Lect. univ. dr. CLEMENTINA MIHĂ ILESCU [628238]

UNIVERSITATEA “LUCIAN BLAGA” DIN SIBIU
DEPARTAMENTUL PENTRU PREG ĂTIREA PERSONALULUI
DIDACTIC

FOLOSIREA COMPUTERULUI ÎN TIMPUL
ORELOR DE LIMBA ENGLEZ Ă LA NIVEL
LICEAL

LUCRARE METODICO- ȘTIINȚIFICĂ
PENTRU OB ȚINEREA GRADULUI DIDACTIC I

CANDIDAT: [anonimizat]. CONSTAN ȚA SOARE

SIBIU
2011

UNIVERSITATEA “LUCIAN BLAGA” DIN SIBIU
DEPARTAMENTUL PENTRU PREG ĂTIREA PERSONALULUI
DIDACTIC

THE USE OF COMPUTERS DURING THE
ENGLISH CLASS AT HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL

LUCRARE METODICO- ȘTIINȚIFICĂ
PENTRU OB ȚINEREA GRADULUI DIDACTIC I

Coordonator științific:
Lect. univ. dr. CLEMENTINA MIHĂ ILESCU

Candidat: [anonimizat]. CONSTAN ȚA SOARE

SIBIU
2011

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4
CHAPTER I: CALL- HISTORY AND THEORIES 7
1.1 BRIEF HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF COMPUTERS – THE USE OF COMPUTERS IN THE TEACHING –
LEARNING PROCESS ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8
1.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF CALL- CONCEPT AND THEORIES ……………………………………. 13
1.3 RISKS AND REWARD OF COMPUTERS IN CLASS …………………………………………………………………. 22
1.3.1. The advantages of CAI …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 24
1.3.2. The Disadvantages of CAI ………………………………………………………………………………………… 27
1.3.3. Considerations on CALL- pros and cons ……………………………………………………………………. 29
CHAPTER II: DIFFERENT USES OF CALL 35
2.1. THE COMPUTER AND THE INTERNET IN TEACHERS ’ DEVELOPMENT ………………………………….. 35
2.2. SOFTWARE PROGRAMS IN CALL AND MULTIMEDIA ………………………………………………………… 39
2.2.1. Word Processing …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 41
2.2.2. Desktop Publishing Programs …………………………………………………………………………………… 42
2.2.3. Multimedia Presentation Software …………………………………………………………………………….. 43
2.2.4. Authoring Programs ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 49
2.3. INTERNET IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING …………………………………………………………………. 55
2.3.1. WebQuests ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5 6
2.3.2. Weblogging …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 57
2.3.3. Wikis ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 61
2.3.4. E-Portfolios ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 63
CHAPTER III: USING TECHNOLO GY-ENHANCED ACTIVITIES
TO FACILITATE SECO ND-LANGUAGE LEARNING 66
3.1 INPUT / RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE SKILLS AND THE COMPUTER ……………………………………………… 67
3.1.1 Reading Comprehension Activities ……………………………………………………………………………… 67
3.1.2. Listening Comprehension Activities …………………………………………………………………………… 86
3.2 OUTPUT /PRODUCTIVE LANGUAGE SKILLS AND THE COMPUTER ………………………………………… 97
3.2.1. Writing Activities …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 99
3.2.2. Speaking Activities ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 108
CHAPTER IV: ENGLISH FOR CAREER – A COMPARATIVE
STUDTY 116
4.1. THE CONTROL GROUP …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 117
4.2. THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP ………………………………………………………………………………………… 119
CONCLUSIONS 127
BIBLIOGRAPHY 129
NOTES 132
3

INTRODUCTION

Education has been in a constant evolution as in time the society has undergone various
changes from one period of history to anothe r. These changes in education have also
had an impact upon the way the teacher is seen in class. If in the past the teacher was the
performer of the most important role in providing education to students, now being a
teacher is much more complex, the teacher beco ming a tutor, a facilitator, a controller, a
prompter, a participant, a resource even. Now it has become more and more obvious
that the instructional proce ss once provided only by the te acher can get enriched by
involving into it other supplementary tools meant to improve, diversify the education
experience in a class.
One of these supplementary tools that has been used more and more often and in
more and more various ways in the class is the computer, as such, as well as the
Internet.
It is a well known fact that the society we live in, often called the society of
knowledge or the society of information, and is characterized by rapid flow of
information, a huge progress in terms of scie nce and technologies an d their use. So it
becomes more obvious that a certain change in the education system should take place-
an opening towards technologies used not nece ssarily as main tools of teaching, but
rather as auxiliaries meant to vary the traditional way of teaching, bringing innovation
to class.
As a result of globalization a new paradigm is evolving in education and
changing how teaching and learning processes take place. To begin, learning is no
longer confined to the physical school building or the classroom but can take place anytime and anywhere, such as computer labs or via the radio, tele vision or the Internet.
Moreover, learning materials are greatly expa nding, and textbooks and audio-visual aids
are being supplemented by a multitude of multimedia materials in print, audio, video, and digital form. Thanks to networking, boun daries for learning are disappearing as
both teachers and students are able to communicate, plan lessons, execute projects, share work and even build new friendships and understanding from one school to another on a local, regional and even nationa l or international level. Computers and
4

