The electronic mail: a tool working for knowledge between the people and the cultures
François Pignot
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Abstract :
In a few words, I relate a four years experience with pupils from a primary school using electronic mail to discover the world, the people and the cultures all around the world. Some examples help us to perceive what teachers can do to guide their students through the life staying at school near a computer.
Keywords : new technologies, information, communication, email, people and cultures, primary school
Author: Teacher of Ministry of National Education - France, actually in primary school, formation in French language for foreigners, webmaster of the school, Kidleader-French Manager in the Kidlink project.
The electronic mail:
a tool working for knowledge between the people and the cultures
Since 1996 that we use Internet at school, it is the electronic mail which brought us the most satisfaction and encouragement and that impassioned the most our pupils in their search of knowledge.
Each new message of a new correspondent is the occasion of search and investigations on the country, the city, the people which lives there and his habits and practices. Correspondence allows to refine or answer the children's interrogations (solicited or induced) .
In the beginning of the school year, the pupils prepare a card of presentation indicating their first name, their age, their situation in their family (father, mother, brothers and sisters...), their tastes in food, sporting matters and their favorite pastimes (sports, arts, etc...). In the second time with the assistance of their English teacher, they try to write a similar card (reduced) in the language of Shakespeare.
When these cards are ready, the students begin the exchanges with pupils all around the world and we have to seek schools or groups of children in the search of such an adventure.
It is by attending the discussion's lists of teachers (Kidlink for example) that we meet proposals for exchanges of correspondences emanating from professors, like us, who wish that their class take part in this kind of activities.
Several experiments led me to privilege the exchanges group to group rather than the exchanges of pupils with pupils. Indeed, some children have more chance than other in their correspondence: a prolix correspondent will encourage a pupil to put himself at work to answer to his " buddy from the other side of the world ", whereas a spaced correspondence discourages the more impassioned correspondents.
It is as same as in love when the two partners do not have the same passions or the same objectives. For these reasons, I give priority to the exchanges of groups because there is unification by the mass. In the group, one will always find somebody moreover impassioned who will involve his team-members in the mail through investigations in progress. There are also less constraints, waitings and the emulation which results from this is healthier and less emotional.
It is more difficult to find a group than an individual ready to exchange by electronic mail, this is why we don't refuse any individual requests, but in this case, it is a small team (two or three pupils) which undertakes in the name of the class the exchanges with the child who contacted the school.
One of the principal interests of the electronic exchanges is, of course, the speed. It is a very big advantage for children because they do not have to undergo the times of routing of the snail mails. The only one times to be supported are those imposed by the corresponding colleagues or a school calendar different from our (holidays in different time).
In theory, especially at the beginning of correspondence, the exchanges are rather fast (from 24 to 48 hours). Everything is to be discovered on both sides and curiosity helps the exchanges turn good train. Thereafter, when all was known as (or at least it is believed), the exchanges decrease, are spaced to disappear gradually. Only remain some privileged exchanges between pupils who discovered affinities or friendships coming out of the school exchange.
One of the principal regrets that we can formulate is to see this disaffection settled little by little. It is regrettable that so far, we could not leave the school relations and that few children continue to correspond in particular with foreign friends.
The linguistic problems are initially the main cause of this disaffection. When searches, investigations are finished, the children tends to consider that his work is done and it does not create durable relationship.
When the interlocutors do not speak French, the correspondence is done in English and in this case it is necessary to pass trough the supervision of the parents, of the teacher or the English teacher and everyone understands in this case that the intervention of this outsider in the exchanges disturbs the relation which is being established between the various individuals or groups.
This year, we began a privileged exchange with a Japanese pupils' class from a suburb of Okinawa. We started with non-linguistic exchanges: each french child had drawn how he imagined Japan and the Japanese and we sent these drawings to the Japanese class to have any reactions.
Curiously, all the drawings carried out showed Japan of the last century with pagodas, geishas and samourais. None had not thought of modern Japan and its industry. However in France everyone knows Japanese technologies. Who doesn't have a walkman, a car, an camera or a stereo chains from wellknown Japanese firm (Sony, Toyota, Akai, etc...)?
However, it is the image of Japan with samourais which dominated in all the drawings of small French pupils.
Of course, these drawings call us some return mails to correct the truth: Japanese pupils were not glad to be imagined like their ancestors. They forwarded us some pictures showing their reality and the life which they currently carried out (pictures of buildings, of their school and themselves in uniform playing in the playground). These impassioned reactions helped us to came back to reality and each one actually remembered that he had such or such Japanese TV or radio set at his home and that it was about high technology. Japan came out from the Middle Ages to join us in the XXI th century.
Without seeking such large cultural differences, it is always possible to communicate with other children who culturally seem closer to us. However, during the exchanges we note some differences however who astonish us or surprise us.
During an intensive exchange with young American (it was the choice of the American teacher: they had one month to know all about France and Frenchies. Each month, they chose a country and studied it from A to Z), our schoolboys were surprised when the american correspondents spoke about uniforms, about religion lesson or about the possibilities in purchasing food at school.
In France, the pupils of primary school do not have any uniform, do not follow religion lesson at school and go to the school restaurant without worrying to pay their meal or their collation (It is the parents and the municipality who are in charge of this responsability and regulate these problems of the daily life).
It is a surprise of knowing that their American counterparts are confronted with these problems or with these habits and it is an excellent opportunity for the class to discuss to know if the American schools are better or not than ours. Each one has its own opinion, it was an argued and impassioned debate which proceeded in class.
It often happens that we receive messages from children from more or less unknown countries and that we don't locate very well on the map of the world. Currently the world is moving with political modification and we need a very well updated atlas to know where is Slovénie, Tbilissi, Saint Petersbourg, etc...
To fix and to remenber this knowledge, we have in class a big planisphere on which we knock a colored pin in each cities with which we have a contact and we connect it with a red wool yarn to our city. With the result that we have a splendid red wool star whose heart is L'Union, our small city. Looking to this planisphere, the pupils record little by little the names of the countries and the cities announced.
In conclusion, we can say that working with electronic mail is very spuring for our pupils, because in addition to the work undertaken traditionally in our classes, it often brings us new tracks of search and work. There is always a short anxiety period in the morning when the mail is collected:
Will there be an answer of our last correspondents ?
Will we have a new contact ?
From which country ?
What are theyworking about ?
Will we be able to correspond with them?
In which language?
Here, some examples showing fun and issues that work with electronic mail provide us int a primary school with pupils from 7 to 10 years old.