on team presentation and visual aids. Final revision of documents.
Week 10) Final drafts for own teacher Send final drafts to newsgroup Read final drafts from other teams. Discuss with home team and choose best written report.
Week 11) Robot fair. Invite sponsors and visitors from other faculties at HUT.
Visitors,students and the teacher all vote on the best robot.(based on criteria agreed on, 50% for written report and 50% oral) Teachers send results of vote to teachers' list. Write essay (about 500 words) evaluating the project. Send essay to newsgroup
Week 12) Teachers send results of vote to teachers' list. Final announcement is sent to newsgroup. Winning report(s) published on www. Winning team will receive virtual or real money prize.
Week 13) Final test.
Each national group in the International Robot Activity was divided into three teams which were matched with teams from other universities to form Robot Team One, Two and Three, respectively. The international teams had from eight to eleven members. In Finland, the students met in a traditional classroom twice a week, as the teacher had to stick to the regulation number of contact hours, but the students were sometimes allowed to leave the class earlly in order to go off and do their e-mail work. The Language Centre at HUT does not have a computer laboratory, but the students have access to the University computer terminals from 8a.m. to 8 p.m. In France, students spent at least one hour of their three-hour class in the computer room working on the project. They did not have access to terminals outside class-time.
In all three countries, language classroom activities were related to some aspect of the robotics theme. The language teachers from Finland and France exchanged videos and exercises. In the classroom, students watched videos on robots, did English vocabulary exercises related to robotics and technical articles, practised writing instructions and abstracts, and improved their presentation skills The criteria for good technical writing were also discussed in class and written about on the HUT international newsgroup.
During the first two weeks students received and commented on Introductory letters or C.V.s from all of the students in the HUT e-mail project (about 240), by means of the special newsgroup, hut.writing-project. After this the students communicated exclusively with the members of their team using by means of mailing lists created and maintained at HUT Language Centre. They used e-mail for pure text, ftp for document transfers and once or twice fax to send drawings.
The global evaluation of this project from both studentsand teachers was positive on the whole. Students particularly emphasized their interest in communicating with students from other countries, and noticed both the advantages and the difficulties involved. At HUT, the students thought that the international aspect slowed the work down a lot. They did not like having to wait for the international teams to reply to questions - Finns are on the whole very independent, self-reliant people and found the email experience very important.
Not only did they learn about computers and technology and improved their written English, but they learned about cultural differences and how to cope in a completely new situation where they could not meet their fellow-students face to face to clarify misunderstandings. Both the Finnish and the Hong Kong students unwittingly offended the French teacher, and some of the Hong Kong students felt that the Finnish and French students were perhaps closer to each other than to them..They all noticed the need for clarity when discussing written and technical subjects exclusively by e-mail and felt they hadprofited from working in a team on a project that was most certainly much more interesting and challenging than the "typical" English courses they had taken in the past.
Everyone agreed the oral presentations were a valuable and necessary part of the project. In Finland, the fact that outside visitors were being invited seemed to make the occasion very important, and made the letter-writing part of the course very realistic. One professor and the Head of the Language Centre sent polite letters of apology, so did the sponsors, but in many cases the invitees did not reply. The visitors were, in fact, other students from HUT and the assistants from the Language Centre.
The main complaints made by the students at HUT was that the activity was too demanding for only two credit points, and that the students abroad did not keep to the deadlines. This was a very disturbing factor. Due to this, the presentations in week eleven were cancelled, but the Finns still could not use much of the foreign students' final work in their own reports and the Robot fair. The Finnish teams, as well as the foreign teams, were guilty of lack of communication at times and sometimes let even two or three weeks pass by without writing to their international counterparts. Another common complaint was that, when the letters came, the students did not always answer the questions that had been asked! The French students mostly complained about the lack of time. This was probably largely due to the fact that they only had access to Internet during their English lessons. A factor to consider in an international team project using email is that students from half way across the globe do not always reply frequently enough, nor do they always answer each other's questions. The limitations of computer accessand variation in course scheduling can contribute to a great deal of frustration.
Ideally all students should have classes twice a week and have computer access both during and outside normal class-time.
Weekly monitoring of email messages, "ruthless" insistence on keeping to deadlines, teacher input on how to manage one's time and to move forward on the project are key elements in a successful project.
Students should be required to send short and frequent messages. This could be done by real-time communication such as IRC and MOOs. In autumn 95, at HUT, there will be a joint programming and EFL course, and some programming students will create a HUT MOO as part of their graduate studies.
