Prof. Ahmed Shafik Elkhatib
23/03/2007, 05:28 PM
THE INTERNET IN TEACHING
AND LEARNING ENGLISH
AND IN RESEARCH
1. INTRODUCTION:
The Internet can serve as one of the most efficient means of teaching and learning English as well as doing academic research. It is the purpose of this paper to outline how the Internet , or “the global network of networks”, can achieve this threefold purpose. It is to be noted, however, that in view of the relatively wide area of coverage of the paper, the account given here is far from being complete. It is also noteworthy that some overlap was almost unavoidable, e.g. “Making use of Grammar and Style Notes” is dealt with under Research, but it could be very well subsumed under Learning or Teaching depending on the perspective from which the material is considered. Some overlap was also deemed necessary due to the fact that many websites are not confined to only one of the three-fold purposes of the present paper, but rather include components which may fit into two or even all three of the purposes, but when such sites are referred to in the paper they have to be listed under one category or another.
2. THE INTERNET IN TEACHING ENGLISH:
2.1 Joining Special Interest Groups or Interest Sections:
Special Interest Groups (SIG’s) or Interest Sections, as they are sometimes called, enable teachers with similar interests to share ideas and make contacts worldwide through newsletters, symposia, and other activities. For example, the IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) hosts several such groups as ESP, Literature and Cultural Studies, Pronunciation, Research, and Testing. Likewise, TESOL hosts several Interest Sections and Affiliations which offer networking with English teachers worldwide with a view to exchange ideas for more efficient and effective teaching. Any Internet user can acquire membership in up to three (out of twenty) interest groups.
2.2 Familiarizing Oneself with Departments of English Worldwide:
The Internet user may familiarize himself/herself with a large number of English Departments worldwide. For example, by checking the Internet Resources for English Teachers one can find the site of the Amherst English Department and make use of its rich material on the teaching of Literature and Composition. Other English Departments can be reached through indexes, one of which includes over one hundred links to the sites of Departments of English in various parts of the world. In some sites one can find course materials and online syllabi, for example literature syllabi which use the Internet, as well as courses taught via the Internet. One can also find resources on teaching and being a good teacher of certain subject matters, e.g. American Literature. Some of these sites also present Online Journals and other Etexts (Electronic Texts) including full-length books.
2.3 Knowing What is Needed for Teaching Using the Internet:
Some sites, e.g. http://www.december.com/web/text/index.html present guides offering what an English teacher would need for developing a course (or doing research) which uses the Internet. Other sites are concerned with Teaching with the Internet in the sense of offering tips on how to use the Internet in teaching. One such site is that of the University of Pennsylvania at http://www.ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Another useful site is Project Tel*Lingua at http://www.tel-lingua.org/index.html, which is a research project looking at the Internet in language teaching.
2.4 Using Teacher Resources:
Teachers of English can find a wealth of materials to help with lesson preparation, professional development, and the integration of technology-based learning tools into the curriculum. Such sites enable teachers to discover new ideas and strategies to improve teaching and learning in their classrooms. Lists of resources include projects, reports, and even job openings. An example of these sites is http://www.iste.org. Teachers who need some help on testing and evaluation can make use of English Language Proficiency Assessment as well as the homepage of Resources in Language Testing of the University of Cambridge EFL/ESL examinations information.
2.5 Subscribing to Mailing Lists and Fax-on-demand Services:
English teachers can go global or in other words can have global reach to the twenty-first century by subscribing to E-mail/mailing Lists of interest to EFL/ESL. They can receive up-to-date information and news relevant to their profession as well as engage in discussions of interest to them. ELEGYPT is the Mailing List for English teachers and faculty staff members in Egypt.
Some other useful mailing lists are: Educational Resources Information Service (ERIC) News, where English teachers can get information about articles and papers of interest to them published in Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals of Education (CIJE); LTEST-L: a mailing list for language testing covering both research and practice; International Teachers of English as a Foreign or Second Language (NETEACH-L) for discussions of using the Internet as an educational tool; TESL-L, the electronic forum for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, including TESLK-12 for teaching English to children; Scholarly Electronic Mailing Lists, a site which includes some of the best and most thorough catalogs of e-mail discussion lists found on the Internet; IECC at iecc-request@stolaf.edu where teachers can subscribe to mailing lists for teachers seeking classes for e-mail exchange; teachers may use a search engine like Alta Vista to find penpals/keypals for their students as well as newsgroups about penpals; the CataList, the catalog of LISTSERV lists; an electronic mailing list for teachers and academics interested in the use of the Internet in teaching is found at http://members.aol.com/dcrolf/uk-schools/index.htm.
As for fax-on-demand services, teachers may use several sites, e.g. the TESOL site to have documents and applications delivered to their fax machines twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In many cases the list of documents is updated periodically, e.g. monthly in the case of TESOL.
2.6 Helping Students Become Penpals/Keypals and Develop their Writing Skills:
The IECC is a mailing list for teachers seeking international partners around the world, e.g. a class in Middle Eastern culture through literature seeks exchange with students in the Middle East and Middle Eastern students in the United States to participate in an online forum on culture, literature, film, etc. to help students learn about another culture and to share theirs. The List defines the institution type as: higher education/upper high school, culture as: ME, language as: English, and specifies a time frame during which students can exchange e-mail messages.
Again the HUT Writing Project at http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/Project is one of several places where teachers can find keypals for their students. The HUT Internet Writing Project (with its earlier Project of 1993-97) is an International Writing Exchange project that is a promising and interesting one.
