Learning across borders: A teaching case connecting writing students internationally
Learning across borders: A teaching case connecting writing students internationally

Summary/Abstract: This article describes a collaborative project between writing classes in Russia and the United States, conducted under the auspices of Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project (TAPP), a long-standing international network of writing, usability testing, and translation instructors. Although previous projects had linked technical writing students internationally as co-authors, this project broke new ground by linking a Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences classes in the US with a Précis Writing class in Russia. Students edited their international collaborators’ writing for grammar and use of different Englishes, and in the process gained experience in intercultural communication and email etiquette. This project may be reproduced in a variety of educational environments where one party is represented by native speakers of the working language, while the other is represented by non-native speakers. Cooperation with EFL students may help instructors to inform native speakers in their classroom about the necessity to adjust writing for the needs of non-native audience.

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