While attending a conference in Paris, in the sixth week of the project, the teachers from Finland and France , had the opportunity to get to know each other personally. As well as being able to spend several enjoyable days at Linda Thalman's home, the writer was able to have lunch with the French students and to bring presents (typical foodstuffs such as Carelian pies, reindeer paté, chocolate and liquorice, as well as a Monty Python video!) from her students to the French team. It was a very rewarding and enjoyable meeting, and motivated both teachers and students in the two countries.
University students from the USA, Hong Kong and Finland were involved in this international. task-based project. There was a business class from Mesa Community College, Arizona, USA, technical students from the ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong, and a Business English class from HelsinkiUniversity of Technology (HUT). The coordinators were Charles Lewis,George Jor and Ruth Vilmi, respectively. The students from Mesa CommunityCollege were native speakers of English. The students in Hong Kong were ESL students and those in Finland, EFL students. Most of the students Finland and Hong Kong had been studying English for about ten years. Thus the international group had good language skills as well as some business or technical skills.
All the teachers planned the course well in advance on a special teachers' mailing list created for this purpose at HUT. The aims were discussed and the schedule and tasks were planned in detail. Students were required to keep records of how the work was shared among team members. The international teams collected this information and included it in the final portfolio.
The activity described here took place from September to December 1994. In Finland, the project was sponsored by Nokia; 700,- FIM was offered to the winning team at HUT. Revisions and developments are under way and the activity will be repeated again in autumn 1995.
-To find a solution to a real world environmental problem.
-To enjoy cross-cultural communication with students from other
countries through team work, and to practice writing in English via email.
-To present the solution orally, both to peers and outside visitors.
-To publish the final documents on the World Wide Web.
1. Introductory letter or CV
2. A short essay (250 words) evaluating the course.
1. A report stating the importance of the problem to the long-term
objectives of the company or the health of the industry involved
2.A three year plan showing what will need to be addressed during
these years
3. A budget outlining what monies will be spent, when and where
4.A technical report, recommending possible technical solutions to the problem
5. A 250 word abstract for the Call for Papers for "The Fifth International Conference on Improving the Environment" to be held in York, England from April 10th to 13th, 1995
6. A record of division of labour, both within the home teams and within the international teams.
All final international reports were to be submitted by email to all teachers and students, by means of the special email newsgroup, hut.writing-project, by 11 November 1994 and classes would vote on the best report. Results of the voting from each class were to be sent to the teachers' mailing list by 25 November 1994 and winners announced on the newsgroup. The winning team would receive a virtual or real money prize. The best report(s) would be published on the WWW.
Although a few reports from Hong Kong came in late, the students worked well. It was discovered that attempting to solve real problems internationally with email alone is not an easy task. As all the final reports were well written and could be of interest to others trying similar activities, it was decided to publish all five of them on the World Wide Web. See URL
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/environment.html
All the universities involved had the following schedule:
Week 1 Divide class into teams. Teams discuss and choose problems. Teams prepare introductory communication
Week 2 In-class brainstorming sessions together with exchange of ideas to members abroad. Receive feedback and decide on the approach to defining,
researching, and reporting on the problem
Week 3 Teams finish agreeing on approach, methodology and basic outline of project. Individual assignments are made within each team.
Week 4 Team members begin the research task and stay in contact with foreign participants. Peer review of documents. Comments and revision
Week 5 Research and draft stage continues
Week 6 Research and draft stage concludes
Week 7 Preparation of the final document. Students have two weeks to agree upon exact content and form of final report.
Week 8 Final report/ recommendations are due.
Week 9 Oral presentations.
Each international team had its own mailing list, created and maintained by HUT Language Centre, Finland. Thus, the students could send messages simultaneously to all the members of their team, without the members of the other teams seeing them. All students had easy access to computers. In Finland the teams met twice a week in a traditional classroom, due to university regulations, but they left the classroom early in order to complete their email work. They had access to Internet terminals at HUT from 8a.m. to 8p.m., and some had modem connections at home.
It was agreed that some details, such as the procedure for choosing the best report and technical methods, would be discussed in each class, and then shared with the international group. These procedures differed a little from country to country, but it was agreed that the deadlines should be the same for all classes. Each class decided to have oral presentations towards the end of term. The Finnish team had public presentations and invited other students and teaching staff from HUT and also their sponsors, Nokia.
