The Internet And The Language Classroom

The fully updated edition of this popular book offers a wealth of ideas for using the Internet as a teaching tool.

Explores the theory and application of the Internet in the traditional classroom environment; from using the Web and e-mail to creating Web projects and running e-mail exchanges. From the initial theoretical stage, the book presents a wide range of practical activities and projects. The accompanying website extends the content of the book as well as providing a huge collection of up-to-date links to useful sites and resources.

Process and Experience in the Language Classroom argues the case for communicative language teaching as an experiential and task driven learning process. The authors raise important questions regarding the theoretical discussion of communicative competence and current classroom practice. They propose ways in which Communicative Language Teaching should develop within an educational model of theory and practice, incorporating traditions of experimental and practical learning and illustrated from a wide range of international sources. Building on a critical review of recent language teaching principles and practice, they provide selection criteria for classroom activities based on a typology of communicative tasks drawn from classroom experience. The authors also discuss practical attempts to utilise project tasks both as a means of realising task based language learning and of redefining the roles of teacher and learner within a jointly constructed curriculum.

How English teachers can access teaching resources and materials; enrich classroom activities with e-mail; promote highly motovating international exchanges; and train students to find their own learning materials on the Internet.

Written in a non-threatening and nontechnical style, this guide examines both the pitfalls and the opportunities of Internet use in schools. The author discusses techniques for use in the classroom, such as exercises and activities in the core subjects; valuable curriculum links; obstacles encountered, such as the variable content of Web sites; what is needed in order to get connected; the use of intranets; how to publish information on the net.

Electronic Literacies is an insightful study of the challenges and contradictions that arise as culturally and linguistically diverse learners engage in new language and literacy practices in online environments. The role of the Internet in changing literacy and education has been a topic of much speculation, but very little concrete research. This book is one of the first attempts to document the role of the Internet and other new digital technologies in the development of language and literacy. Warschauer looks at how the nature of reading and writing is changing, and how those changes are being addressed in the classroom. His focus is on the experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse learners who are at special risk of being marginalized from the information society. Based on a two-year ethnographic study of the uses of the Internet in four language and writing classrooms in the state of Hawai'i--a Hawaiian language class of Native Hawaiian students seeking to revitalize their language and culture; an ESL class of students from Pacific Island and Latin American countries; an ESL class of students from Asian countries; and an English composition class of working-class students from diverse ethnic backgrounds--the book includes data from interviews with students and teachers, classroom observations, and analysis of student texts. This rich ethnographic data is combined with theories from a broad range of disciplines to develop conclusions about the relationship of technology to language, literacy, education, and culture. Central to Warschauer's discussion and conclusions is how contradictions of language, culture, and class affect the impact of Internet-based education. While Hawai'i is a special place, the issues confronted here are similar in many ways to those that exist throughout the United States and many other countries: How to provide culturally and linguistically diverse students traditionally on the educational and technological margins with the literacies they need to fully participate in public, community, and economic life in the 21st century.

Surveys the findings of recent research into classroom interaction involving language learners Discusses the implications of this research for designing classroom communication tasks Offers practical suggestions for applying the ideas in the book to the classroom Supports explanations with transcripts of recordings of real language classes made by the author over a twelve-year period Suitable for trainee teachers on Diploma/Master's courses, as well as new and experienced practising ELT/ESL teachers.