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such faults as lack of visual appeal, lack of authenticity, largely outdated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”
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)
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