All the students and teachers found this team activity rewarding but extremely demanding. The students from Hong Kong were two weeks late starting. This caused considerable difficulties for the two international teams which included students from Hong Kong. The Finns felt that they were alone in the brainstorming, as the Hong Kong students joined too late for this (but were clearly upset not to have been involved at this stage, particularly team four, where the Hong Kong students wanted to change the topic!) and the Americans did not contribute at this stage. The Finns found it difficult to work with the Americans, as they were interested in the actual processes involved in the discussions, whereas the Finns were interested in finding actual technical solutions. Both classes were obviously influenced by their teachers, though the teachers intervened only when asked to do so by the students -- for example when a Hong Kong student persisted in trying to change the topic which had been agreed on beforehand. The teachers were also asked to intervene when the silences were too long and deadlines not taken seriously. There were misunderstandings about deadlines, even among the teachers. Both the Finns and the Americans started writing the final report very late but did keep the final deadline. None of the students wrote regularly enough, and they often wrote monologues, not responding carefully to the other students' questions. All teams felt they were held up at times by the foreign students' delayed or inadequte responses. Some of the Hong Kong students' work was too late to be included in the final reports or in the presentations in Finland.
Despite all these problems, the teachers and students felt the experience had been very useful. Very good final reports were produced by all the teams, and a lot of useful research work and writing was done. The students put a great deal of time and effort into their work, much more than is normally required for a 'normal' English language course.
Student evaluations are included in appendix G. Others can be viewed at the
URL http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/env/105eval1.html
The American teacher was very active and enthusiastic at first, but the pressure seemed too great later. Unfortunately, there were no formal evaluations from his students.
This activity is at the time of writing about to be discussed in detail on the teachers' list. The universities involved are from Europe, Asia and the Middle East: Helsinki University of Technology in Finland ( a Technical English class), Sogang University, co-ordinator, William Burns, and The University of Cairo, co-ordinator, Aliah Schleifer. These teachers plan to meet in New York this summer, so for once, there will be an opportunity to make plans face to face.
The writer is concerned with making this activity less demanding as both teachers and students found it rather stressful in autumn 94. The question of writing regular, pertinent messages and sticking to the deadlines agreed on is of paramount importance. It is thought that using the HUT MOO, though it will be under construction during the autumn, will help to solve delays in communication. She is searching for a solution where the home teams are sufficiently independent while co-operating with teams abroad and benefitting from an exciting, intercultural exchange.
The Individual Writing Exchange has the longest history among the HUT
Projects and has been developed co-operatively by foreign language
teachers on a special teachers' list started at the Helsinki University of
Technology (HUT) in 1993. The Individual Writing Exchange is a system which encourages writers from differient cultures to consider ways to make their writing more effective. Most participants in this ongoing writing exchange are advanced level students of English as a Foreign Language and the writing is an important part of regular academic coursework.
Students with English as a native language also participate and are particularly interested in the intercultural aspect of the project. The participation of native speakers has been welcomed by the foreign language students since it broadens the international focus of the Exchange.
Universities in many countries including the USA, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, France, Norway, Russia, Egypt, Great Britain and Finland have been involved. (see appendix A).
The coordinating teachers from the participating universities select a set of topics for each three week cycle based on student interests and the number of students expected to participate during that cycle. The topics are chosen with an eye to eliciting the type of reflective writing often required in university liberal arts, social science, business and technical courses. Students are encouraged to develop their arguments based on research (especially from electronic sources), though there is no expectation that the writing will be of the highly documented, dissertation style.
1. Gender discrimination 9. Computer problems
2. Racial discrimination 10. Current events
3. The cinema 11. Youth culture
4. Violence on TV 12. Censorship
5. Literature 13. Alternative energy sources
6. Abortion 14. Nuclear waste
7. Traffic problems 15. Ethnic Traditions and Beliefs
8. Legalization of drugs 16. Our University
(for whole selection and statistics by university, see Appendix D)
Technical Topics General and Business Topics
Alternative Energy Professional Sports
Nuclear Waste Disposal Starting A Business
Technology of the Future Multinational Companies
Controlling Urban Pollution Racial and Ethnic Diversity
Intermediate Technology Censorship of Television
Computer Art Current Events
Robots of the Future Euthanasia
The Individual Writing Exchange culminated in an essay competition. This was very good for the students' motivation to write well, but the organisation of thecompetition was a difficult task. A voting procedure was organised at HUT Language Centre, for example, a certain format was necessary for the counting to be done automatically but it seemed impossible for several teachers to stick to the rules. In addition, it was agreed that each university could submit a certain number of essays, and that the essays should be no longer than 350 words. It was difficult to judge the essays when one university sent in excellent essays, but they were all longer than the word count agreed on. All the essays entered can be read from the URLs
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/individual/essays.fin.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/individual/essays.int.hmtl
It is based on a three-week cycle in which students submit articles on significant topics to a special email newsgroup created at HUT, hut.writing-project. Then comment on articles about their chosen topic written by peers from other countries, and finally share their ideas on effective communication. On the basis of these "Criteria for Effective Writing", they can then revise their own articles and create more effective articles during subsequent cycles. The autumn 1994 exchange culminated in an international essay competition. (See appendix B)
One "cycle" takes about three weeks. During the first week, students write and send an article. The second week, they read other articles and comment on them. Finally, during the third week, they reflect on the data and revise their article. After the first three week cycle, students can continue to write about the same topic, or change to a different topic.
