Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Request Strategies Used By English Language Learners: Student-Professor Email Communication, Padam Chauhan

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Recently, email communication between students and professors in the U.S. higher educational institutions where English is the medium of instruction has become increasingly popular. However, ESL students in these educational institutions encounter numerous challenges to write email to their professors because of their unfamiliarity with email etiquette in English, inadequate English language proficiency, and lack of understanding of socio-cultural norms and values. Also, writing emails to professors requires higher pragmatic competence and critical language awareness of how email correspondence takes place in academic setting. Email requests written by ESL students are often seen as inappropriate or informal by their professors, …