multimedia technologies offer potential learni ng opportunities and solutions that were
not available before.
Therefore, it would be right to state that there are certain reasons that would
underline the necessity of including computer s within the teaching-learning process.
First of all, once graduated and in the field of wo rk, young people are more and
more confronted with the use of the comput ers in their daily activities- from simple
tasks like writing an e-mail to programming and designing websites. So it seems more
than natural to introduce computers in school as a way to enhance learning, an auxiliary
means along with the traditional ones. Moreover, young learners get used to computers
since an early age. They are so familiarized with them th at introducing their use within
the course would facilitate a better understanding and acquisition of the information
provided, receptiveness towards the material presented and the task to be fulfilled.
Children, more than often, use computers at ho me as a way of entertainment- they play
different games, offline or onlin e, they chat with their friend s, they explore and discover
a whole new world from the comfort and intimacy of their rooms. This special relationship children and young people have wi th computers and Internet make them
more receptive to their use at school.
Consequently, in the last years ther e has been noticed a growing use of
computers in schools. Institutions are provided with resources, teachers are instructed in
the new technologies, and pupils/students are encouraged to use the computer and the
Internet when doing homework, or projects or any other task.
It is a well known fact that the comput er- assisted instruction offers great
possibilities of presenting and transmitting new content, ensuring an interactive and interdisciplinary approach of the information provided, offering as well the possibility to individualize the instructional proce ss, by presenting the new knowledge in an
interactive way, by creating a ce rtain relationship between th e student and the computer,
involving students in all sort of pedagogical ga mes that would require and improve their
insight, distributive attention, creativity, and would develop certain abilities. The
specialists in pedagogy consider this type of instruction to significantly contribute to
preparing students for the long-life learning, even af ter graduating.
On the other hand, at the opposite pole ther e are arguments agai nst this approach,
started by certain critics. From a financia l point of view , this method is much more
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expensive, requiring great sums of money a llocated to creating the necessary material
base. Besides the material equipment needed, th ere are various software that need to be
purchased and these are more than often expe nsive. Moreover, due to the rapid changes
and advances that IT goes through every year, both the equipment as well as the
software used need to be changed and upgraded very often, thus requiring even more
money. Then, the teacher loses somehow the main role in the teaching- learning-
assessing process and to make matters worse there has been noticed that this kind of
instruction does not fit to all kinds of students who take adva ntage of this relatively new
type of instruction in different ways. More over, psychologists have noticed and warned
about the effect of social alienation at com puter users, which might lead to a reduced
capacity of verbal expression and avoida nce of dialogue. These are but a few
considerations for and agains t the use of computer techno logy and Internet in class,
issued by linguists. More will be said in the first chapter whic h will also include a
history of computer use in class, theories and historical developments of CALL, concept
and theories.
The second chapter will focus on differen t uses of CALL and the main question is
how software, internet or multimedia can be used in order to enhance the learning
process. Since my paper is basically a synthe sis paper, the information presented in this
second part will get personal output in the third part where concrete examples of
activities will be given. There will be designed certain activities meant to improve and foster the students’ four skills- reading, wr iting, listening and speaking, grouped into
two main categories: recep tive and productive skills.
As an experimental aspect, the fourth ch apter will present a un it I have worked on
with my 12
th grade students to help them be bett er prepared for the job market and the
requirements needed when applying for a job no wadays. This unit has been dealt with in
two different ways with two different groups of students. For one group I have used
traditional methods to teach students how to wr ite a correct application letter, while in
the second group I tried to reach the same aims but this time by using computer technologies and Internet. A comparison will fo llow between the two groups of students
that focus both on their results as well as on the way the students themselves were
involved in the lesson, their implication a nd attitude towards the topic and the way it
was taught to them.
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7

