Interactive Language Learning on the Web. ERIC Digest.

ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, 4646 40th Street NW, Washington, DC 20016. Tel: 800-276-9834 (Toll Free). For full text: http://www.cal.org/ericcll/DIGEST.

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Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.

Computer Assisted Instruction; Grammar; Guidelines; Learning Activities; Listening Comprehension; Pronunciation Instruction; Reading Skills; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Student Evaluation; World Wide Web; Writing Skills

The wealth of information available on the Web affords teachers and learners access to language learning resources like never before. Online journals, listservs, newspapers, and magazines provide authentic material for language learners, while teachers can find lesson plans and ideas, exercises, assessment tools, and other materials for use in their classes. The World Wide Web's capability for interactivity makes it especially exciting as a resource for language teaching and learning. Online language tutorials, exercises, and tests are available to anyone who has access to the Web. This accessibility makes Web-based language learning activities quite attractive to both instructors and learners. Teachers can even create their own interactive language learning activities on the Web, which allows them to tailor the activities to suit their own courses and students. This digest discusses some of the advantages and challenges for teachers who want to design their own interactive Web-based language learning activities, describes some of the activities produced by language teachers that are already available on the Web, and provides guidelines and resources to help teachers create Web-based activities of their own. (Contains 14 endnotes and 3 references.) (Author)

2003

ED472851