It is noteworthy that some such keypal projects are already taking place in Egypt. One of these projects is that supervised by Gini Stevens as a cross-cultural e-mail exchanges with EFL/ESL students, namely between students at the English Language Institute (ELI) of AUS and Spanish-speaking students at a university in Puerto Rico. A similar project in Egypt is that going on at Jesuit Secondary School, College de Sainte Famille, where students are engaged in a small e-mail correspondence program with a Jesuit preparatory school in Nebraska, USA. Ten secondary students are matched up with ten American juniors. Two of the Egyptian students have access to the Internet. These two students and the teacher are sharing the responsibility of sending and receiving messages for the other eight.
3. THE INTERNET IN LEARNING ENGLISH:
3.1 Studying English Online for Free:
There are several webpages for people interested in learning English on the Internet for free. One of these sites is http://mypage.direct.ca/p/prossett/index.html, which is the personal site of Paolo Rosetti, a teacher of English at the YMCA in Canada and at the Virtual University. Also http://www.study.com offers EFI (i.e. English for Internet), which is presented as “Your free English school on the Net”. EFI offers free English language classes in Grammar, Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking, as well as specialized classes in TOEFL, ESP, Teaching English Online, and Language and Culture. In this website there are classes, teachers, students, activities, chat, and resources. It offers live real-time online classes. The schedule for Cairo is Fridays at 4:00 p.m. and Mondays at 5:00 a.m. An Interesting feature of the site is its 3-D environment. Another useful site, and one of the well-know sites is Dave’s ESL Café at http://www.pacificnet.net/~sperling/joblinks.html.
3.2 Improving One’s Language Skills and Preparing for TOEFL and Other Standardized Tests for Free:
In ACT's Writing DEN at http://www.actden.com students of English can improve their reading, writing, and listening skills. The site is full of activities and audio narrations. In HUT, learners can have grammar help, literature help, oral skills help, test help, and vocabulary help. Students can also prepare for the TOEFL test at the same site as well as at other sites like The TOEFL Prep page, which is an interactive online preparation page giving visitors instant feedback and comprehensive explanations for TOEFL-type listening, grammar, and reading questions. Students who need to prepare for the SAT, GRE, or several other tests can check http://www.barroneduc.com for test-taking tutorials from experts. Students can find hints and strategies to help them take the tests and they can send in specific questions about topics. In addition to the New York State Regents Exams, including English, the following standardized tests are available: SAT 1, GRE, TOEFL, and ACT.
3.3 Consulting Hundreds of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias:
The Internet makes available hundreds of online dictionaries and encyclopedias. One of the sites makes it possible to access about two hundred of these, namely http://www.onelook.com. The Internet Dictionary Project at http://www.june29.com//IDP allows users to do online searches of several dictionaries and to translate English words into other languages or vice versa.
3.4 Delving into Distance Learning and Getting an Academic Degree:
The site of the School of Education, University of Leicester at http://www.le.ac.uk offers an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and TESOL by distance learning. The program offers the degree in Descriptions of English, Sociolinguistics/Discourse, Second-Language Acquisition and Language Teaching Approaches, or Syllabus Design, Testing, and Evaluation. Among the requirements of the degree is a course assignment associated with each module: a piece of written work not less than five thousand words, in addition to a twenty-thousand word dissertation arising from supervised research on an approved topic related to one or more of the advanced modules being taken. To be accepted, students are required to have a score of 6.5 in the British Council IELTS test or equivalent.
It is also worth mentioning that there are also Distance Education Certificate Programs for professionals, teachers, and trainers preparing for leadership roles in distance learning. One of these programs is that offered by the State University of West Georgia, USA. It is a nine-month program which is offered completely online, with two or three hours per week participating in online bulletin boards, reading materials, and completing exercises. Tuition, which includes course materials, access, and a framed certificate, is about seven hundred US dollars.
4. THE INTERNET IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH:
4.1 Searching the Databases of Libraries, Bookstores, Periodicals, Online Academic Journals, Electronic Texts, ERIC, and UMI:
Researchers can visit the Library of Congress at http:// and have access to its electronic catalog. The Amazon Bookstore, advertised as “the largest bookstore on earth” or “the mother of all online bookstores”, has over two million titles, and even displays book reviews. The webpage is located at http://www.amazon.com. Book Stacks offers 350,000 titles. Available also on the Net are: Houghton Mifflin Company, Prentice Hall Regents, Barnes and Noble, and Barron’s Educational web site at http;//www.barrobeduc.com where there are descriptions of all the books published by Barron, searchable by several categories including foreign languages, study guides, and test preparation. The homepage for the journal TESOL is called TE SL-EJ, while UNCOVER makes available the contents of about 17,000 periodicals. Among the online academic journals and other electronic texts are: The Observer, which is the literary magazine for Columbia University, New York City; Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal, TESL-EJ; the Directory of Online Journals and Periodicals, a Directory of Online Books by Author, and Online Reference Works, all from the English Server, Carnegie Mellon University. Very useful to researchers is University Microfilms, Inc. (UMI), the Humanities Resources Page, where dissertations, abstracts, some journals, and out-of-print books are available, with 1.4 million doctoral dissertations and master’s theses, to which researchers can have online database access through commercial service. Also of great importance to researchers is ERIC abstracts, short essays, and bibliographies, in addition to database searches similar to CD-ROM searches available in the library.
4.2 Making Use of Grammar and Style Notes/Manuals:
Cobuild offers grammar and style notes based on a corpus of the English language. The MLA site at http://www.mla.org offers the Modern Language Association Style Manual, including a section on how to cite sources from the World Wide Web. This relatively new section is very useful in guiding students and researchers using Internet resources in their research papers.
