What do we see when we observe an excellent English lesson? What's going on in the room? Perhaps what stands out is a collaborative making of meanings inspired by stimulating texts. Perhaps what's most important is an ever-deepening knowledge about, and facility with, the many ways that language works. Maybe what we're seeing is a carefully…

More students than ever before are taking online classes, yet higher education is facing an online retention crisis; students are failing and dropping out of online classes at dramatically higher rates than face-to-face classes. Grounded in academic research, original surveys, and experimental studies, "Connecting in the Online…

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),…

Misunderstandings about how the academic world operates are common among international students. This research investigated international students' understandings of academic regulations. Qualitative content analysis of 3,438 email messages indicate international students used a constellation of arguments to make academic requests/complaints to…

Emoticons have become a common phenomenon in email correspondence between students and professors. Even though the use of emoticons in formal writing is considered inappropriate and unprofessional, more and more students are using these nonverbal communication tools to add context or emphasis to their email messages to professors. This paper…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused physical classes to suddenly transition to online learning all over the globe two years ago, resulting in students becoming more active in online email communication. The emails sent by the students were observed to contain students' concerns and needs for teacher support during the early stages of worldwide online…

Nowadays, email communication is considered the most common and widespread computer-based tool that students use to communicate with their professors. This paper provides a framework for evaluating email communication between students and professors and examines the factors that may influence students' email style and professionalism. The research…

Weekly, self-evaluative briefs are used to assess students' general wellbeing during the coronavirus crisis. Authors discuss the efficacy of personalized check-ins and remote, interpersonal rapport, suggesting a positive impact on student learning outcomes.

For decades, the number of students enrolling in online courses has been increasing, and this trend toward online education has been further intensified as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The completion rate of online courses is not as high as in-person instruction, and researchers and practitioners have long been invested in identifying ways…

In large physiology classes, there is a demand for low-effort, or "light touch," strategies that faculty can use to connect with students and promote increased academic performance and student engagement. The purpose of this study was to compare personalized versus standardized emails following unit quizzes on student perceptions of…

The study examines a corpus of 306 request emails written by 32 English-speaking (ES) teachers and 121 L2 learners from distinctive L1 backgrounds (i.e., Chinese, French, Spanish) and with different levels of L2 proficiency. Pragmatic competence is analyzed through the coding of direct and indirect request strategies used in formal and informal…

Interactions between instructors and students at distance learning universities are crucial in motivating students and enhancing learning outcomes. Although prior empirical studies have examined email messages at distance learning universities from different perspectives, this is the first study, to the best of our knowledge, to explore the…

Email remains a key mode of communication between faculty and students in higher education institutions. Composing appropriate email texts is an important skill for learners; however, little technological support is available for the pragmatic aspect of email communication -- the ways in which social context influences language choices.…

The topic of study was communication technology preferences of online students and online instructors. The generational cohorts of each group were all assessed to see if preferential differences existed due to age. The research problem was that technical generational differences cause challenges with effective communication between faculty and…

Social isolation among online college students may be a key contributor to the higher attrition rates reported by online universities relative to traditional institutions. This experiment investigated the effects of instructor-student communication on online students' self-reported social integration with faculty, institutional commitment, and…