LETTERS

Letters used to be the most powerful way of communication when other ways of communication had not been found. People used to write letters to inform their family about their situation, to exchange information, to share their opinions, to express their love, to give encouragement and so on. With the development of modern technology, people seldom write letters nowadays. We can see these phenomena especially among teenagers. They will just send a short message using a mobile phone or just make a call to the person they want to talk to. It seems that most people nowadays like things which are fast. They go from one place to another by cars or by LRT, so that they can save their time; they like fast food too, Mc Donald, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino; they talk to each other using internet or phone; they can even ‘see’ each other by using 3G or internet, without visiting each other. So, should we ask students to read and write letters? How are we going to convince them that writing letter is actually very interesting? Would they think that writing letter is too time consuming and it might be too late when they got the letter? Perhaps writing on a blog, or what the teenagers call now as ‘blogging’ and email are much more ‘natural’ for them. I believe the purpose of reading and writing a letter can still be achieved when the students write on a blog or send email, it is just the change of medium. As teachers, we need to improve our skills on modern technology too, so as to keep the same pace as our students.