3.1 Introductory Guide to the Internet.
(All levels)
http://www.uq.edu.au/~uejchris/inetguide/intro.htm
This is probably a good place to start. This site is designed
for ESL teachers and
students, and gives the basics for navigating, searching and using
the Internet. It is
written in a very clear manner.
3.2 Internet Scavenger Hunt.
(All levels)
Give the students a list of things, like words, phrases, parts of speech,
pictures, articles on
a certain topic, to find on the Internet. You may want to give
them some addresses to
start with. They should write down (or copy and paste into a
word processor) the URL of
where the item was found. Near the end of the class, see how
many people completed
the hunt, and which parts students missed.
Variations:
(A) Make it into a game to see who can complete the hunt first.
(B) Have students hunt for the first half of the class.
For the second half, have an
information exchange so students may share where they found the items,
and those who
were missing any are able to fill them in.
(C) Students may work in pairs for this activity. They
could even work individually for
the first part of the class, then pair up to finish the hunt.
3.3 Internet Treasure Hunt.
(All levels)
http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/th/
This is similar to the scavenger hunt, but it is an on-line site that
has several hunts for
varying levels. You can give students the address of the hunt
they are to do, and give
other instructions such as write down the answers and when finished
compare answers.
3.4 Virtual Field Trip.
(Int/Adv)
http://sln.fi.edu/tfi/hotlists/hotlists.html
Have students visit one of the links at the Franklin Institute Science
Museum Educational
Hotlist page. Students then write up a summary of the
site they visited, why they visited
that particular site, and what they liked the most about that site.
3.5 Just Looking. (Beginners)
Have students look at a website that you have chosen, and comment on
it. They could do a worksheet you prepared, or e-mail their response
to
a partner (from InternetSmart, 1998).
3.6 Virtual Tourist.
(Int/Adv)
http://city.net/
Students each choose a country to visit. They then visit
the country through City.Net
and report on their findings. Give students a checklist of information
to retrieve, such as
the capital city, customs, the language(s) spoken, geographic
information, population,
food, industry, etc.
Variation:
Students work in groups to create a short class presentation on a country
they choose
together, or are assigned.
3.7 Tour Guide.
Students look through the activities guide to the city. They
write a
mock letter to a friend who is going to visit the city, making recommendations
as to
which places to visit and where to eat.
3.8 Lyrics. (All levels)
http://www.lyrics.ch/
At the International Lyrics Server site, you can search to find
the lyrics to almost any
well-known song. You can print the lyrics, then handout copies
of the lyrics (or put on
the overhead) and listen to the song.
Variation:
Listen to the song at least twice. Put the students in groups
of 3-4. Give each group the
lyrics to the song which have been cut into lines (Advanced) or verses
(Beginner).
Students have to put the lyrics in the proper order.
3.9 Movie Scripts. (Int/Adv)
http://www.alaska.net/~danielh/
Movie scripts are available at this site. There are a limited
number of movies, but most
are well-known and recent. Show part of the movie in class and
students can read the
script. The script can also be printed and used as a reading
resource.
Variations:
(A) Show part of the movie. Group students (4-6 per group)
and give to each group a
copy of the script corresponding to the movie clip, which has been
cut into parts.
Students have to put the script together in the proper order.
(B) After watching the movie and studying the script, students
make their own script for
a scene in a movie in groups of 4-6. The scene could be a continuation
of the part of the
movie they saw, or on a different theme.
3.10 Movies on the Net.
(Int/Adv)
http://us.imdb.com/
There are many possibilities. There are sound bytes from major
scenes and illustrations.
There is also a mass of information about the actors, directors, producers,
filming, and
reviews. There is a page for each movie, which lists the “goofs”
(the things that went
wrong; happenings in the movie that are not true in real life; inconsistencies).
To find a
movie, perform a search of the site, by entering the title of the movie
you are interested
in. A class may watch the movie, then see the information about
it.
There are magazines on-line designed for and by ESL students and teachers.
Most have articles written by ESL students, and any student may submit
his work to be
published (in accordance with the magazine guidelines, of course).
3.11 Write Now!
http://www.ihes.com/Sresource/WriteNow!/397/WriteNow!.html
This site was developed by teachers and students. It is divided
into topic areas with
articles pertaining to that area written by students. Students
may submit an article on the
various topics listed.
3.12 Exchange. (Int/Adv)
http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/exchange/
An on-line magazine consisting only of articles submitted by ESL students.
3.13 On-Line Books Page.
(Int/Adv)
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/books.html
and The Bartleby Library.
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/
These are two good sites to find on-line books. The Books
Page has a searchable
database of more than 6000 books, while the Bartleby site is much smaller,
but also has a
link to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotes (http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett/).
The
text from the books may be printed and used in the class, or students
may read the books
on-line. However, if printing, be aware of the copyright.
Variations:
(A) Students may use the books as a source for book reports,
especially if they have
access to the Internet outside of class time.
(B) Bartlett’s Familiar Quotes has many quotes with the
origins of these sayings. It may
be useful for teaching sayings and idioms.
