Using Websites CALL Presentation 28 th August 2010 By: Marcia Tadjuddin

Using Websites in the classroom Reasons to use websites in the classroom: The easiest and least stressful ways of getting started with technology in the classroom. The web provides a large and constantly expanding collection of resources, at a variety of levels, covering an amazing array of topics. The web is a window to the wider world.

Tips for using websites in the classroom Collaborate with other teachers in sharing resources found on the internet. This reduces time spent searching for good materials, preparing activities and creating worksheets. Prepare a back-up plan: save local copies of the website on your computer or print out the intended pages in case there’s a problem with internet connection.

Important to note: See the use of the internet as an intrinsic part of the learning process, rather than an occasional activity which has nothing to do with their regular study programme. Talk to your students about how the internet content can be very useful to them and discuss their attitude toward technology. Make it clear that the internet is a powerful tool, not a toy that they need to treat and use with responsibility, respect and wisdom.

ELT websites or authentic websites? Authentic website = any site not created with the language learner in mind. Language teachers should not steer away from the authentic websites, but create a well-designed task if you want to use them. ELT WebsiteAuthentic Website Provide easily useable content for language learners Opportunities for more controlled language work A great help for learner who need to improve on certain language skills Ideal for unsupervised homework Can be chosen to fit learner’s interests Keep motivation for learning high Provide opportunity to work through comprehension issues that learners need to deal with at some point in their studies

Tips for using authentic websites Try to find authentic websites which have an easy structure and navigation. Choose websites with smaller chunks of text per page. Design achievable tasks. Train learners to use online dictionary sites to help them.

How to find useful websites For teachers, having good search skills means finding useful resources quickly, speeding up lesson planning and facilitating web use in class. For learners, it means being able to quickly accomplish web-based tasks, thus ensuring that the technology enhances the learning experience rather than hindering it.

3 basic ways of searching on the Internet: 1. Using search engines 2. Subject guides 3. Real language searches

Using search engines Google ( The key to a good search technique is knowing what kind of information Google actually has on each web page that it indexes. What Google knows about a page is ◦ The page address ◦ The web title ◦ Date it was last updated ◦ A few keywords associated with the content The key to good searching in Google is to define your keywords properly. Let’s try ….

Using search engines Another technique is to use the ‘phrase’ search technique which involve wrapping part of a phrase in inverted commas. Google will treat the words not as individual entities, but will actually look for sentences on web pages which contain those words in that particular order. Try this: type “I never meant to cause you trouble” The ultimate trick is to imagine the web page you are looking for and visualize the content. This will help you decide on exactly what to search for.

Using subject guides Yahoo! ( Yahoo! Was never intended as a keyword search engine, but rather as a way of browsing titles. It divides its content into subject areas and subdivision of those areas. Browse the section which best reflects your interests and then search. Yahoo! Search results can often be more accurate than Google results as they tend to lead searchers to the first page of the website, rather than dropping them into the middle, where the chances of confusion is higher.

Using Real Language Searches Ask ( Allows users to type simple questions as search queries. The website does not actually analyse or understand the question itself, but rather selects the keyword from the query and construct a search based on them. A search on Ask should give you results page with the answer to your question at the top, and links to relevant sites below that.

Which one to use? Learners can benefit from an exposure to all three types, as they activate different linguistic and mental processes. Keywords are good for exploring word relationships and lexical areas. Subject searches help define and refine ideas and contexts. A real search can provide useful practice in question formation.

Alternatives Consider specialist sites as a source for information. E.g. any queries related to movies might be better directed to the Internet Movie Database ( than a search engine. Try one of the meta search sites. These sites search more than one search engine at the same time, giving you the ability to search Yahoo!, Google and Ask from one single page. E.g

Evaluating Websites After you find potentially useful websites, evaluate how useful and appropriate they are for the classroom. The starting criteria for this evaluation are:  Accuracy  Currency  Content  Functionality

Other things to consider Accuracy and currency might be the most important criteria for taking notes and interpreting information for a project. As a language teacher, bear in mind the linguistic accuracy. Take into account the ease of use and interests. Appropriateness – which groups or levels the site should be suitable for and any potential problem that may arise.

Remember this!! Careful preparation and investigation in the lesson planning stage can go a long way towards making the learners” experience enjoyable and trouble-free. Keep a record of the content and address so that you begin to build up a large stock of evaluated sites.

Working with lower levels of language proficiency Is it possible? It is feasible but the choice of websites will be far more limited than for higher levels. A familiar worry: how much of a given text will the students understand? Deal with the problem of learners thinking that they have to understand EVERYTHING on the text.

Websites suitable for lower levels Sites with simple, clearly presented text. Websites with non-linguistic data which is easy to interpret (e.g. data in the form of a chart, such as a weather page) Websites with visuals ELT websites, where the content has been written, edited and prepared with this audience in mind.

Web teaching dos and don’ts Don’t discount simple text-based websites. They are less likely to malfunction. Do always have a back-up plan in case the websites are down. Do use the knowledge of other teachers and your learners to help you with the technical sides of the lesson. Do pairwork and small-groupwork to encourage oral communication. Do arrange the computer room in such a way that you can easily maintain control over learner activities. Do install filtering software to limit access to inappropriate contents on the web.