Embedded Files
Welcome to the WEBSITE 'Emails to faculty'
This website has been designed to help you improve your ability to write emails to university instructors.
Introduction
Writing emails has become a very common means of communication between students and faculty. However, writing effective and appropriate emails is not easy, especially when you write them in a foreign language. This website has been designed to help you improve your ability to write emails in English to communicate with your instructors at your home university or at a university abroad.
Which kind of emails do the materials focus on?
As you have already experienced, you will usually contact faculty by email either because you want them to know something (to inform) or because you need to ask for something (to request). This second purpose is in fact the most common reason why students write emails to their instructors. That is why the materials focus on request emails, but most of the information can also be applied to emails which have other purposes.
What exactly is a request?
'A request is a communicative act in which one person asks another to take some sort of action (e.g., make an appointment, give information, or share an object). In this situation, the action normally benefits the speaker directly and does not provide a benefit to the hearer. Requests can be very big or very small, requiring the use of different pragmatic strategies' (Dancing with Words) .
What are the typical requests to faculty?
Student requests to faculty members will be very varied, but these would be the main types:
Requests for information
Requests for confirmation of information or validation
Requests for permission or approval (the student is the one that does the action, such as changing groups)
Requests for action (the instructor is the one that does the action, such as giving feedback)
SECTIONS
The materials are divided into six sections:
In this section you will learn about politeness and the main factors that affect student choices when writing emails to their instructors (for instance, the kind and amount of information to include in the email, the level of formality of the language used, etc.).
In this section you will find information about how to structure your email. You will find specific subsections for each part of an email, and these will include explanations, strategies to apply and interactive exercises.
In this section you will find explanations, strategies and exercises that will help you with your choice of expressions and with the organisation of the information you include in your requests.
4. Let's practice!
In this section you will find three activities to practice and reflect on what you have learned in the module.
5. Additional information and resources
In this section you will find the following resources:
types of content
The materials include explanations, examples and...
...REFLECTION questions
The different sections include some questions for you to think about before you start reading the materials or between subsections.
They are a useful way to activate your previous knowledge, which will help you better understand the contents.
...Interactive activities
The activities in the module have been created with the free resource Learningapps.org.
You can click on the right upper corner to open the activity in a new tab. You can check your answers one by one or once you complete the activity. You just need to press the blue 'check' button (right bottom corner).
You can do the activities as many times as you want until all your answers are correct. Just 'refresh' your browser to start again.
*If you cannot see the interactive activities, try opening the website on a different internet browser.
...checkpoints
At the end of sections 1, 2 and 3 you will find 'Checkpoints'.
These are brief Google Forms which include questions that will help you reflect on your learning process.
*If you are using this website as part of a university module, your instructor may ask you to complete these checkpoints as part of your assessment.
ATTENTION: Before you start working with the materials, you may want to check your knowledge of useful university-related vocabulary and expressions. Go to EXTRA FOCUS ON LANGUAGE to revise and practice this vocabulary.
Language note:
In the materials you will see that the term 'instructor' has been used to refer to any kind of university teacher. This is so because the meanings of the words 'lecturer' and 'professor' vary form country to country (indicating higher or lower ranks). In turn, the word 'teacher' is mostly associated with previous educational levels, from kindergarten to high school.
How to navigate the website:
To navigate the website you can use the menu on the left side of the screen. You can also use the purple bottons at the bottom of each page, such as the ones right here:
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