| Teaching by correspondence—sending instructional materials and conducting
interaction through the mail—is not only the oldest and most proven form of distance
education, it remains the most popular worldwide, in both developed and developing
countries. As an interactive communication channel, written correspondence is slower than
electronic channels, but it is cheap, and in developing countries, it is usually more
dependable. It is a medium that both learners and instructors are familiar with. There are
benefits even in the slowness of communication, such as the opportunity it affords the
learner to reflect and carefully compose a response to the instructor's questions. On the
other hand, because of the possibly demotivating effect of waiting for a long time for a
response to an assignment once submitted, good practice for the correspondence instructor
includes the necessity of giving feedback to student's written assignments promptly. In
recent years the techniques of designing and conducting correspondence instruction have
been adapted for use with new technologies.
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