week 1 Write and send a Curriculum Vitae (CV) or a Letter of Introduction
week 2 Write and send first article
week 3 Read the other students' articles on the same topic and send comments about at least two of them
week 4 Think about all the articles on your topic, together with the comments. Decide which articles were most effective. Each class will send a list of "Criteria for Effective Writing"
week 5 Write and send second article
week 6 Read the other students' articles on the same topic and send comments about at least two .
week 7 Think about all the articles on your topic, together with the comments. Decide which articles were most effective. Compare your "Criteria" with those of the other classes. Send a class comment or revision of your class criteria
.
week 8 Write and send your third article
week 9 Read the other students' articles on the same topic and send your comments on at least two . Choose one of your own articles and do a final revision for the essay competition. Send your essay for your own classmates to read.
week 10 Choose three good articles to represent your class and send them for the competition .
week 11 Read all the articles submitted by the other classes and vote for the three best.
week 12 Your teacher will announce the results of the essay competition. Write and send an evaluation of the project
The teachers from all the universities involved were encouraged to join in the planning of the topics and rules on the teachers' mailing list well before the beginning of term.
One university term usually includes three of the three-week cycles. Most
teachers integrate the Individual Writing Exchange into their regular
syllabus. Students typically discuss their drafts with their classmates and form groups to analyze the articles on a specific topic. Often students prepare oral presentations summarizing a particular topic for their classmates who are following other threads.
In autumn 94, at HUT, a group of students representing their class, gave an oral presentation evaluating the course in general to outsiders and to students from other classes. Thus, all classes had a chance to learn about the other activities in the project. Students at HUT also created a class glossary and glossary tests using a simple glossary program.
The "Criteria for Effective Writing" was determined by groups of students working across topics. Although the emphasis was is on serious discussion of topics, during introduction periods and between cycles, students were encouraged to take part in less formal "chatting" and to interact on a more personal level with students from other cultures. In addition, students from some universities cooperated to create WWW Culture Pages (see chapter 5).
Students had to be taught to use the hut.email writing project, a special email newsgroup created in HUT CC in summer 1994. The newsgroup is not quite the same as regular international newsgroups. For forwarding comments to the newsgroup the R command is used on most newsreaders. One thing that the students found difficult was sticking to the subject lines.
The Individual Writing Exchange is an ongoing project continually being developed based on student and teacher evaluations. At the end of each university term, students are expected to submit serious evaluations to the international forum. The designation of different topics for each three week cycle, for example, was suggested in a student evaluation.
The academic nature of this project requires that teachers consider it a significant portion of their coursework and grade it carefully. Teachers must provide class time for discussion and analysis of the articles which appear. In addition, teachers must be able to participate in the ongoing development and documentation of the project.
Student evaluations at the end of each term are generally honest and many are very positive and can be read at the URL:
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/individual/ineval1.html
Project proposal for combining the courses Programming Project Tik-76.115 and International Email Seminar for Technical English Kie-98.501
The aim of the project is to create a platform for adventure games for the use of language course students. This platform would consist of a skeleton game on which these students themselves could specify the actual adventure game, the text part, i.e. the story of the game and the transition part, i.e. how the game progresses. Various EFL programs, such as exercises and puzzles will be made as obstacles. The adventure games created by the language course students using this platform will form a part of the course material. The students will also be graded on their progress in the EFL exercises, perhaps avoiding a compulsory test.
Programming students will make a user-friendly HUT MOO (MUD - Object Oriented), or Helsinki University of Technology in Virtual Reality. The MOO can be used for facilitating and motivating frequent on-line communication for the teachers and the students involved in HUT Email Writing Project. It will also gve the students ample opportunities for creative writing and doing academic research for their articles and reports, as well as a chance to use EFL drills and play EFL language games and puzzles. It is hope to test it already this autumn with students and teachers working on the International Environment Activity.
The author would like to express her thanks to Marja Kalaja, the Head of HUT Language Centre, and to Kristel Sarlin, the Head of HUT Computer Centre, for their support in this project. She would also like to express her gratitude to her net colleagues on the teachers' list, who have contributed in many valuable ways.
