Despite the lack of methodology, teachers are urged to employ ICT (Information and Communication Technology) when preparing lessons. Fortunately, there are more and more publications discussing various aspects of applications of ICT which probably results from the fact that more and more teachers do introduce ICT into the EFL classroom and now they share their ideas with others.

In this paper I would like to focus on one interesting aspect that did not come up during the discussion on ICT at our last meeting in Gliwice, 2 June 2002, that is, English of the Internet, which I’m going to name Internet English hereafter. In my teaching practice the Internet basically constitute a rich source of teaching materials which I desparately need to prepare classes for students of pharmacy at Medical University of Silesia (cf Kierczak¹ 2001, Kierczak² 2001, Opałka 2002).

Undoubtedly, Internet English appears to be up-to-date, very flexible and quite straightforward, what’s more, it comprises the terminology I want my students to master. Additionally, such texts are usually supported by devices such as eye-catching layout, pictures, cartoons, hypertext links, video clips, sound. Although I’m predominantly interested in Web sites of official organisations, associations or institutions as I need authoritative sources I find it necessary to evaluate the language of these texts and to expose my students to this electronic discourse and its characteristic features:

- informality

- decapitalisation

- abbreviation (eg, EOs as essential oils)

- the use of capitals for emphasis

- frequent misspelling (eg, magickal, flutes made formt he branches, oak wood carreid will protect from ... )

- omission of the subject

- cleft sentences, imperatives

- carefree punctuation.

Be these peculiarities due to the efficiency of the medium or the laziness of its users, EFL learners should be aware of this phenomenon and be able to adopt this new register, I would claim. It’s easy, for example, to notice there is no single, agreed upon spelling for many terms related to the Internet and other electronic media, eg: e-mail vs email.

Here are some sample Inernet texts illustrating some features of Internet English.

Teaching materials based on computer resources can be exploited in a range of ways (cf Ciesielska-Ciupek 2000, Kierczak¹ 2001, Krajka et al 2002) and, to my mind, Internet English should not be neglected by EFL teachers whose new role is to provide students with the activities presenting distinctive features of Internet English. One way to do it is by having the students analyse texts of different origin but the same topic, which could be a part of a larger project (cf Kierczak¹ 2001). In separate groups the students analyse the language of their texts taking into consideration

§ vocabulary: idioms, colloquial phrases and words, phrasal verbs, specialised terminology;

§ grammar: grammatical clauses, structures and tenses,

§ register: formal, informal, stylistic devices.

There can be a diversity of sources of texts, depending on the nature of the activity (that is, a separate task or integrated into a large-scale project): e-mail letters written by individuals or institutions, Web sites and a variety of published reference books or magazines. Next they complete the grid provided by the teacher (see Figure 1). Then each group explains how to complete the part of the grid on the basis of the sample sentences taken from their texts. As a follow-up, they could re-write their texts using a different style, or create their own texts employing one of the styles.

Figure 1: Grid: Language characteristics of English used for different purposes in different sources.

In the appendix I present a sample pair of texts to be analysed by the students, focusing on Internet English of a Web site and more formal English of the published booklet.

To sum up, a widespread use of ICT gives a unique position to Internet English so EFL teachers should not be indifferent to this phenomenon. However, they don’t have to frantically search for activities on Internet English but simply sensitise their learners to this register any time appropriate occassion arises.

 References

1. Ciesielska-Ciupek, M. 2000. ‘Preparation of ELT materials using Internet and Corpus resources’. In Network 3/3: 25-31.

2. Kierczak¹, W. A., Darzycka, B. 2001. “Teaching English via e-mail and the Internet”. In Network 4/2: 19-25.

3. Kierczak², W. A., Darzycka, B. 2001 “E-Mail and Internet in ESP teaching”. In Różański, J., Sułkowski, Ł., (eds), Rola komunikacji międzykulturowej w procesie integracji europejskiej. Łódź: Społeczna Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczości i Zarządzania. 346-354.

4. Krajka, J., Grudzińska, Z. 2002. “Using the Internet in the language classroom to foster learner independence”. In IATEFL PL TDAL SIG Newsletter 7: 9-16.

5. Opałka, B. 2002. “ICT as a contributing factor to developing Learner Autonomy”. In IATEFL PL TDAL SIG Newsletter 7: 6-9.

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