Energizing the EFL classroom through internet activities

Energizing the ESL/EFL Classroom
through Internet Activities
Dayna House,
Senior English Language Fellow 2012
U.S. State Department
http://argentina.usembassy.gov/english_teaching.html

Advantages of the Internet
• Keeping students interested and engaged in the
current topic or activity is a daily challenge for
teachers in the ESL/EFL classroom.
• The Internet provides new possibilities for
assisting teachers to successfully meet this
challenge. Internet-based activities can
potentially energize the ESL/EFL classroom.
• Teachers need to set clear goals and strategies
for activities.

Several kinds of Internet-based
Activities and Strategies
Let’s look at four basic ways in which
the Internet can be used in the ESL/EFL
classroom as an educational tool and
describe some strategies to help
ensure that the activities will keep the
students' interest.
Create classroom Lessons around
songs, videos, on-line magazines or
language learning sites that provide
language input

(1) Search for and receive
Activities that are based on using the Internet as a
huge virtual library. In these activities students
search for and retrieve information from this
library.
• Activities in the ESL/EFL classroom that are based
on searching the Internet for information are not
as social as those that involve conversation. But,
if activities are well planned, they can generate
enthusiasm among students and provide
excellent learning opportunities.

Searching the Internet - A Wealth of
Activities

One Internet activity that falls in
the search category is a “Scavenger
or Treasure hunt” in which
students are given the task of
searching the Internet for some
kind of information in English.

“Finding Favorites”
An activity that requires the student to
practice: reading comprehension, comparing
information, and summarizing and reporting in
English.
This naturally engages the student's interest
because the student's search is directed
toward a topic that s/he is interested in.
You can use small groups of two or three if the
members of the group are interested in the
same subject.

Procedure
a. Students first chooses a topic of special interest-
- a place, person, animal, event, hobby, sport, or
movie - whatever subject the student finds
appealing.
b. Then the students searches the Internet for
three web sites that are related to that interest.
c. The students find web sites, read the material,
and download one or two pages from the site to
a Favorites folder.

Reporting on the activity
a. The students then make two short
reports, either written or made orally
to the class.
i. The first report is an evaluation of
the web sites, telling which were
the most useful.
ii. The second is a summary of the
main information that was found.

Factors to Address
1. Students may get frustrated and lose
interest if they spend too much time
searching for web sites. Searching also
decreases the time available for the
linguistic tasks. It is important that
students know how to use search engines
before beginning this kind of activity. OR
Teachers can provides website addresses.

Factors to Address
Students can provide their topics of interest
to the teacher a few days before the activity
begins & teachers can prepare for the activity
by searching for and recording the addresses
of relevant sites for each interest.
These addresses can then be provided to the
students at the beginning of the activity or
held in reserve and given to students who
have trouble finding sites themselves.

Factors to Address
2. Students should be taught Internet concepts &
skills needed. Then, before the activity begins, the
teacher should briefly observe each student to
make sure that he or she is proficient in the
needed skills.
NOTE: Teachers should be aware of students, with
little computer experience, who find it more
difficult than others to understand and use the
Internet. These students will require additional
instruction and practice.

NOTE
•CUT AND PASTE ALL
WEB ADDRESSES INTO
YOUR BROWSER TO
EXPLORE THE SITE

You tube videos

1. Real English - 4:12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiuy8P7Ps70
2. Que Hora Es? – 3:06
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cKGyOE_jOI

GoAnimate: www.goanimate.com
Need an account to make videos. Easy and free to make an
account. Can make public or private.
Can do text to audio, record audio, create own video scenes,
characters, backgrounds, etc.
• (free account, can save and play video from within the
account)
• Must have a paid account to download or export video

Tutorial
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCOCJKGi6xY

Uses: can be individual or colaborative activity for Ss.
• Debates, Virtual role-plays, Storytelling,

http://www.makebeliefscomix.co
m/Comix/

Voicethread: www.voicethread.com
You Don't need an account to just watch or listen.
However you must sign into your account to respond.
Accounts are easy and free to create; Just Name, e-mail &
password.
Free account is limited to five (5) threads that have
the option to be public or private. You can use private
accounts for one-on-one work (teacher-student) or group
(teacher-students, student-student.
You can add text, audio, and video response options or
edit threads at any time. You can upload photos,
documents, videos, podcasts, PPTs, etc.
Uses: Discussions, Debates, Critiques, Teacher training

Sample (A day at school)

http://voicethread.com/?#q+esl.b125131
5.i6727072

Tutorial video:
Voice Thread Simply Speaking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2nb7FO7
p8

http://blabberize.com/
Need an account & Easy and free to make an
account
Examples: Ben Franklin (youtube)
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ids
KOGXZ0aw&feature=related
My Stuff:
http://blabberize.com/view/id/823594
Uses: Introductions, Descriptions,
Auto/Biographies & Storytelling

Collaborate and learn
Joint projects that involve students in
two or more classrooms that might be
thousands of miles apart.
Collaboration between classrooms
almost always involves the use of email.
Also, it may include the joint publication
of web pages or joint search activities.