CHAPTER I: CALL- HISTORY AND THEORIES

The term information society has great force and importance in the culture and economy
of developed nations. It is used variously to describe knowledge as a commodity in the
final stages of the industri al revolution, the increasing ro le of those who work and
manipulate knowledge in post- industria l economies, and the more recent and
continuing emergence of information and comm unication technologies (ICT), especially
the Internet, in virtually al l aspects of modern culture
1 (Alistair S. Duff, 2001).
One can recognize the main roles of in formation and information technologies
as engines for modern economies and cultures as well as the effects this omnipresent
digital information and tec hnology might have on education.
There have been noticed dramatic incr eases in the speed and convenience of
accessing information brought about by the growth of the Internet, and the effects of
these changes on how students and teachers interact.2 When all learners are connected
of course this has an effect on the way teaching and learning take place. But this information technological revolution does not only provide access to more information,
more quickly. It rather offers information in a more adaptable form and provides tools
that can be used to work with it. The c ontinuous transformation into an information
society not only introduces more efficient mean s to acquire knowledge and skills, it also
defines new knowledge and skills that need to be recognized a nd introduced in the
education system. In addition to new a pproaches to teaching and learning, the
knowledge society implies new learning goals an d curricula that are usually referred to
as information literacy.
Nowadays it seems but natural for many t eachers to introduce the use of IT in
the class activity, some of them using it exte nsively, others just giving it a try for some
activities but still sticking to the traditional way of teaching and assessing students. Irrespective of the amount of use of computer technology wi thin the class boundaries in
the present, one should not ove rlook the historical aspect, as well as past and present

theories about its use in teaching in genera l and about its use in teaching languages in
particular.
Computers and technology are starting to be used more and more in schools at
various levels. Connecting schools between ea ch other and with the outside world,
using long distance learning an d the internet to get information tends to gain ground
without really being scientifica lly analysed and tested to see whether it is really useful
or not in education. Of course more studies and research would be necessary in order to
examine the long-term benefits or problems the use of computer technology might have
on education. Using computers in education has changed the people’s attitudes towards
learning in a matter of a few years. Of course this sudden change of attitude raised some
questions like for example whether it has favoured learning, or on the contrary had a
negative effect on it and how and when should computers be used in class?

