Interactive Language Learning on the Web

The wealth of information provided on the Web affords language teachers and learners access to resources like never before. Online journals, listservs, newspapers, and magazines provide authentic material for language learners while the researching capabilities of the Web assist teachers in study and practice.

What makes the Web especially exciting as a resource for language teaching and learning is its possibilities for interactivity. Online language tutorials, exercises, and tests are available to anyone who has access to the Web. Web-based materials can be updated and distributed easily and quickly, and feedback for many activities is instantaneous.

Why Create Your Own Web-Based Language Learning Activities?

There are three advantages to creating your own interactive language learning activities for the Web:

1- Accessibility: By putting course material on the Web.

2- Renewability: It can be updated easily.

3-Adaptability: It can easily be modified to support students at different levels or with special needs.

Challenges in Creating Web-Based Activities

1-Many teachers does not know how to use technology.

2-The variability of students' access to computers.

3-The need to design Web pages that meet accessibility guidelines for individuals with disabilities so that students with special needs are not left out.

What Can You Teach on the Web?

It can used different ways and activities:

Vocabulary practice, grammar lessons, comprehension exercises, reading and writing tasks, and even pronunciation exercises can be put on the Web and made interactive in a variety of ways.

Reading and Writing Skills With Discussion Boards and Weblogs

Online discussion boards are a good way to hold class discussions and create reading and writing activities for students.

Another way to create online writing assignments or discussions is through a Weblog, or "blog.".

Vocabulary and Grammar Exercises With JavaScript

Games and exercises designed to help students learn new vocabulary are easily put on the Web.

Any online form used for interactive activities such as quizzes and vocabulary and grammar exercises will require either a CGI script or JavaScript.

JavaScript is an information collection and feedback tool that is used to make Web pages interactive.

Listening Comprehension and Pronunciation Practice With RealAudio

  Listening comprehension exercises, such as fill-in-the-gap exercises done while listening to audio, transfer nicely to the Web. Students download and listen to a short audio piece and fill in missing words in a provided text. They then answer comprehension questions about the text and audio and write a short essay. Answers are then emailed to an instructor for assessment.

  Audio clips can be put into Web pages to provide exercises for listening comprehension, pronunciation practice, and vocabulary development.

Online Assessment With HTML Forms and CGI Script

  use JavaScript are limited in their interactivity in that they can provide a way for students to check their own answers. Teachers may want to test their students online and do their own assessments.

*John's ESL/EFL Resources are a type of assessment tool on the Web.

*This type of online assessment can be done through the use of HTML forms and CGI script.

*CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is the standard method of processing input from HTML forms.