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Session Summary

Language Learning and the Web

Presented by

Gilles Couzin & Vita Falbo-Ellis

University of Bristol Language Centre

Objectives	1	to look at examples of good practice in the use of the Internet as a language learning resource.
	2	to introduce participants to two Web authoring tools.

1. Examples of good practice

Site		Task
Learn Spanish Spanish		Open the URL http://www.studyspanish.com/ and click on the link FREE online tutorial
Learn Spanish Spanish		Note down your impression of the site. How useful do you think it can be to a learner of Spanish?
		Select one of the grammar tutorials and after browsing through the lesson (it is easier if you know some Spanish!) click on Practice Exercises (in the black navigation bar) and have a go at the exercises! Don’t forget to submit your answers at the end
Lire Français French		Open the URL http://www.lire-francais.com/
Lire Français French		Click on the link Clés du journal and after browsing down the page, click on the link Entraînez-vous (on the left hand side at the top of the page)
		Go back to the home page and click now on the link Parcours de lecture. Try out the reading activities based on articles from the newspaper Sud Ouest
		Note down your impression of the site. How useful do you think it can be to a learner of French?
Communiqué French Studies		Open the URL http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~us0cma/comm.html
		Browse through the Introduction to Contemporary France I & II pages
		Note down your impression of the site. How useful do you think it can be to a student of French?
Internet Classroom Activities English		Open the URL http://www.li.net/~jberger/Activitiesindex.html
		Go to the bottom of the page and read the ‘Suggestions for incorporating into classroom.
		Try out one or two of the activities offered
		Note down your impression of the site. How useful do you think it can be to a learner of English?

2. Web authoring tools

The CASTLE Project at the University of Leicester
		Open the URL http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/ltg/castle/ Scroll down the page and click on the Introduction link under the heading ‘The CASTLE Project’ (second on the left hand side) to find out more about the CP toolkit
		Return to the CASTLE home page and click on the Real CASTLE Examples link under the Examples of ‘CASTLE On-Line Assessments’ heading
		Go to the CASTLE at Oxford Brookes University. Look at the Environmental Geology test
		Now look at the CASTLE at St John’s Ambulance Cambridge. Click on the Multiple Choice Tests link and then the bystander link. Try the test out!
		(although unrelated to language teaching, these two sites are good examples of the type of tests which can be created with the CASTLE toolkit)
The Hot Potatoes suite - Half Baked, Software from the University of Victoria Language Centre		Open the URL http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/ Take a couple of minutes to read the information on the first page to find out about Hot Potates (What it does, How to get it, etc.).
		Now click on the Sites built with Half-Baked Software link (in the grey navigation bar on the left). Browse down the list of ‘Sites from around the world built using our software’
		Try out any of the sites you want. Although I particularly recommend The Jersey Language site (you should not have too many problems if you speak French... unless you are a fluent speaker of the Jersey language!), the German in Finland site (a more sophisticated example), and finally the Philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium site (in fact a series of law tutorials in French; just to show the level of sophistication which can be achieved with Hot Potatoes)
Gilles Couzin & Vita Falbo-Ellis April 1999

Last updated 3 September 1999