1.1 Brief Historical Outline of Comput ers – The Use of Computers in the
Teaching –Learning Process

In spite of the widely spread use of computer technology at class, its histor y is not really
long, dating back to the 1940s when college students constructed vacuum tube models
to aid in the war effort.
As it as previously stated, the history of modern computer age is a brief one,
spanning along about 50 years since the first operational com puter was put into use: the
MARK 1 in 1944 at Harvard and ENIAC in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania.3 At
that point, early use of co mputers in education was mostly found in mathematics,
science and engineering as a mathematical problem-solving tool, permitting students to
deal more directly with problems of a type a nd size most likely to be encountered in the
real world.
Later on, in 1965 The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was issued by
which mini-computers were introduced mainly for administrative use in a quite great
number of schools. Yet there appeared opposing views to the use of mini-computers at
class. Quite many people involved in the e ducational process saw the use of computers
as being quite difficult due to the lack of insu fficient funding as well as to the fact that
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setting up mainframes and mini-computers would go against the idea of a single
instructor in a single room.
As early pioneers at this stage, Jo hn Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz should be
mentioned, because they transformed the role of computers in education from primarily
being a research activity to becoming an academic one. Then, most programs were
using a machine language to be written, named FORTRAN. Kemeny and Kurtz created
a new, much easier language, called BASIC, which rapidly became popular being used
for the creation of computer-based instructiona l materials for a wide variety of subjects
and for all levels of education.4
In the beginning, computers were quite expensive so educators had to buy time-
shared systems and rationalized usage to provide access to as many people as possible. Yet, in 1975 something extraordinary happe ned: they started producing low-cost
microcomputers which of course led to the pe rsonal computer revolution. Intel personal
computers were created, first of course only used in compan ies, but already being used
to instruct employees. When Apple II and IB M PC appeared on the market this brought
about the production of more sophisticated programs, so teachers eventually started
accepting the computer as a supplementary tool.
Consequently, soon many K-12 schools in the US introduc ed the use of
computers in parts of their activities. The development was so huge that, by the late
seventies personal computers were used almost everywhere – in the office, at school,
and at home. The computer became, thus almost a requirement for many schools and
universities.
In the meantime, it has become more and more obvious that computers
contributed to the improvement of the educa tional process, conclusion that was also
drawn by James Kulik at the University of Michigan, who performed an analysis on
several hundred studies in a wide variety of fields at various levels of education: the
elementary, secondary, and even higher- and adult-education leve l. He found that
computer-based education could increase sc ores from 10 to 20 percentile points and
reduce time necessary to achie ve goals by one-third, thus improving class performance.
5
In the 1990s with the appearance of multim edia devices, the computer started to
be more and more used in the classroom through disks, videos, simulations and
authoring tools. Still in th e early 1990s the Gopher server s appeared- as predecessor of
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the Internet; it actually managed to link several computers to a remote PC terminal. This
was the start of a new period of time when the computers began to be seen as a
supplementary tool of the teaching –learning processes. The Internet began to blossom and the coming years many schools would buy In ternet access and create educational
web sites for teachers where they could pos t suggestions and examples shared from
personal experience, as well as presentations of activities that were more or less
successful.
This was the beginning only, but later more complex software appeared, as well
as more appealing ways to communicate w ith the students as well as to draw their
attention were designed. Around 1994, digita l video, virtual reality and 3-D systems
started to draw the attention of many, while object-oriented author ing systems such as
HyperCard, Hyperstudio and Authorwave gained popularity in many schools. Yet, there are still many teachers lacking th e necessary skills to enable them to use the computer at
class, or not having access to a co mputer for instructional purposes.
At the turning of the century, the Internet was expanding faster than it was
originally thought. It soon becomes the world's largest source of information, graphics,
and video making it an invaluable support and inspiration for teachers. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo are becoming better each day at finding information throughout the continuously grow ing number of web pages. Web sites that offer people
a place to put personal information become popular, and so do discussion forums and
social networking sites. Educational software becomes more useful and interesting to
students and teachers because images, sounds and video files have started to be integrated in the programs. Larger data storage capacity on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM has helped teachers to save and store large graphic, video and sound files for educational applications.
The introduction of such technological devices into the class has brought about
changes in pedagogy and instructional approa ches. Thus, according to Abrami, (2001),
educational reform has changed in terms of how the learner was perceived; while in the
past the learner was a passive receptor of information, now he/she has become an active
participant in the cons truction of knowledge.
6
In this light the constructivist pedagogy generally supports the use of technology
during the teaching, learning and assessing pr ocesses, and according to Richardson,
(2003), it involves the follo wing characteristics:
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“1. Attention to the individual and resp ect for the students’ background- his/her
beliefs and opinions (this could also be described as student- centered);
2. Facilitation of group dialogue and collaboration in achieving a common task;
3. Introduction of formal domain knowledge into the conversati on through direct
instruction, reference to text, explorati on of a website, or some other means;
4. A great variety of opportunities for stud ents to determine, challenge, change,
or add to existing beliefs and understandings , by engaging them in different tasks and
5. Development of students’ awareness of their own understa ndings and learning
processes.”7
The potential of computer technology a nd the vast database of available
information thanks to the Internet pr ovide increasing support for constructivist
pedagogy. Constructivist philosophy encourages integration of com puters as a cognitive
tool.
Thus, web- based instruction allows learners to build meaning, while engaging
in social interaction as well as problem-so lving in a real- worl d context (Abbey, 2003).
Consequently, there are various possibili ties to use technology to build knowledge
through simulations, database searches, manipulation of content, analysis, problem
solving, collaboration, collection of data, programming, interactive hypertext, and
communication. All of these activities help the learner in the active construction of
knowledge while working with others and presenting work to an audience. 8
Certainly one needs to discuss and analyse what considering the student as an
active participant in the c onstruction of knowledge implies. In a world where just
owning information is no longer enough and where being able to work with that information is rather important, it is obvious that a person needs to possess more skills that would ensure his adaptability in th e new information and technological society.
What is of paramount importance nowadays is to gain responsibil ity about your actions,
to be able to activel y involve yourself in whatever you do, to learn to work well both in
a group as well as on your own. In this way one gains tolerance as well as persuasive
skills, or if they work independently, one ga ins a certain self-awareness and ability to
handle things on one’s own as well as be flexible, easily adaptabl e and spontaneous in
any possible situation given. This is all achieved by introducing modern diverse
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techniques and methods into the educational process, met hods that would make use of
the new technologies in preci se and well thought ways.
Other aspects that have persuaded teacher s to use computers for different class
activities are related to visualization, simulation and virtual reality . Computer graphics
and visualization techniques are used to overcome the limits of the written word, to
support and enrich the written ve rsion. It is believed that using visualization techniques
involves our perception as well, thus somehow helping the br ain to get to higher levels
of analysis and synthesis a nd thus approaching the speed of thought. Through the use of
computer, problems can be approached in a different way than th e traditional one, this
new approach making it easier to be processed and consid ered by our perceptions. For
example, at biology class in the past you used to have just drawings to show you certain
parts of the body, as for the different proce sses going on inside our body, this was rather
explained in words; now thanks to the co mputer it is possible to simulate these
processes as well as to s ee parts of the body in motion and 3D rotation. These dynamic,
complex concepts are so much better unders tood by students if besides words you also
have images, motion, sometimes even sound. The same goes for physics experiments,
mechanics and different fields of technology.
Other reasons that made teachers more willing to introduce computers in their
teaching endeavours are the virtual reality and simulations, which offer a totally new mediated experience. In such virtual reality the students ge t the chance to come across
people, objects and places and there is an almost real life interaction. The learner interacts with an electronically generated artificial environment as if everything was real. Hypothetical environments are very dive rse letting the student see the behavior of
objects in certain situations. The aim is to create a deeper, intuitive understanding of the
various phenomena that lie outside human perception. Thus, one could say, it provides a
direct, non-verbal way to comm unicate scientific information.
Irrespective of their use in class or fo r any kind of educational activity, it
becomes more and more obvious that computer s are an important integral part of the
present teaching-learning pro cess. Alongside with the more traditional way of providing
knowledge as well as building sk ills for life, the computer plus the Internet have
considerably enriched the educational pro cess, by providing new angles of perceiving
things, speed in searching and acquiring info rmation, better storage system, as well as a
much more complex understanding and accessi bility for both students and teachers.
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Nowadays, it would be almost impo ssible to imagine an educational
environment lacking any kind of technology in use for educational purposes- be it the
Internet, software, materials created and designed by using technology. These tools are
meant to enhance, support and enrich the traditional scenario in class, but also to
encourage students’ creativity, imagin ation and spirit of initiative.
In this context of fast changes and te chnological progress that take place within
the school boundaries and beyond , it is but natura l to make use of the computer
technologies and Internet in th e language classes as well. In fact the use of computer has
proved quite beneficial for the acquisition a nd reinforcement of many skills necessary in
mastering a foreign language.