4.3 Making Use of Reference Works:
The Net offers many sites including massive bibliographies and databases. A very important site of this type is ABELL, The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature. The Gopher menu is particularly useful in this respect; it offers many resources for research, including E-journals and conferences.
4.4 Joining the SIG of Research in Professional Organizations:
Researchers can make use of the services of the Special Interest Group of Research in several professional organizations such as the IATEFL, which has already been referred to in 2.1 above. The IATEFL Research Interest Section has two main goals: (1) promoting the idea of teacher-as-researcher by bringing together ideas on how teachers can conduct small-scale research projects in order to discover more about their classes, as well as fostering similar classroom-based research by academics and materials writers; and (2) recognizing how little communication is taking place between those doing extensive research into English language learning and the practitioners in the field. This SIG also addresses the fact that many worthwhile research findings appear in learned journals but are never made accessible to teachers. Similarly, insights achieved by teachers are not taken into account by academic researchers, who may reach conclusions which simply do not reflect the reality of the classroom.
4.5 Student Internet Research (SIR):
What constitutes Student Internet Research (SIR)? SIR includes any activity where students must access the Internet in order to obtain information for the completion of a pre-defined task. An example of SIR is an Independent Research Project, for the completion of it students use search engines to research topics of individual interest. Students may work in small groups to research different aspects of a topic the class is studying. Possible sources for SIR projects are: electronic magazines (e-zines), academic journals (e.g. TESL-EJ), newspapers (e.g. the New York Times, US Today, international newspapers, and Egyptian and Arab newspapers), dictionaries and encyclopedias, libraries and museums online (e.g. the library of the American University in Cairo [AUC], the United States Information Service [USIS], the Egyptian Museum), specialized databases, government sources, search engines, university web pages, personal electronic contacts, newsgroups, and mailing lists.
4.6 Consulting Researchpaper.com and Similar Sites:
The site http://www.resarchpaper.com presents itself as “the Web’s largest collection of topics, ideas, and assistance for school related research projects”. The site has a giant directory of over four thousand research topics across more than one hundred categories. Students can begin their research by launching instant searches for relevant information on their topic using Electric Library and Infoseek. Students can find a research paper idea by browsing by category, or by searching the entire idea directory by keyword. They can even get some advice about online research in the Discussion Area where they can post questions, find out about the best web sites, meet people working on similar projects, and share their tips for success with others. In the Writing Center students can improve the style and presentation of their reports, learn some ways to organize and complete their research assignments with a step-by-step guide. Over one hundred pages of writing tips and techniques provide quick answers to common questions about punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
4.7 Beware of “Evil House of Cheat”!
An example of Web abuse, which teachers should warn their students from, is the “Evil House of Cheat”-- a website with over 9500 essays, termpapers, and reports in over forty categories. The site claims to have served 1.5 million people so far. All essays are listed with description, grade, and school system. The site claims that it is perfect if you are doing research or are just late with an assignment. Incredibly, the site offers tips and tricks on how to cheat an exam! The reason this piece of information is provided here is the assumption that if teachers tell their students that they already know about such sites, students may be deterred from exploiting them. If, however, students decide to use the “services” of such sites, they have been warned, and will deserve the penalty.
5. A WORD ON ONLINE/VIRTUAL CONFERENCES AND TESOL ’98:
5.1 Online Conferences:
In December 1997, the Cairo Telecom Conference introduced the latest Internet technology ZAKNET, which enables users to receive the Internet through satellite in realtime. The address of ZAKNET is http://www.zak-sat.net. This new technology enables users to hold online/virtual conferences to deal with such topics as the design and development of training or learning online. For example, on February 23-27, 1998 a web-based training/online learning took place under the title of DISCUSSIONS IN DESIGN AND INTERACTIVITY, which took place entirely online, with three keynoters and five facilitated workshop areas. For a listing of online conferences, the Directory of Scholarly Electronic Conferences is very useful.
5.2 TESOL 1998:
If an Internet user is interested in a certain professional conference that is held abroad but cannot attend it, he/she does not have to miss it all. He/she can still get a glimpse at what is going on by paying a virtual visit to the Conference if it happens to have a website. This was the situation with TESOL 1998, which took place in Seattle, USA. Amazingly enough, people NOT attending the Conference could look at several Demonstrations online beforehand, i.e. before participants in the Conference could see them! ELEGYPT members also received several e-mail messages from colleagues and friends who were in Seattle telling them about some of the academic events. For example, Chip Hartman shared some thoughts and observations with ELEGYPT members telling them that there were a few presentations related to online instruction, and that because he was only five minutes “early” he could not get into the packed room. ELEGYPT members also knew that Richard Boyem moderated a talk-show format discussion in which he, past TESOL president, and other conference members participated. The discussion, entitled “Techno Fear? Techno Joy” brought out the myths surrounding the uses of technology. From Boyem’s e-mail ELEGYPT members knew that he was a bit worried about the talk-show format, which was non-traditional for a professional convention, but that it went well, with a lot of laughter and merriment over and above. In one of Boyem’s e-mail messages he told ELEGYPT members that he was planning a “TESOL Comes to Egypt” event in which Egyptian participants would report on the activities they participated in in Seattle—an event which actually took place as promised. The TESOL website even enabled ELEGYPT members to sneak into the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) interest section with its large room and sixty computers.