Voxopop: www.voxopop.com
• Don't need an account to listen but need an account to respond.
Can be public, restricted, or private.
• Audio forums. Students will have access to all public threads (very
little monitoring)
• Can set up a classroom.
• Possibility for international speaking exchanges.
http://www.voxopop.com/topic/2789db87-bab2-4e09-a6a3-
56a940890d39
Examples: "Favorite Food" discussion thread (public):
http://www.voxopop.com/topic/a868a341-d9f0-4063-883f-
bee0307aac40
Daily Routines: http://www.voxopop.com/topic/5e3d5192-b7d0-
4604-a867-335c138e105f
• Uses: Discussion threads, Polls/Surveys, Interviews, Debates

Zoom
• http://www.usinfo.pl/zoom/files/June2012/ju
ne2012.pdf

On line learning, Songs and Videos
1. On line Learning - http://www.learnenglish.de/
2. On line learning - http://www.esolcourses.com/
3. Songs -
http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/learn-english-
with-songs.html
4. Videos -
http://english.yabla.com/?gclid=CJqgo9Lz_7ACFQ
eR7Qod0gvVAQ

Spotlight - www.radio.english.net

•You don’t need to have
an account but with an
account you can post

http://www.learner.org/resource
s/series71.html
Connect with English

Publish and provide
Publication of information
activities.
This publishing is done on web
pages, which are the basic places
where information is stored on
the Internet.

Web Pages/blogs - Creating and
Publishing in English
One of the most potentially valuable and
energizing Internet activities for students in the
ESL/EFL classroom is to create their own web
pages/blog in English and publish it.
The teacher must make many decisions about
the project before beginning.
1. Who decides on the theme and the overall
design of the site, the Teacher or the entire
class.

Web Pages/blogs
1. Pages on the site may be assigned either to
individuals or to small groups of students. Some
examples of kinds of web pages that students might
compose for a class website are:
i. brief autobiographies, day-in-the-life pages that tell
students' daily activities, and short stories.
ii. Have a theme of the class's home city or country.
iii. Different individuals or small groups might be asked to
prepare pages of various kinds of information, such as
geographic, economic, cultural, and so on.

NOTE: It is very important that student addresses and
phone numbers not be included in these.

Decisions about the Project
3. Teacher may allow students to design their pages or
for the students to write only the text and for the
teacher to manage the website.
-The advantage of allowing the students to manage
the website is that they will “own” the pages more
fully and take the project all the more seriously.
-However, too much time spent on page design can
reduce the value of the activity. If students are given
the opportunity to design their own pages, set limits
that will ensure that their focus stays on practicing
and developing their English writing skills.

Factors to Address
• One of the most exciting characteristics of a web
publishing project is the students' knowledge that the
pages they compose will be on the Internet for the
whole world to see.
• Knowing this can lead them to try hard to do their
best work.
• This may cause anxiety for some students because -
as with email - they may fear making mistakes that
can be seen by others.
• To reduce any anxiety, the teacher can go over
students' work with them before it is published on
the Internet.

Blogspot
• http://www.blogger.com/home

Talk to and reply-
Conversational activities that take
place via the Internet through
email correspondence and in chat
rooms. Strictly speaking, this
category could also include
Internet phone conversations.

Internet Conversations - An
Inherently Social Function
• Email conversations provide a useful
learning tool for the ESL/EFL classroom.
• Although students have never met
except on the Internet, they are social
activities, and social activities tend to
engage students' interests especially if
email correspondence turns into a
close friends.

Internet Conversations
• Most email conversations are casual and will not
develop into friendship. But they are still an
opportunity for the ESL/EFL student to try to
make himself or herself understood to another
actual person (other than teacher or classmates).
• This makes the act of communicating in English
not just a theoretical problem, but a practical
one. The need to solve that practical problem can
be a strong motivator for students to try hard to
construct clear, grammatical messages that
communicate their thoughts.

Factors to Address
1. Making Mistakes - Some students may be
capable of conversing in English via email but may
also be afraid of making mistakes that others will
see. This fear can reduce the student's enthusiasm
and may cause the Student to avoid doing it.
• Help reduce student anxiety about making
mistakes by looking over and correcting email
messages together before they are sent. Going
over a student's message with him or her can be
an excellent learning opportunity for the
student.

Factors
2. Teachers should help students find
dependable email partners. Erratic replies can
decrease the students enthusiasm. Sending
email is easy, but finding a pen pal who will
reply consistently may be hard.
Here are some sites

Pen Pals
• http://www.epals.com - For K-12 classes,
provides teachers information on classrooms
around the world that are interested in email
correspondence and collaborative projects.
• http://www.theteacherscorner.net/penpals/ -
provides teachers information on classrooms
around the world that are interested in email
correspondence

One Word - http://oneword.com

• Oneword widget, an application
that provides users with a one-
word writing prompt in English
and 60 seconds of writing time.
• You don’t have to sign up, it will
let you participate without logging
in.

Teacher resources
U.S. Embassy websites
1. Forum Magazine and much more
http://argentina.usembassy.gov/english_teaching.
html

2. Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/EmbUSARG

Summary and Conclusion
Internet activities can energize the ESL/EFL classroom by
offering new, interesting ways for students to practice and sharpen
their English skills.
To ensure that students' interest is maintained & that they get
maximum value from these opportunities, follow these
recommendations:
• Make sure that students understand the basic concepts and have
the hands-on practice that they need to perform Internet-based
activities.
• Make sure that the assigned activity (e.g., use of email) is not
linguistically too advanced for the student.
• For email correspondence, help students find partners to engage
in a genuine conversation with.
• Avoid anxiety by checking students’ email or web pages and
correct them before they are sent or published and make it a
learning opportunity for students.
• When the activity is to create and publish web pages, be sure to
keep the main focus on the language task, not on page design.

The END
Thank you for watching
E-mail elfdaynahouse@gmail.com
with any question you may have
about English Teaching

Energizing the EFL classroom through internet activities

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