Special thanks are to due to Mikael Puittinen from HUT Language Centre, who has often helped me with technical problems and with keeping my WWW pages in order, and Pentti Mikkonen, from HUT Open University, who encouraged me to experiment with new ideas and helped with the Culture Pages. Very special thanks are reserved for Mika Silander, also from HUT Language Centre, who has helped me from the very beginning of this project in countless ways. I am very lucky to have benefited from the exceptional talent of these three technical advisors. Their unfailing support was essential to the success of the project.
Last, but not least, I should like to thank my colleagues at HUT Language Centre and my family for their support and understanding.
1. A Course Using Micros for Technical English Teaching. Ruth Vilmi. CALL-86 Symposium - Computers in Language Education. Otaniemi, Finland, Aug.21-22, 1986.
2. Self-Access and Call Projects at Helsinki University of Technology Language Centre. Marja Kalaja, Tuuli Lehtsalo and Ruth Vilmi. English Oral Skills Workshop. History and Proceedings of the 10th Anninversary Workshop. University of Jyväskylä, Finland. 1993.
3. Global Communication through E-mail: An Ongoing Experiment at Helsinki University of Technology. Ruth Vilmi.Tekolan Sanomat. Teknillisenkorkeakoulun ATK-keskuksen asiakaslehti (The Computer Centre Journal) Helsinki University of Technology. 1/94.
4. HUT E-mail Writing Project (autumn 94). Ruth Vilmi. Polysteekki 1/95 (The Journal of Helsinki University of Technology).
5. What did Students Gain from International Email Projects: A Preliminary Report on the Spring '94 Experience. Linda Mak. The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
6. HUT E-mail Writing Project. William Burns. The Dong-Ah Daily News, 26th April 1995.
7.HUT E-mail Writing Project: An Ongoing Experiment. Ruth Vilmi. English for Science and Technology: Profiles and Perspectives. Center for Language Research, University of Aizu, Japan. 1995.
1. Helsinki University of Technology: Chief Co-ordinator: Ruth Vilmi
email address: Ruth.Vilmi@hut.fi
2. New York University: Co-ordinator: Andrew Hess
hessa@acfcluster.nyu.edu
3. The Chinese University of Hong Kong: Co-ordinator: Jor Chi Keung
email address: george-jor@cuhk.hk
4. George Washington University: Co-ordinator: Christine Meloni
email address: meloni@gwis.circ.gwu.edu
5. Sogang University: Co-ordinator: William Burns
email address: burns@ccs.sogang.ak.fr
6. Institut National des Sciences et Techniques Nucleaires (INSTN):
Co-ordinator: Linda Thalman
email address: thalman@nea.fr
7. Ecole Nationale Superieure de Telecommunications (Telecom):
Co-ordinator:James Benenson
email address:benenson@inf.enst.fr
8. College of Education, Trondheim: Co-ordinator: Sandra Foldvik
email address:sandra.foldvik@trdlh.no
9. Mesa Community College, USA: Co-ordinator: Charles Lewis
email address:lewis@mc.maricopa.edu
1. Helsinki University of Technology: Chief Co-ordinator: Ruth Vilmi
email address: Ruth.Vilmi@hut.fi
2. Lehigh University: Co-ordinator: Douglas Moesel
email address: ddm2@lehigh.edu
3. Moscow State University: Co-ordinator: Olga Molchanova
email address: omolch@aie.msk.su
4. ENST Ecole Nationale Superieure de Telecommunications--
TELECOM PARIS: Co-ordinator: James Benenson
email address: benenson@inf.enst.fr
5. Supelec--Ecole Superieure d'Electricite, France: Co-ordinator: James Benenson email address: benenson@inf.enst.fr
6. American University in Cairo: Co-ordinator:Aliah Schleifer
email address: ALIAH_S@auc-bigbos.eun.eg
7.CELSE, School of Education, Manchester University: Co-ordinator: Gary Motteram. email address:gary.motteram@man.ac.uk;
8. Sogang University: Co-ordinator: Bill Burns
email address: burns@ccs.sogang.ac.kr
As I walk to the cinema, whistling cheerfully, I feel the expectations growing inside. This film has achieved highest score (6) in most newspapers, and the tickets have been sold out every evening the last two weeks.
I stroll into the movie theatre, into the dark and notice the loud music and the huge crowd of people chewing eagerly on their sweets, bought specially for this occasion. The adverts finish, the subtitle comes up.
"The Piano" by Jane Campion.