6. A FEW CONCLUDING REMARKS:
6.1 The Internet is Potentially the Most Important Advance Since Television:
The Internet, and more specifically the World Wide Web (WWW), is probably the most important advance since television, with equal potential to change our lives. Two of the most useful activities the Internet can be used for are teaching English and doing research. With careful planning and direction, these tasks can be combined in a creative and highly effective learning experience. It is hoped that the above brief discussion about the role of the Internet in teaching and learning English as well as doing academic research has shown that it is useful in these three areas when used in networked multimedia learning centers, which are now already available in a relatively large number of schools and university colleges in Egypt. However, it is still hoped that access to educational technology in general and to the Internet in particular will be made available to all English language learners. The good news in this respect is the fact that the Egyptian Ministry of Education is taking great interest in making this hope come true as soon as possible, as is recently announced by the Minister himself.
6.2 The Internet is NOT Limited to the WWW:
In addition to the WWW and e-mail, which the discussion above seems to have concentrated on, the Internet comprises other tools such as the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Telnet, Gopher, Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), Usenet, and Newsgroups.
6.3 The Internet is NOT a Substitute for Teachers:
Like other powerful tools the Internet can be used well or poorly, to good or bad ends. As we have already seen, the Internet can be used to accomplish a variety of tasks. It is to be noted, however, that the major problem with the Internet is not gaining access to information but rather the organization and filtering of an enormous excess of information. When our students use the Internet, particularly for research, they should not lose sight of the fact that research, by definition, involves searching rather than surfing. The most important thing to remember par excellence is that the Internet is not and cannot possibly be a substitute for the syllabus or for the class plan, let alone the teacher. Rather, the Internet is one of the most powerful tools ever developed by man so far -- a tool with an enormous potential for teaching and learning languages, specially English, as well as doing academic research.
APPENDIX
THE INTERNET AND THE SERVICES IT PROVIDES
E-MAIL:
Electronic mail is basically a way to provide exchange of messages between any two computers, no matter where they are located in the world. The E-mail has a very versatile nature and can be used to send messages to a particular person, to a group of individuals, to a predefined list of users, to send text files, to send binary objects (i.e. programs, graphics, spreadsheets, audio and video clippings), to distribute electronic magazines, to broadcast announcements and get alarm messages from monitoring programs. E-mail can be used to retrieve files query databases in remote computers. Used as a postal system, it is one of the most frequently used day-to-day facilities offered by the Internet.
FTP:
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) refers to the program used by computers connected to the Internet to transfer a copy of a file. FTP enables a user to establish a connection and then transfer a file, a group of files, and even directories. FTP can transfer not only text files but executable programs, images, spreadsheets, databases, audio, video, or a combination of these.
GOPHER:
Gopher is an Internet navigator of tools and resources. It is an information, browsing, and access system that combines many of the features of electronic bulletin board services such as Usenet. Gopher is based on several concepts: an easy-to-use user interface, with hierarchical menus that users can move around, in addition to a few other one-letter commands.
INTERNET:
The Internet is the global network of networks. It represents a vast cyberspace where users can gather, disseminate, and exchange all types of information. The Internet today represents a global community, electronically connected with activities ranging from non-real time to real time. It is not confined to a single transmission medium but allows multiple types of information to be transmitted ranging from texts to images, and from audio to video. The Internet has given birth to the concept of a small world or a global village, where distance does not matter, and where communication is cheaper and more convenient.
TELNET:
Telnet refers to remote Login. It is mostly used to access information or to share resources. To log in to a remote system, Telnet must be on your system as well as on the remote system. Telnet enables a computer to communicate with any other computer irrespective of its location. Telnet requires an Internet address (IP) to establish a connection. Once the connection is made, the remote computer can be used over the Internet just like a personal computer (PC). When Telnet is initiated it opens up a connection to the remote system. The remote system sees the user’s computer as a local terminal and provides all the facilities it offers to its own terminal. Telnet makes it possible to have access to online library systems and their catalogs and databases, Supercomputers (one should have a valid account to access and use them), and a variety of other information from online databases or near-real-time information from live instruments.
USENET:
Usenet is the global electronic BBS (Bulletin Board Service) community of the Internet. It is basically a conferencing system, where information is organized as a communally shared pool in directories that do not belong to any single user but to the whole local site. Information is exchanged through messages. Most messages are organized into topical groups also known as special-interest groups or forums and placed in a hierarchy such as Business, Recreation, and Education. News messages are organized into groups known as Newsgroups. All users read from and contribute to their local sites, which then distribute their postings to other Usenet sites based on various criteria and in return receive postings from other sites. Through Usenet computer users all over the world share information, pose and answer questions, and conduct multi-people discussions. Like E-mail, Usenet is also one of the most frequently used day-to-day facilities and has all the advantages of E-mail.
WAIS:
WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Server, a popular Internet Navigator tool. It has been designed to be used on networks where users and pools of data are in different locations. WAIS is the search tool used by people making free access and pay-for-view information available via the Internet. It is based on a client-server approach. The client program is a user-friendly software with the capability of selecting appropriate WAIS databases, creating queries, and viewing results. The server program takes the queries and applies them to the data. Through WAIS, hundreds of servers can be accessed at different sites, as WAIS works through several databases with one query irrespective of the location of the database. Most of the information bases of the Internet and its archives have today become WAIS searchable.
WWW:
The World Wide Web is an Internet Navigator tool through which users can access the other ends, Navigators, services, and resources. WWW is basically a browser and a set of data communication protocols. Its appeal is due largely to the ease with which information (text or graphic) can be retrieved by any user anywhere in the world. It introduced hypertext files through which related documents can be linked. These files can be accessed using HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) from any remote computer. Thanks to the WWW, documents are no longer static but could be brought to life using Multimedia. These documents are called hyper-media Web pages.
