Internet for English Teaching (Warschauer, Shetzer & Meloni)

This article introduces a set of pedagogy-related principles which Warscauer et. al. believe can help educators to effectively incorporate the Internet into the language classroom. The authors classify these principles under 'Learning Goals', 'Teaching Guidelines' and 'Planning Tips'. In terms of Learning Goals, they say that teachers should help students

• master new technologies in active and creative ways
• develop autonomous learning strategies
• learn collaborative communication and teamwork skills
• learn in a variety of cultural contexts
• develop critical thinking skills

The Teaching Guidelines are intended to facilitate the achievement of the above Learning Goals and the authors classify them under five headings, namely

• Dual Immersion (where students are immersed in learning the skills of language AND technology simultaneously)
• Integration (where computers are fully integrated into the curriculum)
• Project-Based Learning
• Student-Centred Learning
• Learning With a Purpose

The list of planning tips is extensive but not exhaustive. Perhaps the most useful and relevant tip for me is the one about creating a friendly home page to provide low-ability ESL students a secure platform from which to begin their Web-browsing activities. Other useful tips include having students work in groups in a one-computer classroom and focussing on e-mail when students are conducting Internet projects in low-tech environments.

Warschauer et. al. end their article with an informative selection of sample web projects. The Primary School Webfolios seems to be a great idea and the tasks would appear to be perfectly achievable for my average P6 student. However, I would like to know how the teacher (Rachel Arenstein) actually handled her low-ability students who had a variety of learning needs such as those who had difficulties with spelling, little knowledge of reading/writing skills and strategies, etc. The E-mail Cultural Exchange Project is something that I have always wanted to set up and try out with my class, but I have been thwarted by my futile attempts at trying to find willing and suitable partners. In the past I have set up pen-based exchange projects in my school only to find that the correspondence dried up soon after set-up. The crux of the problem was that there had often been a mismatch between my students' levels of English and those of their pen-friends. Quite simply, you're not going to reply to somebody's letter if they appear to put less effort than you or if what they write intimidates you because of its scale and undecipherable meaning. Nonetheless, I can see from the example that the teacher has a crucial facilitative role to play which can make or break such a challenging project. Certainly provides some food for thought.

Somewhat unfortunately for me, the majority of the sample web projects provided by the authors are based on secondary or tertiary educational contexts which, in my opinion, seems to suggest that (at the time of writing at least) Internet-based teaching and learning in the English classroom could only be fully exploited if the students had at least several years of studying English. In other words, there is a threshold level of English beyond which students can truly benefit from Dual Immersion. Anybody would like to challenge me on this?