Out-of-class communication between teachers and students is essential throughout university engineering courses for in-depth explanations of the concepts covered in class. This study evaluates this aspect throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, a survey that addressed this issue was administered to students at the beginning (March 2020) and at the…

The present study focuses on email communication in the multilingual university setting. Previous studies dealing with similar settings point to the lack of politeness markers in students' email messages [Bjorge, A. (2007). Power distance in English lingua franca email communication. "International Journal of Applied Linguistics", 17(1),…

Email communication is pervasive in faculty interaction. As there exists status imbalance between students and professors in this type of context, emails are expected to cater for the uneven power relationships by means of using appropriate polite features. Previous research (e.g., Eslami, 2013; Salazar-Campillo & Codina-Espurz, in press) has…

Considering the potential and popularity of social media it is important to inquire into its use in learning. In this study the implementation of the activity carried out in Twitter with higher education students was analysed. The research was conducted following a mixed methodology, based on virtual ethnography complemented by quantitative…

This paper shares the work and observations from a task-based 6-week email exchange project between participants in Spain and the US. Though small in scale, the study offers insights for those interested in telecollaboration but face constraints on multiple fronts. Close examination of the exchanges reveal participants' engagement on multiple…

In this paper we propose adapting role-play teaching methodology to engineering studies. The role of a maintenance technician, a relevant job profile for engineering graduates is has chosen. The interaction is based on email exchange, with the instructor included in the simulation to help guide the activity and achieve learning objectives. In this…

Describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of an electronic mail exchange program between university students in the United States and Spain. The program was implemented to help make a course entitled Peninsular Culture and Civilization more interactive, relevant, and interesting (MDM)