AND LEARNING ENGLISH
AND IN RESEARCH
1. INTRODUCTION:
The Internet can serve as one of the most efficient means of teaching and learning English as well as doing academic research. It is the purpose of this paper to outline how the Internet , or “the global network of networks”, can achieve this threefold purpose. It is to be noted, however, that in view of the relatively wide area of coverage of the paper, the account given here is far from being complete. It is also noteworthy that some overlap was almost unavoidable, e.g. “Making use of Grammar and Style Notes” is dealt with under Research, but it could be very well subsumed under Learning or Teaching depending on the perspective from which the material is considered. Some overlap was also deemed necessary due to the fact that many websites are not confined to only one of the three-fold purposes of the present paper, but rather include components which may fit into two or even all three of the purposes, but when such sites are referred to in the paper they have to be listed under one category or another.
2. THE INTERNET IN TEACHING ENGLISH:
2.1 Joining Special Interest Groups or Interest Sections:
Special Interest Groups (SIG’s) or Interest Sections, as they are sometimes called, enable teachers with similar interests to share ideas and make contacts worldwide through newsletters, symposia, and other activities. For example, the IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) hosts several such groups as ESP, Literature and Cultural Studies, Pronunciation, Research, and Testing. Likewise, TESOL hosts several Interest Sections and Affiliations which offer networking with English teachers worldwide with a view to exchange ideas for more efficient and effective teaching. Any Internet user can acquire membership in up to three (out of twenty) interest groups.
2.2 Familiarizing Oneself with Departments of English Worldwide:
The Internet user may familiarize himself/herself with a large number of English Departments worldwide. For example, by checking the Internet Resources for English Teachers one can find the site of the Amherst English Department and make use of its rich material on the teaching of Literature and Composition. Other English Departments can be reached through indexes, one of which includes over one hundred links to the sites of Departments of English in various parts of the world. In some sites one can find course materials and online syllabi, for example literature syllabi which use the Internet, as well as courses taught via the Internet. One can also find resources on teaching and being a good teacher of certain subject matters, e.g. American Literature. Some of these sites also present Online Journals and other Etexts (Electronic Texts) including full-length books.
2.3 Knowing What is Needed for Teaching Using the Internet:
Some sites, e.g. http://www.december.com/web/text/index.html present guides offering what an English teacher would need for developing a course (or doing research) which uses the Internet. Other sites are concerned with Teaching with the Internet in the sense of offering tips on how to use the Internet in teaching. One such site is that of the University of Pennsylvania at http://www.ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Another useful site is Project Tel*Lingua at http://www.tel-lingua.org/index.html, which is a research project looking at the Internet in language teaching.
2.4 Using Teacher Resources:
Teachers of English can find a wealth of materials to help with lesson preparation, professional development, and the integration of technology-based learning tools into the curriculum. Such sites enable teachers to discover new ideas and strategies to improve teaching and learning in their classrooms. Lists of resources include projects, reports, and even job openings. An example of these sites is http://www.iste.org. Teachers who need some help on testing and evaluation can make use of English Language Proficiency Assessment as well as the homepage of Resources in Language Testing of the University of Cambridge EFL/ESL examinations information.
2.5 Subscribing to Mailing Lists and Fax-on-demand Services:
English teachers can go global or in other words can have global reach to the twenty-first century by subscribing to E-mail/mailing Lists of interest to EFL/ESL. They can receive up-to-date information and news relevant to their profession as well as engage in discussions of interest to them. ELEGYPT is the Mailing List for English teachers and faculty staff members in Egypt.
Some other useful mailing lists are: Educational Resources Information Service (ERIC) News, where English teachers can get information about articles and papers of interest to them published in Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals of Education (CIJE); LTEST-L: a mailing list for language testing covering both research and practice; International Teachers of English as a Foreign or Second Language (NETEACH-L) for discussions of using the Internet as an educational tool; TESL-L, the electronic forum for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, including TESLK-12 for teaching English to children; Scholarly Electronic Mailing Lists, a site which includes some of the best and most thorough catalogs of e-mail discussion lists found on the Internet; IECC at iecc-request@stolaf.edu where teachers can subscribe to mailing lists for teachers seeking classes for e-mail exchange; teachers may use a search engine like Alta Vista to find penpals/keypals for their students as well as newsgroups about penpals; the CataList, the catalog of LISTSERV lists; an electronic mailing list for teachers and academics interested in the use of the Internet in teaching is found at http://members.aol.com/dcrolf/uk-schools/index.htm.
As for fax-on-demand services, teachers may use several sites, e.g. the TESOL site to have documents and applications delivered to their fax machines twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In many cases the list of documents is updated periodically, e.g. monthly in the case of TESOL.
2.6 Helping Students Become Penpals/Keypals and Develop their Writing Skills:
The IECC is a mailing list for teachers seeking international partners around the world, e.g. a class in Middle Eastern culture through literature seeks exchange with students in the Middle East and Middle Eastern students in the United States to participate in an online forum on culture, literature, film, etc. to help students learn about another culture and to share theirs. The List defines the institution type as: higher education/upper high school, culture as: ME, language as: English, and specifies a time frame during which students can exchange e-mail messages.
Again the HUT Writing Project at http://www.hut.fi/~rvilmi/Project is one of several places where teachers can find keypals for their students. The HUT Internet Writing Project (with its earlier Project of 1993-97) is an International Writing Exchange project that is a promising and interesting one.
