A teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL)
may make effective use of the
desirable features of the Internet. Electronic
mail, discussion groups, virtual reality,
self-marking exercises, and radio broadcasts
are but a few of the possibilities this
technology holds for the classroom. It
not only permits instant access to an immense
amount of information from English-speaking countries
around the world, but can also
allow for interactive usage. Most importantly,
the language teacher can import a variety
of authentic materials easily into the class.
A wealth of information abounds on the Internet.
There exists everything from
printable exercises to discussion groups to lesson
plans. In some sites and newsgroups,
teachers can exchange ideas, information, and
advice. As well, several organizations and
journals have websites (see Appendix A).
Students obviously would benefit greatly from
this abundance of raw materials in
the target language. They are able to interpret
the material themselves, rather than rely
on the teacher’s interpretation (Smith, 1997).
Computer-assisted language instruction is also
conducive to the communicative
teaching approach. Brown (1994) outlines
the four characteristics of teaching
communicatively as (a) focusing on all
aspects of communicative competence
(grammar, discourse, socio-linguistic, and strategic),
(b) authenticity, (c) fluency and
accuracy are complementary, and (d) that language
must be used in unrehearsed contexts.
Also, the context must be “motivating, substantive,
integrated and interactive” in nature
(Swain, 1994, p. 11). If used thoughtfully,
the Internet can accommodate all these
criteria. It can be highly interactive
in unrehearsed contexts, and threaded with authentic
materials. Because of the characteristics
of networked computers, it can direct attention
to all parts of communicative competence.
For example, during an electronic discussion,
students are able to practice grammar, cohesion
and development of ideas, appropriate
language use for the situation, and strategies
for clarification. Material can be integrated
with the curriculum of the course, and be relevant
to the students’ interests and needs.
In Krashen’s (1985) terms, the abundance of material
available via the Internet,
and its possible relevance to students’ lives,
provides a perfect opportunity for
comprehensible input and naturalistic language
learning. There is ample authentic input
in both audio and visual forms. With the
aid of images, it is often not extremely difficult
to deduce the content of most sites, and students
should be able to guess the content, even
if the language is beyond their understanding.
(I must mention, though, that images
require a fair amount of memory, and most older
computers do not have the memory
capacity to load images.) Due to the high
genuine motivation of students investigating a
topic of their choosing, the affective filter
is raised, allowing the inflow and processing of
input. Students will likely make more effort
to understand something they have an
interest in, even if it happens to be slightly
beyond (i + 1) their level of language
proficiency.
The computer can provide a learner-based environment
in which the teacher is a
less dominant force. The constraints of
the classroom are removed and learners are free
to engage in personal learning styles and strategies
at their own pace. Meskill (1993)
points out that students are able to control
the rate of presentation, and refer back to old
material to review and relate it to the new information.
Multimedia files can be easily conveyed through
the computer, and downloaded.
Multimedia is beneficial to the learner because
it combines images, audio and text in any
manner, and some programs are interactive, providing
immediate feedback. Multimedia
is discussed in more detail in the last part
of this guide.
All aspects of the Internet expose learners to
“meaningful language in use”,
allowing “a focus on use as well as usage” (Lafford
& Lafford, 1997, p. 217). Students
are able to see how the language functions outside
of the classroom, and at the same time
they can acquire some general cultural knowledge
of North America. For example,
students would be exposed to slang, colloquial
phrases, values of people expressed
through what they write, and customs. More
area specific norms may be observable if
that area has a good deal of information and
communication on the Internet.
From a more practical view, students can gain
saleable computer skills--a skill
which may help them obtain employment in the
future. It appears that computers are
having a definite impact in all areas of society,
and those who know how to use them
have a certain advantage.
Many people see language education as frustrating
and boring, but using the
Internet may spark interest in the ESL class
and make learning a more enjoyable
experience. It may aid in breaking up the
everyday routine, especially if it is an intensive
course with long class hours. As well,
CALL can take the dullness out of repetitive tasks,
such as grammar or vocabulary drills. Hopefully
the computer will motivate students to
learn the language. Even if the effect
is novel and short-lived, if it has proven to be
motivating even to a small degree, then it has
served its purpose.
The Internet is not the be-all and end-all to
CALL instruction. It has its flaws, and
the most obvious one is the availability of computers.
Few institutions can afford the
luxury of a fully equipped computer lab.
If a lab does exist, often the computers are
outdated and slow, and lab time is limited.
Likewise, few students are able to afford the
costs of a computer at home.
Another liability is the teacher’s computing skill.
The teacher must know exactly
how to use the hardware and software in order
to explain its use to the students. The
teacher must also troubleshoot and be ready for
the questions and problems that will
undoubtedly be encountered.
The next obstacle is the ability of the students.
They should have some
keyboarding skills as poor typing ability could
inhibit the participation in some activities,
particularly real-time on-line communication.
Although not absolutely necessary,
students should have some working knowledge of
computer systems as well. If they have
never turned on a computer before, precious class
time will be taken in teaching even just
the basics. Countering this, often there
is at least one student who has familiarity with
computer systems, and this person may help the
other students. Another point is that it
may not be easy to implement computer use with
Beginner students due to the language
barrier between students and both the teacher
and the material found on the Internet.
Depending on the attributes of the class, it may
be very difficult to keep everyone
on task. Students can easily become sidetracked
when using the World Wide Web--one
link leads to another which leads to another,
and soon the student is lost in cyberspace. A
simple solution may be to introduce competitive
activities for the World Wide Web, such
as a contest of who can correctly complete a
task first, or assign exercises that are to be
graded.
The Internet is most suited to the development
of reading, writing and vocabulary
skills since the majority of the content on the
Internet is written. There is some
audio-visual material on-line, however, the quality
tends to be poor. Video clips are
often jumpy and unfocussed, while the live radio
transmissions can at times be muffled
or continuously broken by congestion on the Internet.
Yet, audio and video clips are of
better quality on the CD-ROM.
Innumerable problems can occur with the equipment.
Students have trouble
logging on, programs crash, systems shut down,
material is temporarily inaccessible, and
e-mail gets lost in cyberspace. Large files,
especially those laden with graphics, sound
files and video clips, are slow to download.
“Immediate” feedback from interactive
exercises can in fact take several minutes to
arrive. It may be that the student will spend
more time staring at the computer, waiting for
a file to download, than actually studying.
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