USING THE INTERNET IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM TO FOSTER LEARNER INDEPENDENCE – IDEAL AND REALITY


Ó Jarosław Krajka jkrajka@batory.plo.lublin.pl

and Zosia Grudzińska zosia_g@wp.pl

 

Jarosław:

 

Nowadays, in the era of the information revolution and the widespread use of the Internet in almost all spheres of life, it seems that using computer technology in the teaching process is more and more accepted and widespread. On the one hand, the Internet can serve as a teaching medium, a rich resource of materials of any kind (texts, pictures, sounds, music and films), and teachers may use these as a basis for their lessons instead of texts from the coursebook. In this way, Internet-assisted lessons may supplement teaching with the coursebook, adding an additional dimension to the classroom (Krajka, 2001a), while students can use Web resources to gather information on various topics and prepare to present a project (Egbert & Hanson Smith, 1999; Warschauer & Healey, 1998; Dodge, 2000; Krajka, 2001b). Such an Internet classroom is not much different from an ordinary one, it has the same stages and characteristic features, but instead of the coursebooks students go online reading, listening, writing or speaking. On the other hand, computers and the Net may be used by students in a self-study mode, to practise grammatical structures or get more fluency in reading or listening comprehension (Egbert, 2001). Finally, another important aspect of using the Web in the classroom is exploiting the potential of communication tools (email, chat, discussion groups, videoconferencing) to conduct activities demanding telecollaboration.

 

According to a study carried out among secondary school students (Krajka, 2001a), learners are extremely critical of their coursebooks, seeing such faults as lack of visual appeal, lack of authenticity, largely outdated character, no balance between texts/recordings and grammar exercises, artificial language, lack of variety or choice. At the same time, students voice enthusiastic opinions about using the Internet for learning English, saying that the Internet and computers are a great help in learning a foreign language (63,34%), that they would like to get to know EFL Web resources (over 80%). A similar proportion (over 80%) say they are ready to participate in online lessons at least once a month, because such lessons are more interesting than traditional coursebook instruction (87%). However, when asked whether they would like to have the Internet component as an add-on to the course or to have lessons totally online, they largely go for the former option (77,49%), perhaps feeling intuitively that it might be difficult for them to learn English using the Net only. As the results presented show, students are extremely enthusiastic about learning English with technology and it seems that teachers should try to exploit that powerful motivation.

 

In order to answer the question of how Internet-assisted instruction fosters learner independence, I would like to first have a look at some examples of different activity structures that can be used by the teacher, namely interpersonal exchanges, information collection and analysis and webpublishing.

 

Interpersonal exchanges are activities which engage students in real communication in authentic contexts (Warschauer, 1995). The best example here might be a keypal exchange, where individual students find partners and write email letters to them. Such an exchange may be spontaneous, initiated and developed by students, triggered by their desire to exchange views, opinions or feelings with a person of similar age and interests. When emailing, our students have to use the target language to convey their ideas, and at the same time they choose the topics, length of their letters or the frequency of writing. In this way, more mature and motivated learners may get an excellent opportunity to speak their minds in writing, without the teacher's interference. Of course, this activity, which develops a learner's independence, demands a considerable amount of self-discipline and internal motivation. Therefore, it might be a good idea for a teacher to find a partner teacher who would be ready to participate whole-class in an email exchange (Krajka 2001c). In this way, apart from allowing students to write letters to their partners whenever they wish, teachers would also have the opportunity to co-ordinate the exchange and use it to practise and reinforce some writing genres learnt in the regular coursebook instruction. Thus, emailing, this easy and effective way of communication between students from all over the world, may not only give students a real purpose to write in English, but may also serve the goals of the teacher: reinforcing structures and lexis, enlarging students' knowledge of the world, practising the conventions of writing genres.

 

The best places to find partner teachers and start an email exchange are: the teacher partner finding forum at Dave's ESL Cafe (www.eslcafe.com ), partner finding forum and pen pal corner at European Schoolnet website (www.eun.org ), Intercultural Email Classroom Connections website (www.iecc.org ), or Keypals website (www.keypals.com ).