It is noteworthy that some such keypal projects are already taking place in Egypt. One of these projects is that supervised by Gini Stevens as a cross-cultural e-mail exchanges with EFL/ESL students, namely between students at the English Language Institute (ELI) of AUS and Spanish-speaking students at a university in Puerto Rico. A similar project in Egypt is that going on at Jesuit Secondary School, College de Sainte Famille, where students are engaged in a small e-mail correspondence program with a Jesuit preparatory school in Nebraska, USA. Ten secondary students are matched up with ten American juniors. Two of the Egyptian students have access to the Internet. These two students and the teacher are sharing the responsibility of sending and receiving messages for the other eight.
3. THE INTERNET IN LEARNING ENGLISH:
3.1 Studying English Online for Free:
There are several webpages for people interested in learning English on the Internet for free. One of these sites is http://mypage.direct.ca/p/prossett/index.html, which is the personal site of Paolo Rosetti, a teacher of English at the YMCA in Canada and at the Virtual University. Also http://www.study.com offers EFI (i.e. English for Internet), which is presented as “Your free English school on the Net”. EFI offers free English language classes in Grammar, Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking, as well as specialized classes in TOEFL, ESP, Teaching English Online, and Language and Culture. In this website there are classes, teachers, students, activities, chat, and resources. It offers live real-time online classes. The schedule for Cairo is Fridays at 4:00 p.m. and Mondays at 5:00 a.m. An Interesting feature of the site is its 3-D environment. Another useful site, and one of the well-know sites is Dave’s ESL Café at http://www.pacificnet.net/~sperling/joblinks.html.
3.2 Improving One’s Language Skills and Preparing for TOEFL and Other Standardized Tests for Free:
In ACT's Writing DEN at http://www.actden.com students of English can improve their reading, writing, and listening skills. The site is full of activities and audio narrations. In HUT, learners can have grammar help, literature help, oral skills help, test help, and vocabulary help. Students can also prepare for the TOEFL test at the same site as well as at other sites like The TOEFL Prep page, which is an interactive online preparation page giving visitors instant feedback and comprehensive explanations for TOEFL-type listening, grammar, and reading questions. Students who need to prepare for the SAT, GRE, or several other tests can check http://www.barroneduc.com for test-taking tutorials from experts. Students can find hints and strategies to help them take the tests and they can send in specific questions about topics. In addition to the New York State Regents Exams, including English, the following standardized tests are available: SAT 1, GRE, TOEFL, and ACT.
3.3 Consulting Hundreds of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias:
The Internet makes available hundreds of online dictionaries and encyclopedias. One of the sites makes it possible to access about two hundred of these, namely http://www.onelook.com. The Internet Dictionary Project at http://www.june29.com//IDP allows users to do online searches of several dictionaries and to translate English words into other languages or vice versa.
3.4 Delving into Distance Learning and Getting an Academic Degree:
The site of the School of Education, University of Leicester at http://www.le.ac.uk offers an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and TESOL by distance learning. The program offers the degree in Descriptions of English, Sociolinguistics/Discourse, Second-Language Acquisition and Language Teaching Approaches, or Syllabus Design, Testing, and Evaluation. Among the requirements of the degree is a course assignment associated with each module: a piece of written work not less than five thousand words, in addition to a twenty-thousand word dissertation arising from supervised research on an approved topic related to one or more of the advanced modules being taken. To be accepted, students are required to have a score of 6.5 in the British Council IELTS test or equivalent.
It is also worth mentioning that there are also Distance Education Certificate Programs for professionals, teachers, and trainers preparing for leadership roles in distance learning. One of these programs is that offered by the State University of West Georgia, USA. It is a nine-month program which is offered completely online, with two or three hours per week participating in online bulletin boards, reading materials, and completing exercises. Tuition, which includes course materials, access, and a framed certificate, is about seven hundred US dollars.
4. THE INTERNET IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH:
4.1 Searching the Databases of Libraries, Bookstores, Periodicals, Online Academic Journals, Electronic Texts, ERIC, and UMI:
Researchers can visit the Library of Congress at http:// and have access to its electronic catalog. The Amazon Bookstore, advertised as “the largest bookstore on earth” or “the mother of all online bookstores”, has over two million titles, and even displays book reviews. The webpage is located at http://www.amazon.com. Book Stacks offers 350,000 titles. Available also on the Net are: Houghton Mifflin Company, Prentice Hall Regents, Barnes and Noble, and Barron’s Educational web site at http;//www.barrobeduc.com where there are descriptions of all the books published by Barron, searchable by several categories including foreign languages, study guides, and test preparation. The homepage for the journal TESOL is called TE SL-EJ, while UNCOVER makes available the contents of about 17,000 periodicals. Among the online academic journals and other electronic texts are: The Observer, which is the literary magazine for Columbia University, New York City; Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal, TESL-EJ; the Directory of Online Journals and Periodicals, a Directory of Online Books by Author, and Online Reference Works, all from the English Server, Carnegie Mellon University. Very useful to researchers is University Microfilms, Inc. (UMI), the Humanities Resources Page, where dissertations, abstracts, some journals, and out-of-print books are available, with 1.4 million doctoral dissertations and master’s theses, to which researchers can have online database access through commercial service. Also of great importance to researchers is ERIC abstracts, short essays, and bibliographies, in addition to database searches similar to CD-ROM searches available in the library.
4.2 Making Use of Grammar and Style Notes/Manuals:
Cobuild offers grammar and style notes based on a corpus of the English language. The MLA site at http://www.mla.org offers the Modern Language Association Style Manual, including a section on how to cite sources from the World Wide Web. This relatively new section is very useful in guiding students and researchers using Internet resources in their research papers.
