Some tips which may be useful for Time Project Classroom Twinning
 (a collage from my own experience and other colleagues’ suggestions)
Barbara Dieu
BEFORE YOU START AND WHILE YOU ARE AT IT

1.	Try it yourself first and maintain personal email contacts with the teacher(s) involved in the project. This is one of the most important items because if something goes wrong with a pal or the project, the teacher(s) can identify the problem and try to find a solution.

2.	Learn and teach netiquette.

3.	Check whether students know how to use email. If they don't, just give them the necessary instruction to accomplish their task. Too much information about email writing only confuses students. Don't rely on your students understanding everything you tell them orally; provide clear step-by-step handouts with clear examples.

4.	Encourage attention to form as well as content in email.

5.	Don't expect things to work exactly as you planned. So be flexible, creative and keep a card up your sleeve for any emergency.

PAIRING AND E-MAILING

1.	I believe students should be paired according to age (10-13) (14-16) (17- 20) and English level (basic, intermediate and advanced). This is important to avoid drop-outs due to wide language discrepancy or lack of interest, as students' interests vary a lot according to their age group. However, be flexible.

2.	Students should e-mail each other through a platform teachers have access to and where messages may be stored. They may later eventually exchange mails outside the platform if they wish but the tasks assigned should pass through us. However, make sure you've clarified the ground rules about what you will and won't read when you have your students work with key-pals.

3.	Assist the students whenever they need it. You may want to use the project to evaluate them on their progress. If you decide to do so, be sure to set what you expect them to do clearly (rubrics).

4.	Make sure the students write to their pals regularly and reply to all email received. Don't count on students to write and respond to email on their own so establish deadlines for work and be strict about sticking to them.  You may want to keep a log as the one shown below. Remember to tell them that when they start their letter with Hi or hello they should also give the name of the student they are addressing to (Hi Joe) or else you will spend a lot of time trying to find in your list who is writing to whom.
Name of your students	Name of School you are corresponding with	E-pal	Task 1
Introduction
sent received
(date)	Task 2
Description
School	Task 3
Description
city/country	
Marianne M.	F.D. Roosevelt
B. Russel

Lycée Pasteur	Mary C.
Gianni R.
Carlos P.	25-02/27-02
	05-3/10-03	27-04/07-05	
Anna D.	Veenladen C.
ITESM	Margot B.
Puri G.				
5.	Be motivated and do your best to motivate the students. Make sure the students commit themselves to the project and to you. Remember your attitude is the main key to success.

IN THE COMPUTER/CLASSROOM – SOME SUGGESTIONS
1.	Students should turn away from their monitors or turn them down before you address them. Students in front of computers are functionally deaf!

2.	Don't have more than 15 stations trying to log into the same site on the Web simultaneously--start students in groups, then have them log in individually to avoid an Internet traffic jam.

3.	Ask students to print the messages they have received and glue them to their copybook or keep them in a file together with the messages they have sent so as to keep track of their progress and what they have already said to each correspondent.  Remember that most of the time students do not own computers. Sometimes they want to re-read the thread offline or plan what to write before being in front of the machine. Connections are expensive and composing mail beforehand prevents stds from staring at the blank screen.

4.	For younger students, ask them to make a map of the world and stick the name of the school(s) and names (photographs) of correspondents on the board or in their copybooks.  In this way, every time they write or receive a letter, they can visualize the country from where the messages are coming from and will be interested in learning more.

5.	Have a calendar in different colours for each school so that you identify the holiday/test periods/chats and theme deadlines so students do not get impatient when no letters come during these periods and have something to look forward to. 
Sources  I consulted and adapted from:

http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/~trobb/keypals.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/4038/article02.html