The actors names hurry past my eyes accompanied by beautiful sounds of the piano. The tunes give me goose-pimples and already now I start getting the feeling that this is going to be an unforgettable experience.
An English woman is travelling across the ocean with her daughter, all the way to New Zealand to get married to a man she doesn't know. The journey is made even more difficult because of the woman's piano that has to be carried with them on the boat. This piano is special. The woman is dumb and uses the piano as her emotional "speaker." The daughter is the only person who understands her "finger-language" and she has to translate. The woman plays the piano as if she hasn't done anything else in her entire life, and all the incidents in the film are caused by the piano in some way.
As time passes and the film progresses, I'm thrown into conflicts; beautiful love scenes, violence and sadness, accompanied all the way by these fascinating, sensitive tunes made by the womans sensitive fingertips.
The dramatic scenes towards the end make the whole cinema tremble, and many handkerchieves are soaked as I put my coat on to walk out in the autumn rain, just enjoying the feeling I have inside. On my way home I silently whistle piano tunes....
I hope this made you curious. "The Piano" is an extraordinary film experience, and if you haven't seen it yet, I'll give you a good piece of advice: SEE IT! It's worth the time and the money!
Society goes faster and faster everyday. The tempo of all being
and activities rises. Man is more short-spanned and frustrated than
ever before. The word EFFECTIVE is underlined everywhere.
Communication must be fast. Nobody has the patience to wait more
than five minutes for the bus to come.
Children find traditional toys and games boring. It has to be
Nintendo or a space creature with dozens of different functions. MTV
shows a hundred pictures a second. The beat of the music track is
too fast to hear.
Pollution,violence and drugs are everywhere. In 50 years,hard
drugs will be legal and easy to buy. Some are necessary and common
in everyday-life. There are drugs that make you happy,calm or
stimulate you,drugs that make it easy to fall asleep and to wake up.
One gives a hard-on the other gives pain and so on.
Values get away from nature. Man discovers something that can
destroy the whole world in a blink of an eye. Computers are so fast
and EFFECTIVE that the human being becomes useless in many ways.
The system eats itself. Some day man wakes up and realizes that
10 people out of 100 have AIDS. Everybody has some sort of cancer
eating the body inside. More EFFECTIVE and more lethal illnesses
than AIDS have come to entertain us. Cities grow bigger. Everybody
has to carry an oxygen container to be able to breathe. Pollution
in the air is so thick that the sun doesn't shine even in a clear sky.
And what can ordinary people do - sit down and think about where
to find some edible food and clean water for their mutant children.
p.s. The word HARMONY is not in the dictionary.
Topic name Numbers of articles + comments by university
HUT LEHIG MSU ENST SUPEL AUC CELSE SOGAN Tota
H EC G l
Abuse of 1 2 1 1 1 2 5 3 8
technology
Alternative 1 1 1 1 3 1 4
building materials
Alternative energy 3 1 2 2 1 2 4 8 7 15
Animal rights 2 2 8 7 1 10 10 20
Beliefs and 6 5 4 3 10 8 18
stories
Censorship of 3 8 4 11 1 2 2 4 15 14 36 50
television
Chatting messages 21 11 1 1 22 12 34
Cinema 1 3 3 6 1 1 4 4 26 14 35 49
Computer art 2 1 1 2 3 3 6
Controlling city 2 2 2 1 4 3 7
pollution
Cross-cultural 5 2 9 8 2 16 10 26
experiences
Current events 2 4 6 2 4 10 8 18
Dream car 1 9 6 1 1 1 11 8 19
Duty of my country 2 2 5 2 7 4 11
Electronic cottage 3 3 4 1 4 7 11
Electronic media 9 3 1 1 2 5 12 9 21
Environmental 1 6 7 5 5 1 3 7 16 19 35
problems
Euthanasia 5 3 3 2 2 8 7 15
Evaluations 29 6 28 1 11 69 6 75
Future of EU 7 7 7 2 3 17 9 26
Gender 4 3 4 8 2 1 1 1 6 12 15 27 42
discrimination
Genetic 5 11 7 11 1 13 22 35
engineering
Intermediate 0 0 0
technology
Introductions 50 18 59 5 6 13 1 11 17 11 28 195 24 219
Is English enough 2 6 5 10 1 1 1 9 17 26
Legalisation of 5 7 9 7 1 4 7 18 22 40
drugs
Multinational 2 0 2 2
companies
My ideal boss 4 5 4 5 9
Nuclear waste 1 1 1 1 2
disposal
Problems faced by 1 2 3 6 1 1 3 5 8 14 22
students
Professional 1 6 6 6 1 3 7 16 23
sports
Pulp and paper 3 1 1 3 2 5
industry
Racial and ethnic 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 9 8 13 21
diversity
Robots of the 4 8 1 4 5 12 17
future
Role of 1 2 5 3 1 7 5 12
technology at work
Scientists and 3 4 2 3 5 7 12
responsibility
Shopping on-line 3 3 1 3 4 7
Sports and 6 5 8 4 1 14 10 24
technology
Starting a 1 5 1 1 3 7 4 11
business
Technology of the 4 1 3 1 2 7 9
future
Utopia an ideal 4 6 1 3 2 2 5 9 14 23
world
Writing problems 10 5 10 5 15
Total number of ## ## ## ## 11 3 23 3 17 2 49 4 14 8 65 ## 606 ## 1044
articles
(for programs written earlier, refer to Global Communication by Email. Ruth Vilmi. URLhttp://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/publications .html)
The main effort this year has been put on the mailing list program, elmsel,
migman and gopherls. The other programs created this year are gophermkdir,
gemacs, gophermv and xelm. However, looking at the old programs, all of
them have been improved slightly, especially the gopher related programs.
