Reading Emails in Class

In my search to find authentic readings that are accessible to my students, I've sometimes raided my own email account. For example, when students are studying travel and vacation terminology, I've printed some correspondences between myself and different hotels in Argentina. Of course, the students might not know all the vocabulary included, but hopefully they can understand enough to discuss the main points. As with any reading, the steps are usually as follows:


1. Skim for Context: Students are prompted to skim the text for context clues. They should be able to immediately identify the text as an email, and can probably guess from the subject line that they are looking at questions about a hotel and the responses.
2. Read for Main Idea: Students read the text individually for the main idea. Their basic comprehension is then tested. Who is writing each email? What are the client's main concerns? What points are highlighted by the hotel? What tone is used in each email - are they polite or rude, formal or informal? How can the students tell?
3. Read for Details: Students read the text again (possibly taking turns reading aloud), this time looking at more detailed information. They then answer specific questions, either in oral or written form. Is there a double room available? What are the hotel amenities? What dates will the guests be staying? Is there a price difference for different types of rooms?

Once the students have a good understanding of the text (they don't need to know a direct translation for every term or phrase, but should have a good grasp of the meaning of the emails), there are different things the class can do for an extension. They can get into groups and discuss different emails from different hotels, and decide which they would recommend. You can visit the hotel's website and see if the information is the same. Students can discuss if they like the hotel and why, or write their own emails to a hotel requesting information.

Thank you to Galina, who did a similar activity with her Russian 1001 class this week and reminded me of this source of authentic readings.