 

Another type of Internet-based tasks fostering learner independence are electronic appearances, where students correspond with special guests using e-mail, newsgroups and electronic bulletin boards. If interested in a certain subject matter (such as space exploration for instance), learners may go to a special Web place (e.g., NASA QuestChats, http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/activities/chats/index.html ), take part in a chat session, ask questions and seek answers. In this way, they may satisfy their curiosity and deepen knowledge of certain topics, either with or without the guidance of the teacher. As not all students might be interested in a specific topic, a good idea for the teacher would be to find a number of similar sites, so that all the learners can follow their own paths of interest. Part of that might be a question-and-answer activity (Luzon, 2002), where students ask a question relating to a given discipline to clear up doubts or find out more about the topic. Here the interactive element of the Internet is crucial, as students really get their questions answered, which is impossible with traditional coursebook instruction.

 

Some of the question-and-answer sites are the following:

Pitsco's ask an expert site (http://www.askanexpert.com/),

The Mad Scientist (http://www.madsci.org/),

Ask Dr. Math (http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/abt.drmath.html),

Ask Dr Physics (http://www.cord.edu/dept/physics/drphysics/),

Ask Dr. Razz ( http://www.rescuecritters.com/drrazz.htm )

 

The next type of Internet tasks which largely foster learner independence is information collection and analysis. The use of the Internet makes a huge difference here, as students are assigned only a certain topic to research, while it is up to them which materials to use to accomplish a given goal. During the task learners practise and develop Web searching techniques, as well as analyse and critically evaluate online sources. It is important to make sure that students not only search for and find required information, but also understand the materials and use their own words to paraphrase the websites. In this way, students need to use all their learning skills and favourite techniques to collect, organise and present the information found on the Web. Web searches help students develop analysis and synthesis skills, as well as stimulate them to think critically. The most important element of the whole activity is always sharing the information with other students, in order to create the information gap and involve students in listening.

 

The idea of information searches recurs in the most popular Internet-based task, namely a WebQuest. According to one of its creators (Dodge, 2000), “a WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.” This type of activity has been developed so that students do not waste classroom time searching for sources, but have the sources found for them and spend all of their time reading, evaluating and extracting information. Therefore, each WebQuest is a well-developed complete lesson plan, with the introduction, the task to perform, a resource list encompassing websites to go to, process stages, guidance and conclusion.

For a list of WebQuests, see The WebQuest Page:

(http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html ).

 

The last type of Internet activities that helps learners build their autonomy and places the decisions for the content of their learning in their hands is webpublishing. It is extremely easy to have a webspace for classroom use, and it can be obtained either on the school server (whenever a school has an Internet connection, it also has some webspace given by the Internet Service Provider) or on some free Web server (usually big portals, either Polish or international offer some webspace to be used free of charge). Once this is set up, the teacher should stimulate the class to create a class website, which could be used in the process of learning English. This gives students the chance to take responsibility for the website, but the teacher should oversee the whole process and assign roles to particular students, so that each has a certain part to contribute to the whole. Apart from the process of creating the virtual learning space according to their needs and interests, learners also see their work (texts, drawings or photos) published on the Web, which boosts their confidence and makes them more committed to the quality of their work. Thus, due to these enormous benefits mentioned above, it is strongly advised to engage students in the making of a website for the English classroom. For an example of such a website, see The British Council Rome Students' Metro Pages, http://www.britishcouncil.it/students/rome/ .

 

As can be seen from the activities and techniques described above, the Internet gives great possibilities for students' individual work, allowing them to work at their own pace, on the materials they choose themselves, giving them variety and choice that a coursebook will never offer and finally offering an attractive and interactive learning environment. This is largely achieved by the use of communication tools such as email, chat, discussion groups. Due to these widely accessible and inexpensive tools, any student can communicate with any person on the earth, be it a pal from some other country or the President of the United States.

 

It should be noted at this point that because of the substitution of coursebook materials by Internet websites the role of the student is completely changed. When learning with a coursebook, students have all the materials collected, chosen and given, as if they were processed food ready to be eaten. They have no influence on the choice of the materials, and since the coursebook is usually the only language input, the teacher cannot really omit parts of it, and must follow it rigorously. On the other hand, in an Internet-assisted classroom, the students have a variety of materials pertaining to the same subject, and may choose the ones that are easiest to comprehend or most appealing as far as the contents or the graphic side are concerned. However, students should be taught how to evaluate sources and discriminate between good and bad ones, and they should be given constant guidance so that they are not overwhelmed by a multitude of resources.