A program written in Perl to make the modifications of the mailing lists related to the project automatic. This program gives the teacher the possibility to make any modifications to the addresses on the mailing lists, whereas the students are only allowed to add or delete their own address from a list.
The program works on the author's account and it has been set up as a filter which scans the email messages sent to the author. It reacts on three message subject headers: 'Change mailing list', 'Mailing list addresses' and 'Mailing list help', where the first type of message contains the desired changes in the message body, the second type returns all the addresses on all the lists and the third returns instructions on how to use the mailing list program, how to specify the changes and so on.
A shell script which makes it possible to select a subset of email messages from large email folders. The subset of messages is selected according to a specified pattern. Elmsel is based on the xelm program described below.
Elmsel behaves somewhat like the Unix command readmsg, but provides a larger variety of patterns to be used - more precisely - the regular expressions of the Perl programming language. When the set of email folders are scanned, then the messages matching the given pattern are displayed to the user with elm.
A program written in Perl that searches through email folders matching a specified pattern and prints the selected parts to the screen (stdout). It matches parts of either the address section of the message or of the message's body. When a message matches the pattern then that section of the message (address or body) is printed or if the user so wished, the entire message is printed.
A shell script which displays the manual of the specified programs. Migman was written to display the manuals of the programs which are either directly or indirectly related to the projects. The programs mostly deals with the administration of the project. E.g. Migman provides a description of both elmsel's and xelm's usage.
A shell script which displays like Unix's ls -command the contents of a directory but it shows also the corresponding names and numbers of the gopher files in that directory. This tool was written to facilitate the modification of a directory that contains gopher files. The intended use is to run it prior to putting a file to the gopher directory in order to see where the new gopher file will be in the gopher-menu.
A small shellscript that sorts incoming mail according to the country code in the From: field.
The program is written in "zsh" a shell language similar to "/bin/sh" but with additional features. This shell-script produces an HTML file which updates the messages every 2 hours. It is based on the "Subject" line so it is important to put the correct subject.
The next step is to put a message and its answers together (it is possible because the answer has a line in the header containing "References:" and the ID of the message it answers )
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/robots.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/roboevalsteam2.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/exchange.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/individual/essays.int.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/individual/essays.fin.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/individual/ineval1.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/environment.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/autumn94/env/105eval1.html
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/spring95/culture/
There's certainly nothing wrong with the idea of this course: to
communicate via email and to improve your vocabulary in technical
English, not to mention the invaluable practice in the actual writing
of articles of technical nature. In particular I was interested in the
possibility of sharing innovative ideas with the French and the Hong
Kong teams.
So initially I was plunging headlong into this robot project. I
remember being attracted by Pena's idea of designing a robot that
could be built during this very course. However, it was equally
interesting to have a contest for the best idea. Naturally we (the
Finnish team) strongly favoured our own proposal. This must be
self-evident to anyone who's bothered to read our evaluation of the
Driller and the robot gardener, suggested by our team and the French
team, respectively. At this stage, we also thought that the purpose of
this project was to come up with a reasonably well-defined concept of a
robot that could be easily built by using the information of the final
report. The prospect of designing a robot gardener that would match
the given description looked a bit daunting. At any rate, we were not
strictly opposed to adopting a more radical approach and further
developing the gardener.
