LINGUISTICS 189/289 - STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Linguistics and the Teaching of English
as a Second/Foreign Language

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CALL Mini-Course

Unit 4: CALL on the Web

OVERVIEW    

We have been looking at CALL software and activities involving it regardless of whether it is accessible through disk, the Internet in general (like email) or the World Wide Web. This unit looks into the web in more depth. The reason is that the web represents the largest collection (by far!) of material that is accessible almost anytime and anywhere by almost anyone having a browser equipped computer and an Internet connection. 

Because of this, it is increasingly becoming the case that an understanding of what the web has to offer for language learning and how to use it is a valued and in some cases an expected competency for language teachers. Arguably, the web has been featured in the majority of CALL articles and conference presentations in recent years, in particular practice-oriented ones. This is because it is still new, exciting, and, unlike disk-based tutorial software, mostly free and highly accessible to teachers.

DISADVANTAGES OF THE WEB

Because of the hype surrounding it, it is useful to begin with some of the disadvantages of the web over alternatives

• Text-based material on the web is often not as easy to read as material in paper format because of monitor resolutions and font and background choices.
• Sound and video often take a noticeable time to transfer, even on fast connections. Streaming improves this, but the web is still not as responsive as a CD-ROM.
• Sound and video are typically compressed to speed up transfer and are thus of noticeably lower quality in some cases.
• Because of the way that HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) works, on most pages every click is a request that has to go back to the original server. The equivalent of turning a page may take several seconds or more if the server is busy.
• Because of this delay, interactivity is limited compared to what is possible with disks or CD-ROMs.
• Down servers or broken links may lead to frustration.
• The sheer amount of material sometimes makes it hard to find what you want.
• The web is dynamic and often as unpredictable as the humans behind it. You may find an old site that has not been updated for years, or you may find a great source of material only to have it be gone the next time you look for it. You may still be able to locate old pages using the "cached" feature of google
• Sites and applications that used to be free (such as audio/video on CNN) are increasingly charging fees.
• The accuracy of web sources is often questionable.

ADVANTAGES OF THE WEB

Despite the disadvantages, there are many good reasons for using the web for certain language learning activities. 

• There is anytime, anywhere access (for some people at least).
• There are enormous amounts of free material.
• Material can be found that is current.
• Language reference and other support materials can be found.
• Student and teacher publication opportunities exist.
• A cultural window is opened.
• Meaning technologies exist to aid comprehension of difficult material.
• Increasing amounts of audio and video allow building of comprehension skills beyond reading.
• Both disk-based activities (like tutorial exercises) and Internet-based activities (like email) can often be handled through the web.

In the remainder of this unit, I will provide an overview of some of the uses the web can be put to for language learning. Most of these are broad categories, and I encourage you to explore the ones you find most interesting in more detail.

1. Exposure to authentic language: sites such as CNN and the New York Times.  The News Hour and Nightly Business Report from PBS include scripts and audio or video together. See also www.pbs.org/saf/archive.htm, an amazing site with all the Scientific American Frontiers shows back to 1990 archived.
2. Scripts from Script-o-rama for movies and TV shows--great for building vocabulary of English in context.
3. Finding content for projects, both individual and group. Note the importance of balancing seeking and production time with language learning and practice time.
4. Student learning resources: dictionaries and other resources; movie guides
5. Automated meaning technologies: Machine Translation (Systran) and Hypertext dictionaries (Babylon). Note that web and other pop-ups can be captured using alt-PrntScrn on a PC and pasted into a Word or HTML document.
6. Ideas and lesson plans for Internet, web, and class activities: Neteach-L, Dave's ESL Cafe, eslgold
7. Making resource pages for specific classes. You can use FrontPage, Netscape Composer, or even MS_Word. See my page for Linguistics 698B (Advanced Graduate Writing).
8. Training learners in exploiting web resources, web searching, web authoring, collaborating, using meaning technologies, finding & using tutorial software. See www.stanford.edu/~efs/efs689e for information on independent study.
9. Sending your students out on webquests.
10. Using tutorial software on the web, like Randall's Cyber Listening Lab and English, baby!
11. Course sites like Global English, Peak English and Englishtown; see also online teaching at
12. Online journals like Language Learning and Technology have articles about using the Internet for teaching and learning, as well as other CALL fare.
13. Major publishers are beginning to have websites, like Longman
14. Some CALL experts have websites with useful links: try Vance Stevens, Claire Bradin Siskin, Jim Duber

The key to using the web is to be prepared. Know what the objective of the lesson is and try to make sure students are trained in what they need to know to accomplish that objective. Try to build some flexibility into the assignment or activity so that if something isn't working as expected it can still go on. 

Here are a couple of things to think about. 
1) Take a look at some of the lesson plans on the web for using the web (Use google to find  "ESL lesson plans"). Do you think they represent activities that are consistent with your language teaching approach? Is there anything obvious you could do to improve them? 
2) Meaning technologies like Babylon and online scripts for audio and video can hinder as well as help, since they interfere with normal language processing. What are some good ways to use them and to train learners in their use?