3.14 Comics. (Int/ Adv)
http://www.webcomics.com/
There are different comics to choose from. They may be useful
to teach slang and
idioms, and once in a while one even demonstrates a grammar point.
Students could also
read them on their own, and choose one they like, or ask questions
about them. The
downfall of this iste is that it takes some time for the comic strip
to download due to the
graphics. If you are adept at making web pages, a possibility
is to place the comic on
your page (you must ask permission from the owners of the site), and
if not, then print it
out to use in class.
There are many on-line newspapers which can be of use to the ESL class,
and are
particularly advantageous for the EFL class where authentic resources
may be hard to
find. It is also useful because more than one newspaper may be
easily accessed. Many
activities done with on-line papers can be similar to those done with
ordinary papers.
Responses and compositions may be submitted on paper or by e-mail.
Due to the nature
of the newspaper articles, most of the activities listed here are limited
to Intermediate and
Advanced students. I would recommend using the actual hands-on
local paper for
Beginner activities, as it is easier to cut up and find pictures.
The following links may be of use for looking for and using newspapers
located
worldwide.
The Southam Group
http://www.southam.com/Newspapers/dnewspapers.html
List of daily
newspapers across Canada.
The Edmonton Journal
http://www.southam.com/edmontonjournal
The Guide to Entertainment in Edmonton
http://www.southam.com/edmontonjournal/town/townmain.html
A listing of
all the activities that take place in the city.
The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com
Education On-line
Some newspaper
activities listed.
3.15 Analysis. (Beg)
Print the article and make enough copies for the class. Look
at the vocabulary and
idioms. Look at when numbers are written out and when in
numeric form. For a lower
level class, decide which words are used most.
3.16 CNN site. (All
levels)
http://www.cnnsf.com/education/education.html
This site is designed for literacy students, and the articles may be
read in original format,
or in a simplified format. There are also activities to accompany
the articles.
3.17 Editorial. (Int/Adv)
Students look for an Editorial column, read it, and respond to it.
You may assign the
column to be read, or allow students to choose their own.
3.18 Dear Ann... (Int/Adv)
Instead of an Editorial column, students read a help column like Ann
Landers, then give
their solution to the problem. (adapted from Nancy, 1997).
3.19 Commentary. (Int/Adv)
Students read an article of interest (controversial topics are better)
or one assigned by the
teacher and write a commentary on it.
3.20 Headline Mix-and-match.
(Int/Adv)
Print several articles from the on-line paper and make copies.
Cut the headlines from the
articles and have students match the headline to the article in pairs
or groups.
3.21 Headline Improvement.
(Int/Adv)
Print only the headlines from the articles (copy and paste into a word
processor).
Students have to make complete sentences from each headline.
3.22 Headline Stories.
(Int/Adv)
As in activity 3.21, print only the headlines. Give each student
a headline and then
students must write an article that they feel fits the headline.
3.23 Article Review.
(Int/Adv)
Each student chooses an article that interests him or her. The
student prints the article,
reads it underlining unknown vocabulary, chooses ten vocabulary items,
defines them
using the dictionary. The student then writes 5 sentences using
those words, 5 questions
concerning the article, and 5 true/false questions about the article.
3.24 Classifieds. (Int/Adv)
Students pretend they have just moved and must furnish an apartment,
and have a set
amount of money to spend (say, $500). They must find the things
they would need
through the classified ads, and write each down with the price.
3.25 Out-trip. (Int/Adv)
Students look through the activities guide to the city, then decide
upon a place that they
would like to visit as a class. Students are in charge of planning
the out-trip, and must
make any phone calls and decide upon transportation.
3.26 Class Newspaper.
(Int/Adv)
After looking through the on-line newspapers and/or the traditional
form, and discussing
how they are organized, the class makes its own newspaper. Decide
upon the size,
format, content, and how the tasks will be divided. Students
should use the word
processor for articles. Hopefully there is an artist or photographer
in the class. Put the
newspaper together and display either on the wall, or on the Internet.
This exercise is a
lot of work, but is very rewarding in the end.
Variation:
The school makes a newspaper together, each class contributing a section
or individual
articles.
3.27 NetLibs. (All levels)
http://www.premierworldwide.com/netlibs/
This is a net version of the game where one must give adjectives, nouns,
verbs and
adverbs, while another writes them into the blanks of a story to create
a whacky tale. A
fun way to review vocabulary and parts of speech.
3.28 Grammar Help Page.
(All levels)
http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/help/grammar_help/
This site has all kinds of goodies to help anyone, native speaker or
ESL, with English
grammar. There are many links for interactive activities, as
well as grammar point
explanations.
3.29 Grammar Safari.
(Int/Adv)
http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/web.pages/grammarsafari.html
Here students have to hunt for phrases/words in texts.
3.30 On-Line English Grammar.
(Int/Adv)
http://www.edunet.com/english/grammar/
Students can search for the grammar point they are interested in.
It gives a good
description of usage plus examples for each point. There is also
a grammar clinic for
both teachers and students, where questions may be posted and answered.
Read the
copyright notice.
3.31 Grammar Points. (Int/
Adv)
http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/class.pages/Structure1/Salzmann_index.html
This site has descriptions and activities related to specific grammar
points.