It would have been great to have a vivid discussion of these two
proposals. Unfortunately, the French student who had suggested
designing this amazing robot gardener got a job (probably a good one)
and left his fellow students to their own devices. This effectively
marked the end of the discussion which had hardly begun. So it was no
great surprise that all the teams seemed content enough with the
Driller. However, because of frequent personnel changes inside
different teams I'm still not quite convinced that the people, who
contributed to final reports, were the same who made the actual
decision of going on with the Driller project.
I'm sure that all of us went through some frustrating times in attempts
to establish a connection with the other teams. The early setbacks
seemed to affect the whole project. Strangely enough the teachers
involved in this email project obviously had different ideas about how
to proceed after the initial stages. This must have caused some
regrettable misunderstandings. E.g. the Hong Kong team was left
pondering their criteria for the technical writing (which in itself is
impeccable) while we were busy thinking possible solutions concerning
the mechanics of the Driller.
Christopher (from Hong Kong) quite clearly felt neglected by the
international teams in Finland and France. He thought that the
cultural barrier between Europe and Asia had to a certain extent
hindered their progress. However, apart from their occidental culture,
the Finns and the Frenchmen have little in common. Their mentality is
quite different from one another. Nevertheless, if you really want to
achieve a common aim, the only cultural barriers you will confront are
in your head. I admit that sometimes our enthusiasm, which is
essential to the success of a international project of this kind, was
flagging. On the other hand, I'm sure that we're not the only ones to
blame. I also wondered at the second-hand information learned from the
teachers concerning their quarrels over the activity of their students.
They might as well have addressed their letters directly to the students
and have the things settled that way.
Due to some stupid mishaps or intentional misunderstandings the
technical English course wasn't this time up to par in every respect.
Anyway, our team is reasonably pleased with our newly acquired
knowledge in the field of electronics. We have also the pleasure of
knowing that the Driller will be most likely built during the spring and
summer of 1995.
This email course is certainly worth developing. The basic idea must
be attracting to the more liberal fringes of the conservative university
world. The future will of course provide us with more sophisticated and
effective means of communication. I hope that Ruth Vilmi will find a
realm in which she can roam freely with her novel ideas.
BUSINESS ENGLISH - EVALUATION OF THE COURSE
General comments and suggestions to this course
In our point of view, all the time should be used to information search and communication abroad. The additional work only implies to less importance of the communication process and also gives too much work for only 2 credits.
During the lectures we should talk more about the running project, which would be more motivating. Closely related to this is the thing that we have too much freedom, which always isn't good in order to really achieve something. This sure will be solved in practice when some routines for this course are established. This could be helped by bringing more deadlines and a communication guideline to this course. The degree of freedom could be increased with time if the project is proceeding smoothly and as planned. Also some additional Information for how to use the e-mail could be provided.
Companies, if possible, should be involved in this project earlier for example in form of a compulsory interview with a company. Also one thing that came up in our discussion was that means for quick feedback or more frequent use of e-mail could make the result of the project considerably better.
Comments specific to this project
In the beginning of this project we were enthusiastic and our expectations were high. We had a promising start: we were supposed to work with two teams instead of one. First confusion arouse with the change of team-members in the US-team; they never introduced themselves. Of course we had our own problems in forming the group, but that is an essential phase in the process in which groups are emerged. To define the problem wasn't as easy as we had thought, although we were given the subject. Clearly different views of this came up.
The fact that Hong Kong started this project later must have affected the international group-forming and communication process. It seems also quite obvious that the team in Hong Kong suffered from severe problems related to the internal communication of the group. It seems that they never really
formed a group instead of loose relationship dominated by one of the members there. The relation between us and the US-team always remained better than that with Hong Kong. Maybe implications, that our cultural assumptions are more closely related, could be made. This clearly suggests that one should, if possible, try to obtain more information about different
cultures involved. We went through several crisis during this project, of which
one couldn't be solved without help from outside i. e. our teacher. During the last weeks of this project the international communication reached a new level - only here we can talk about communication for reaching a common goal. This was contributed by fact that the deadline was approaching
rapidly.
The fact that we had many problems couldn't prevent us from learning. One
learns by doing and by doing mistakes, which strongly came apparent during this project. We recommend this course to everybody who really wants to work, not just sit back and obtain grades.
The E-team
Jarkko Joki-Tokola
Björn Rijnen
Tomi Tammi
Behruz Vazvan
I am very glad that I am working on this email project. Through this project, I have learned a lot of things. First, I have learned how to comm lot about these subjects that I am writing on. In conclusion, it was a very good experience, and I enjoyed it very much. There is only one thing that I want to suggest and that is to advertise about this project in order that everybody would know about it and be able to use it.