 

The teacher's role also changes significantly. In a traditional coursebook classroom, the teacher is responsible for presenting to students the texts or activities designed by coursebook authors. A coursebook must be followed in the order it is made, as activities and structures are often interdependent. Thus, teachers have little opportunity of adapting materials, and their roles are limited to that of a waiter, serving the food prepared by a team of excellent cooks. In online instruction, the situation is completely different –teachers have at their disposal a great variety of ingredients, spices, and methods of preparing food, while it is their responsibility to combine these into a delicious dish. Time consuming it may be, but certainly builds up the teachers' confidence as a conscious materials writer/developer. Therefore, it may be said that Internet-based tasks not only foster learner independence, but also create opportunities for developing teacher independence.

 

Zosia:

           

Inspired with the exhortations of my more computer-learned colleagues, not to mention the obvious benefits for a teacher inclined to support learner autonomy, I looked into the possibility of facilitating key-pals exchange for my students. Having discussed the essentials of the technical background with the co-author of our article, I set out to check the reality.

 

It has turned out not to be conducive to the setting up of organised, class exchange project. Firstly, in spite of the famous promise of the “Internet in every gimnazjum”, which the demands of the reformed Education Act was to bring, it can be simply titular – if at all. My school do not have enough funds to cover the cost of any kind of connection, not to mention the practical and seemingly obvious SDI. We have been granted 20 hours of free access by the Education Board of the County Council, but the “spree” soon ended infamously in a morass of mutual accusations, when one month the bill had run up to 50 hours and there was no way of tracing the culprit.

 

Since “on that path success did not wait”, to quote the proverbial Chinese wise old man, I pondered the next-best possibility: that of facilitating an individual key-pal exchange. But eventually I decided to limit my initiative to the mention of such an option, rather then make it a part of the school curriculum. My justification was simple: not every student can afford private access to the Internet and since the school cannot be a provider, teachers must not – tempting as it might be – include ways and methods inaccessible to the average student. I remember as if it were yesterday the PE teacher in my elementary school, who allowed only black shorts in the gym, although in those days there were virtually no shorts of this colour on the market, only navy blue. The smarter mothers could somehow procure the only "politically correct” type of shorts, while the masses had to sit out the classes in disgrace. Likewise, the “Internet assisted” language learning could easily become another “black shorts” torture, instead of epitomising the beginning of a new era in FL education. Had I insisted on the students’ parents buying computers and splurging on extra telephone bills, it would be contrary to all that “student autonomy” is about. Instead, I started to look around for some different options of grazing the “rich pastures” of the Internet. For some time I had been downloading any websites containing materials which could be of interest to the students whose particular tastes and fascinations were known to me. At first I used to print the text out, then I realised that transferring using floppies is more convenient. Eventually I discovered a facility of mailing whole websites and links. Soon a number of students with e-mail boxes could expect post from their teacher any day. Some answered in kind, so I got their essays and tests sent as attachments.

 

But all that was still at a haphazard stage and included only a selected group, so one cannot really call it “the use of Internet in the classroom”. On the other hand, nor was it some obscure cloakroom, for more and more students were getting curious. I heard on the grapevine that they had started asking the lucky owners of e-mail boxes to share some of the “jewels” from me (well, not without justification, if I may say so. I have turned out to be a wizard in searching out addresses which had long eluded them and so virtually opened an “Internet–directory service”, presenting them with various addresses. A homepage of “Sex Pistols”… of “Lord of the Rings” film production… or a range of websites dedicated to Feng-Shui practises; and those were just a few of the items coveted by my clients!) Finally I saw a light when planning for a thematic cycle of classes “The Bizarre in the World”. Why not engage the students in a group project executed only slightly differently from the previous ones? Whenever they were given a group assignment, they used to meet outside school and work on it, even if I set aside classes for just such a purpose. So I decided to ask them to get in groups and surf the Internet for interesting snippets to present at the “Bizarre Bazaar” – the second class in the cycle.

