by Jarek Krajka
Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland
Stefan Batory Pallottine Secondary School, Lublin, Poland
jkrajka@batory.plo.lublin.pl

It is my utmost pleasure and honour, as the Editor-in-Chief, to present you with the sixth issue of Teaching English with Technology, an electronic journal for teachers of English interested in using computers, the Internet and modern technology in the classroom. The profile of the Journal is that it should be immediately useful and applicable in teaching environments, which imposes certain focus of articles, reviews and other contributions. On the other hand, it needs to be remembered that no practice will ever exist without theory, and it is also the concern of the editorial board to provide that firm theoretical background in CALL.

As usual, I would like to give some information about the Journal. It is still growing, both in the number of subscribers and the number of submissions for publication. The Journal is distributed to over 600 readers all over the world, with the biggest numbers of subscribers in Poland and China. The other way of accessing the Journal, namely reading it online on the IATEFL Poland Computer Special Interest Group website at http://www.iatefl.org.pl/call/callnl.htm is equally popular, and the site has already been visited over 4,500 times since its launch in January 2001. The Journal and its URL have been added to various Web directories, both general (such as Yahoo, http://dir.yahoo.com) and specifically EFL/ESL ones (The Internet TESL Journal's Links for EFL Teachers, http://iteslj.org/links), which, together with my announcements on CALL-related international and local discussion lists, has made it better-known and more popular than before. As a Web search for a string of words "Teaching English with Techology" shows, a number of CALL scholars and EFL teachers list TEwT on their links pages as a journal worth reading. What is more, even one case of copyright infringement was discovered, where one of sites with EFL teaching materials framed an article from the Journal website without the permission of the editorial board.

The Journal is growing not only in the number of subscribers, but it brings together CALL professionals from all over the world to create a publication they really need. Now I am honoured to inform you that the editorial team of Teaching English with Technology consists of the following people: me, Jarek Krajka (Lublin, Poland), responsible for Lesson Plans, A Word from a Techie and Software Reviews; Jozsef Horvath (Pecs, Hungary), responsible for Articles; Maria Jose Luzon Marco (Zaragoza, Spain), responsible for The Internet and ESP and finally Marek Wozniak (Warsaw, Poland), responsible for Website Reviews. I would like to greet very warmly Maria and Marek, who have recently joined the editorial team, and wish them fruitful work for the benefit of EFL/ESL community.

As for the content of this month's issue, we can enjoy an article by Janos Blasszauer "Collaborative Projects via the Internet." The author, an English teacher and a British Council teacher trainer from Hungary, retells his experiences of starting and conducting online projects with his students. Apart from practical tips of advice on how to make a successful online collaboration and where to find such opportunities on the Net, the author provides also sound theoretical background to the theory of CALL.

The Internet and ESP section continues the idea of presenting different activity structures that can be used when teaching English for Specific Purposes. This time Maria Jose Luzon from the University of Zaragoza (Spain) describes a problem-solving activity called online research module. The contribution starts with the general introduction to the idea of research modules, followed by the pedagogical rationale for using this activity with ESP students. Then, the author presents some necessary conditions for a successful activity of this type and finally gives a number of links to websites where ready-made research modules can be found.

The Internet Lesson Plans section is much more extensive this time. Instead of having two or three lesson plans, as was the case in previous issues, this time we get a complete unit of seven lessons, each meant for two or three lesson periods, written by David Hughes from Zayed University, the United Arab Emirates. This fully-developed course serves the goal of familiarising students with the US culture and makes extensive use of the Web as a teaching medium. Thus, I strongly recommend this article, due to its innovative methods, ready-to-use lesson plans, worksheets and links to relevant websites.

A Word from a Techie tries to tackle a very painful issue - how to use the slow-connection Internet in teaching English on the Web? This problem is present in places where schools are underresourced or the monopoly of state telecommunication companies make Internet connection fees really exorbitant. The author gives a number of practical tips on what to do to make the most of the slow-loading websites, so that students are given the opportunity to participate in online learning.

As for Website Reviews, the reviewer continues dealing with sites developing different language skills, and this time the focus is on reading comprehension online. Thus, readers can find a review of a few sites with online reading tasks, based on newspaper articles, fables or short stories. The interactivity of the sites allows for self-study and students should be encouraged to use them to develop their reading skills both in and out of class.

Finally, in Reports from Past Events, readers can find accounts of two interesting events: a conference on practical applications of corpora in language teaching and a meeting of IATEFL Poland Computer Special Interest Group.

I hope that you will find this issue of the Journal useful and stimulating. It is also my deep and sincere wish that for next issues you will be still willing to share your ideas, solutions and teaching techniques with others.

I wish you good reading.