3.32 JavaScript Hangman. (All
levels)
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/hangman/index.htm
This works just like hangman, and the images are quick to load.
Unfortunately, this is
only a game for now, as the teacher cannot enter vocabulary to practice--what
comes
with it is what you get. Hopefully it will be developed into
an authoring program, so you
can choose which words are played.
3.33 Creative Cookbook.
(All levels)
Have students submit their favourite recipe, either on a word processor
or by e-mail. Create a web page that displays all the submissions
(you must have knowledge of creating web pages).
Variation:
(A) There is also a page for ESL students to post their recipes
on the Internet, and read
other students recipes in the Exchange on-line magazine
(http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/exchange/cookbook/cookbook.html).
Have students write out
their recipes beforehand, so the corrected version can be sent to the
page.
3.34 Discussion Center.
(Int/Adv)
http://eslcafe.com/discussion/
Dave’s ESL Cafe has a discussion page that students may visit.
There are several topics
to choose from. It is organized somewhat like a newsgroup, only
via a web browser. At
this same site is a link to the teacher’s discussion page.
3.35 Make a Webpage.
(Int/Adv)
http://www.oocities.org/
Anyone can obtain a free space at Geocities for a webpage.
The concept is that of
communities, where each city name represents a topic (e.g., Athens
represents
Education), and then each city is subdivided into blocks. You
choose the block you wish
to “live” in, and that is where your webpage is situated in cyberspace.
There are lots of
interesting sites to visit too, many of which concern ESL/EFL.
You may search Geocities
or the WWW for a certain subject.
There are several ways to use the WWW for listening activities.
There are two
types of listening sources: “pre-packaged” files and live stream.
The pre-packaged files
are probably better for ESL students because once downloaded, students
can listen to it
again and again, pausing, rewinding and restarting as many times as
necessary. Live
stream radio is likely to be more useful to Advanced students.
A huge disadvantage of
live stream radio is that if the Internet is congested, then the radio
will have breaks,
sometimes for minutes, while the signal is being redirected.
In all likelihood, this
problem will be solved in the near future.
It is easy to prime students prior to the listening exercise.
You can introduce the
vocabulary with either your own web page or a handout. The topic
may be introduced by
students looking at a related web site, having a class discussion,
or doing a worksheet
with prediction questions.
There are a number of sites that have listening materials available.
Most require
the plug-in RealAudio, which can be downloaded at the site http://www.real.com/
Listening comprehension resources may be found at the following sites:
MIT List of Radio Stations on the Internet.
http://wmbr.mit.edu/stations/list.html
COMFM List of radio stations on the Internet.
http://www.comfm.fr/sites/rdirect/indexa.html
News from RCI
http://www.rcinet.ca/en/actual/news/news.htm
Here, students
can listen to a recording of the news (approximately 10
minutes), and
the corresponding articles are also on the page.
Fox News
http://foxnews.com/
This site has
news clips you can listen to and watch. It also has a live
broadcast, with
either audio and image or just audio.
ESL Listening Neighborhood
http://grove.ufl.edu/~ktricket/Listening/Listening.html
This site
has several audio exercises using RealAudio.
Randall’s Cyber Listening Lab
http://www2.gol.com/users/rsdavis/cyberlab/
Here students
may listen to clips and answer questions (submitted and
marked immediately).
3.36 General Facts.
(Beg)
Have students listen to the broadcast as many times as necessary to
answer very general
questions, such as what the topic was, what words were mentioned (vocabulary
that they
know), what tense it was in, etc. (Lafford & Lafford, 1997).
3.37 Transcripted Audio. (All
levels)
It may be advantageous to accompany the radio broadcast with a transcript,
especially for
lower levels. Examine the vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation,
and content.
3.38 Listen and Answer. (Int/Adv)
Have students listen to the broadcast several times, then they answer
a prepared exercise
which includes true/false questions, fill in the blank, short answer,
etc. (Lafford &
Lafford, 1997).
Variations:
(A) Have the students prepare the true/false questions and questions
about the recording.
(B) If there are two broadcasts available, have half the class
listen to Broadcast A, and
the other half listen to Broadcast B. Those listening to Broadcast
A then prepare an
exercise sheet that could accompany the recording, and Broadcast B
does the same. The
two groups then exchange exercise sheets. Group A listens to
Broadcast B and completes
the exercises Group B prepared, while Group B listens to Broadcast
A and completes the
accompanying exercises.
3.39 News Summary. (Int/Adv)
Have the class listen to the broadcast two times, three if necessary.
In small groups of
3-5, students have to restate the news and write a summary. Correct
as a class, and see
how the group summaries differ in content.
3.40 News Retell. (Int/Adv)
Divide the class into two groups. Choose two pre-packaged broadcasts
that are only one or two minutes in length. Group A listens to Broadcast
A, while Group B listens to Broadcast B. Each group listens to the
broadcast two times, more if necessary. Each group then practices
retelling the news between themselves, in pairs, for 5 minutes. Then
pair up Group A and Group B students. The Group A student then tells
his or her news to the Group B student, and vice versa.
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