 

The project went moderately well. One group “got lost” among the riches of the informatic kingdom, for which they were obviously unprepared, as their experience of the Internet so far had probably consisted of playing online games. They found too much and as a result were unable to produce anything definite. This failure presented an excellent point of departure to discuss the means of using the Internet as a source of information. Students shared their experiences of using searching tools: formulating the object of search and sifting through long lists of websites. We spoke about the importance of using precise wording, also in English. The students themselves mentioned that correct English was a great help – contrasted with the sloppy linguistic, which was OK when communicating with a living person, but not with a machine and a programme, limited in its understanding to literal meanings. Amazing, really. I would have never expected that introducing the CALL would lead to the conclusion that grammar and spelling are important!

 

Later students asked whether we could use more of the Internet in future. Not all the groups engaged in the thematic cycle. The girls were mostly indifferent to the use of computers as such, although some of them are on e-mail. But the boys were really eager, so we agreed to “go separate ways” for the time being, with the girls working in more traditional ways and the boys – and me, no less a novice in the field! - experimenting with CALL. Since our first attempts were rather successful, I hope that the girls will come round and participate in the next “Internet files sharing” class. But first we had to work out the modus operandi. We agreed that since the school facilities were insufficient and not to be depended on, we had to find other ways. I was ready to surf the Internet as a sort of go-between. As a matter of fact I already had a list of websites full of resources for students of ESL\EFL. So I sent all that load to the six students who had volunteered to become sort of “intranet servers” for the rest of the group. Every of them “served” three or four classmates, letting them choose from between the downloaded websites. After having decided, students without home computers got their materials copied onto a floppy and could proceed using the school computers off-line. Thus the cost of the operation was minimised to about three hours of my Internet connection time (searching, down-loading and posting links and websites to students) and about half an hour Internet connection time per student-server. All the subsequent usage was off-line and cost-free. One student with access to the Internet continued using the website www.onestopenglish.com online – but that was his individual decision, beyond the structure of activities which all students were expected to participate in.

 

The students reported to me which website and which task or activity they had chosen – be it reading, solving puzzles, doing tests etc. and the following week we scheduled a class for “sharing” their views and opinions. To avoid chaos and to let them fully inform their peers, we started with a short presentation of their work in English, which seven out of sixteen students agreed to carry out and then devoted the rest of the time to sharing views in Polish, first “on the forum”, and then in informal groups and pairs. Finally students agreed to swap on a free choice basis. As a result some websites “fell out of circulation”, apparently not inspiring much enthusiasm or interest. Another reason for skipping certain websites were problems downloading (as in the case of www.link2english.com). I enclose the list of all websites made available to the students and of those which were picked as the second choice.

 

Websites made available to the students:

www.link2english.com (Mary Glasgow Magazines)

www.onestopenglish.com (MacMillan\Heinemann)

www.leonardcohenfiles.com (a few students are fans of the poet-singer)

www.holidays.net (a website devoted to information about various celebrations and religious holidays)

www.geocities.com (pages with information about various countries)

www.members.tripod.com/~towerofenglish)

http://esl.about.com (part of the About.com portal, devoted to ESL problems and activities)

http://home.about.com/aboutuk) (part of the above mentioned portal with information about the UK)

www.eslcafe.com (a truly versatile facility)

www.longman-elt.com (Pearson Education)

 

Websites chosen by the students as a result of “pooling opinions”

 

www.onestopenglish.com

www.holidays.net

http://esl.about.com

www.eslcafe.com

www.longman-elt.com

 

The rejected websites were mostly sites not designed specifically with ESL\EFL in mind (with the exceptions of www.holidays.net). This could be seen as an argument against the value of the Internet as a source of authentic English and English-language pages as a source of information, but I do not think it is a valid conclusion. We must remember that I am working with 14-year-old students who have mostly had only the benefits of 3 years of state school language education and who are presently at the ”advanced elementary” level. No wonder they shy away from corpora, which use the full range of lexis and structures. In the case of the three more advanced students (paradoxically, none of them have ever received extra-curricular lessons of English; their proficiency stems from their extensive use of the Internet!), they have already been surfing the English language websites freely. They reported much satisfaction from visiting www.eslcafe.com (Global Classroom).