4.3 Making Use of Reference Works:
The Net offers many sites including massive bibliographies and databases. A very important site of this type is ABELL, The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature. The Gopher menu is particularly useful in this respect; it offers many resources for research, including E-journals and conferences.
4.4 Joining the SIG of Research in Professional Organizations:
Researchers can make use of the services of the Special Interest Group of Research in several professional organizations such as the IATEFL, which has already been referred to in 2.1 above. The IATEFL Research Interest Section has two main goals: (1) promoting the idea of teacher-as-researcher by bringing together ideas on how teachers can conduct small-scale research projects in order to discover more about their classes, as well as fostering similar classroom-based research by academics and materials writers; and (2) recognizing how little communication is taking place between those doing extensive research into English language learning and the practitioners in the field. This SIG also addresses the fact that many worthwhile research findings appear in learned journals but are never made accessible to teachers. Similarly, insights achieved by teachers are not taken into account by academic researchers, who may reach conclusions which simply do not reflect the reality of the classroom.
4.5 Student Internet Research (SIR):
What constitutes Student Internet Research (SIR)? SIR includes any activity where students must access the Internet in order to obtain information for the completion of a pre-defined task. An example of SIR is an Independent Research Project, for the completion of it students use search engines to research topics of individual interest. Students may work in small groups to research different aspects of a topic the class is studying. Possible sources for SIR projects are: electronic magazines (e-zines), academic journals (e.g. TESL-EJ), newspapers (e.g. the New York Times, US Today, international newspapers, and Egyptian and Arab newspapers), dictionaries and encyclopedias, libraries and museums online (e.g. the library of the American University in Cairo [AUC], the United States Information Service [USIS], the Egyptian Museum), specialized databases, government sources, search engines, university web pages, personal electronic contacts, newsgroups, and mailing lists.
4.6 Consulting Researchpaper.com and Similar Sites:
The site http://www.resarchpaper.com presents itself as “the Web’s largest collection of topics, ideas, and assistance for school related research projects”. The site has a giant directory of over four thousand research topics across more than one hundred categories. Students can begin their research by launching instant searches for relevant information on their topic using Electric Library and Infoseek. Students can find a research paper idea by browsing by category, or by searching the entire idea directory by keyword. They can even get some advice about online research in the Discussion Area where they can post questions, find out about the best web sites, meet people working on similar projects, and share their tips for success with others. In the Writing Center students can improve the style and presentation of their reports, learn some ways to organize and complete their research assignments with a step-by-step guide. Over one hundred pages of writing tips and techniques provide quick answers to common questions about punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
4.7 Beware of “Evil House of Cheat”!
An example of Web abuse, which teachers should warn their students from, is the “Evil House of Cheat”-- a website with over 9500 essays, termpapers, and reports in over forty categories. The site claims to have served 1.5 million people so far. All essays are listed with description, grade, and school system. The site claims that it is perfect if you are doing research or are just late with an assignment. Incredibly, the site offers tips and tricks on how to cheat an exam! The reason this piece of information is provided here is the assumption that if teachers tell their students that they already know about such sites, students may be deterred from exploiting them. If, however, students decide to use the “services” of such sites, they have been warned, and will deserve the penalty.
5. A WORD ON ONLINE/VIRTUAL CONFERENCES AND TESOL ’98:
5.1 Online Conferences:
In December 1997, the Cairo Telecom Conference introduced the latest Internet technology ZAKNET, which enables users to receive the Internet through satellite in realtime. The address of ZAKNET is http://www.zak-sat.net. This new technology enables users to hold online/virtual conferences to deal with such topics as the design and development of training or learning online. For example, on February 23-27, 1998 a web-based training/online learning took place under the title of DISCUSSIONS IN DESIGN AND INTERACTIVITY, which took place entirely online, with three keynoters and five facilitated workshop areas. For a listing of online conferences, the Directory of Scholarly Electronic Conferences is very useful.
5.2 TESOL 1998:
If an Internet user is interested in a certain professional conference that is held abroad but cannot attend it, he/she does not have to miss it all. He/she can still get a glimpse at what is going on by paying a virtual visit to the Conference if it happens to have a website. This was the situation with TESOL 1998, which took place in Seattle, USA. Amazingly enough, people NOT attending the Conference could look at several Demonstrations online beforehand, i.e. before participants in the Conference could see them! ELEGYPT members also received several e-mail messages from colleagues and friends who were in Seattle telling them about some of the academic events. For example, Chip Hartman shared some thoughts and observations with ELEGYPT members telling them that there were a few presentations related to online instruction, and that because he was only five minutes “early” he could not get into the packed room. ELEGYPT members also knew that Richard Boyem moderated a talk-show format discussion in which he, past TESOL president, and other conference members participated. The discussion, entitled “Techno Fear? Techno Joy” brought out the myths surrounding the uses of technology. From Boyem’s e-mail ELEGYPT members knew that he was a bit worried about the talk-show format, which was non-traditional for a professional convention, but that it went well, with a lot of laughter and merriment over and above. In one of Boyem’s e-mail messages he told ELEGYPT members that he was planning a “TESOL Comes to Egypt” event in which Egyptian participants would report on the activities they participated in in Seattle—an event which actually took place as promised. The TESOL website even enabled ELEGYPT members to sneak into the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) interest section with its large room and sixty computers.