 

I hope that students benefit from our experiment. I could see how “honoured” and enthused they felt, being able to really use Internet sources and computer technology in the learning process. In course of their formal ICT education they are so rarely allowed to experiment on their own that every opportunity of escaping the tutors’ rigid instructions is welcomed and perceived as freedom, thus reinforcing existing motivation to study. I could not with all sincerity say that I have observed the awakening of motivation in the case of the so-far-indifferent students. They complied to the rules, choosing the least demanding tasks and they were not among the number who participated in the “second round” movement. Still, they belonged without exception to the group of students who do not have access to a computer at home nor have friends possessing such facilities. They are therefore left to rely on the single computer in the school library, where the environment is not exactly friendly, students – especially those who do not excel in academic prowess – asking to access the computer are looked at with certain suspicion and the librarians are not educated to help a students if they run into any problems using the equipment. So their passivity can be explained and it may be expected that in time – as computers in schools become a reality instead of a political slogan – the situation will change for the better.

 

I also hope that the experiment itself will develop in form and in range, as more students gain access to ICT. We teachers cannot wait passively until the authorities equip the schools with all the desired wonders of modern technology. On the contrary, we must strive to find ways of coping in spite of the existing conditions, giving our students another valuable lesson – of resourcefulness and the benefits of initiative.

 

The benefits in terms of developing and supporting student autonomy seem obvious. First there is the element of free choice from among a number of options presented by the teacher. With the development of the Internet access we can expect the range of that choice widening, until students can browse the Net driven entirely by the awareness of their goal and their own requirements.

 

Secondly, the students were not controlled in the execution of their chosen tasks. It is a difficult situation to accept for teachers – especially those, who have had years of working in a traditional learning environment, where control over a student belongs both to a teacher’s duties and prerogatives. Obviously, some students “are not to be trusted” in the sense of always requiring more supervision than other, more independent and proficient learners, but thanks to the structure where a coping student can be left unassisted, teachers might gain time and opportunity for working more closely with the students who cannot cope on their own. And equally obviously, there is nothing wrong with working out a system of administrative control over the content and extent of the work students do. Every teacher should bear in mind that autonomy does not mean letting a student onto a boundless desert without any landmarks. A teacher should be like a welcome oasis, providing the precious water of knowledge. Please forgive the poetry – that’s the influence of ICT!


(Jarosław Krajka works at the Department of Applied Linguistics, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)

 

References

Dodge, B. (2000). The WebQuest Page.

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html


Egbert, J. (2001). "Active learning through computer-enhanced activities." Teaching English with Technology, vol. 1, no. 3, May 2001,

http://www.iatefl.org.pl/call/callnl.htm.


Egbert, J., & Hanson-Smith, E. (1999). CALL Environments: Research, practice, and critical issues. Alexandria, VA: TESOL, Inc.


Krajka, J. (2001a). "Online Lessons - Using the Internet to Help the Coursebook." K. Cameron [ed.], CALL - The Challenge of Change. Exeter: Elm Bank Publications, 151-159.


Krajka, J. (2001b). "Matura Wewnętrzna 2002 z Języka Obcego na Poziom Rozszerzony - Wykorzystanie Komputera i Internetu przy Tworzeniu i Prezentacji Projektu Ucznia." Języki Obce w Szkole, 4/2001, September-October 2001, 33-38.


Krajka, J. (2001c). "School Partnerships on the Web - Using the Internet to Facilitate School Collaboration." Teaching English with Technology, vol. 1, no. 1, January 2001, http://www.iatefl.org.pl/call/callnl.htm.


Krajka, J. (2000). "Online Classroom: Organising, Planning, Managing and Troubleshooting," (w druku).


Luzon Marco, M. J. (2002). "Ask-an-expert activities: an example of interpersonal exchange." Teaching English with Technology, vol. 2, no. 1, January 2002, http://www.iatefl.org.pl/call/callnl.htm.


Warschauer, M., & Healey, D. (1998). Computers and language learning: An overview. Language Teaching 31: 57-71.


Warschauer, M. (1995). E-mail for English Teaching. Alexandria, VA: TESOL, Inc.