6. A FEW CONCLUDING REMARKS:
6.1 The Internet is Potentially the Most Important Advance Since Television:
The Internet, and more specifically the World Wide Web (WWW), is probably the most important advance since television, with equal potential to change our lives. Two of the most useful activities the Internet can be used for are teaching English and doing research. With careful planning and direction, these tasks can be combined in a creative and highly effective learning experience. It is hoped that the above brief discussion about the role of the Internet in teaching and learning English as well as doing academic research has shown that it is useful in these three areas when used in networked multimedia learning centers, which are now already available in a relatively large number of schools and university colleges in Egypt. However, it is still hoped that access to educational technology in general and to the Internet in particular will be made available to all English language learners. The good news in this respect is the fact that the Egyptian Ministry of Education is taking great interest in making this hope come true as soon as possible, as is recently announced by the Minister himself.
6.2 The Internet is NOT Limited to the WWW:
In addition to the WWW and e-mail, which the discussion above seems to have concentrated on, the Internet comprises other tools such as the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Telnet, Gopher, Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), Usenet, and Newsgroups.
6.3 The Internet is NOT a Substitute for Teachers:
Like other powerful tools the Internet can be used well or poorly, to good or bad ends. As we have already seen, the Internet can be used to accomplish a variety of tasks. It is to be noted, however, that the major problem with the Internet is not gaining access to information but rather the organization and filtering of an enormous excess of information. When our students use the Internet, particularly for research, they should not lose sight of the fact that research, by definition, involves searching rather than surfing. The most important thing to remember par excellence is that the Internet is not and cannot possibly be a substitute for the syllabus or for the class plan, let alone the teacher. Rather, the Internet is one of the most powerful tools ever developed by man so far -- a tool with an enormous potential for teaching and learning languages, specially English, as well as doing academic research.
APPENDIX
THE INTERNET AND THE SERVICES IT PROVIDES
E-MAIL:
Electronic mail is basically a way to provide exchange of messages between any two computers, no matter where they are located in the world. The E-mail has a very versatile nature and can be used to send messages to a particular person, to a group of individuals, to a predefined list of users, to send text files, to send binary objects (i.e. programs, graphics, spreadsheets, audio and video clippings), to distribute electronic magazines, to broadcast announcements and get alarm messages from monitoring programs. E-mail can be used to retrieve files query databases in remote computers. Used as a postal system, it is one of the most frequently used day-to-day facilities offered by the Internet.
FTP:
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) refers to the program used by computers connected to the Internet to transfer a copy of a file. FTP enables a user to establish a connection and then transfer a file, a group of files, and even directories. FTP can transfer not only text files but executable programs, images, spreadsheets, databases, audio, video, or a combination of these.
GOPHER:
Gopher is an Internet navigator of tools and resources. It is an information, browsing, and access system that combines many of the features of electronic bulletin board services such as Usenet. Gopher is based on several concepts: an easy-to-use user interface, with hierarchical menus that users can move around, in addition to a few other one-letter commands.
INTERNET:
The Internet is the global network of networks. It represents a vast cyberspace where users can gather, disseminate, and exchange all types of information. The Internet today represents a global community, electronically connected with activities ranging from non-real time to real time. It is not confined to a single transmission medium but allows multiple types of information to be transmitted ranging from texts to images, and from audio to video. The Internet has given birth to the concept of a small world or a global village, where distance does not matter, and where communication is cheaper and more convenient.
TELNET:
Telnet refers to remote Login. It is mostly used to access information or to share resources. To log in to a remote system, Telnet must be on your system as well as on the remote system. Telnet enables a computer to communicate with any other computer irrespective of its location. Telnet requires an Internet address (IP) to establish a connection. Once the connection is made, the remote computer can be used over the Internet just like a personal computer (PC). When Telnet is initiated it opens up a connection to the remote system. The remote system sees the user’s computer as a local terminal and provides all the facilities it offers to its own terminal. Telnet makes it possible to have access to online library systems and their catalogs and databases, Supercomputers (one should have a valid account to access and use them), and a variety of other information from online databases or near-real-time information from live instruments.
USENET:
Usenet is the global electronic BBS (Bulletin Board Service) community of the Internet. It is basically a conferencing system, where information is organized as a communally shared pool in directories that do not belong to any single user but to the whole local site. Information is exchanged through messages. Most messages are organized into topical groups also known as special-interest groups or forums and placed in a hierarchy such as Business, Recreation, and Education. News messages are organized into groups known as Newsgroups. All users read from and contribute to their local sites, which then distribute their postings to other Usenet sites based on various criteria and in return receive postings from other sites. Through Usenet computer users all over the world share information, pose and answer questions, and conduct multi-people discussions. Like E-mail, Usenet is also one of the most frequently used day-to-day facilities and has all the advantages of E-mail.
WAIS:
WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Server, a popular Internet Navigator tool. It has been designed to be used on networks where users and pools of data are in different locations. WAIS is the search tool used by people making free access and pay-for-view information available via the Internet. It is based on a client-server approach. The client program is a user-friendly software with the capability of selecting appropriate WAIS databases, creating queries, and viewing results. The server program takes the queries and applies them to the data. Through WAIS, hundreds of servers can be accessed at different sites, as WAIS works through several databases with one query irrespective of the location of the database. Most of the information bases of the Internet and its archives have today become WAIS searchable.
WWW:
The World Wide Web is an Internet Navigator tool through which users can access the other ends, Navigators, services, and resources. WWW is basically a browser and a set of data communication protocols. Its appeal is due largely to the ease with which information (text or graphic) can be retrieved by any user anywhere in the world. It introduced hypertext files through which related documents can be linked. These files can be accessed using HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) from any remote computer. Thanks to the WWW, documents are no longer static but could be brought to life using Multimedia. These documents are called hyper-media Web pages.