1.2 Historical Developments of CALL- Concept and Theories
In the context of computers being used in class, one could not overlook the
aspect of languages being taugh t to students by means of va rious technological tools,
where the computer holds an important part.
Definition
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is defined in one of Levy’s works as
"the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and
learning."
9 CALL implies a wide variety of ICT applications and a pproaches to the
teaching and learning of foreign languages, fr om the rather more traditional drill-and-
practice programs that were favoured in the 1960s and 1970s to more recent
applications of CALL , like for example long-distance learning, or virtual learning
environment. Interactive whiteboards, mobile-assisted language learning as well as computer-mediated communication ar e also used more recently.
Terminology
The term CALI (Computer-assist ed language instruction) was used before CALL, and it
reflects its origins in the general term CAI (Computer-assisted instruction). Originating
from the USA, CALI was no longer favoured by language teachers, as they felt the
word instruction led to the idea that the whole e ducational process was rather focused
on the teacher. Yet, they felt that in the field of foreign langua ges, a more student-
13

centred approach would be better, with focu s on the learning of the language, not the
teaching.
CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) began to replace CALI in the
early 1980s 10 and it is now used as part of the names of various professional
associations that are in a continuous growth in the entire world. CALL (Computer
Assisted Language Learning) was the expression agreed upon at the 1983 TESOL
convention in Toronto. Throughout the 1980s CALL widened its field, including the
communicative approach as well as a vari ety of new technologies, particularly
multimedia and communications technology.
An alternative term to CALL started to be used in the early 1990s, namely
Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) . Despite giving a more accurate
description of the activities which fall with in the range of CALL, this term did not
manage to be as often used and accepted as CALL.
Until quite recently, computer-assist ed language learning (CALL) was
something that had an interest only for t hose that were already involved in studying
languages and language teaching. Recen tly, though, computers have become
widespread in schools and homes and various institutions and they have started to be
used so much that many language teachers began to wonder what the implication of
using the computers in class woul d be on the language learning.
One is likely to wonder: How effec tive are programs designed to teach
languages? How worthwhile is it to spe nd time and money on them? How do we choose
among so many products on the market? Despit e the time and money invested, as well
as effort, those involved in CALL, either as educators, or as producers, still ask
themselves whether it is all worth it, wh ether CALL is actually going to have positive
effects on the learning-teaching processes.
As Carol A. Chapelle (2001) puts it in her book Computer Applications in
Second Language Acquisition “. . . anyone concerned with second language teaching
and learning in the 21st century need s to grasp the nature of the unique technology-
mediated tasks learners can engage in for language acquisition and how such tasks can be used for assessment. . . . To meet th e challenge, the study of the features of
computer-based tasks that promote learning shou ld be a concern for teachers as well as
14

for SLA (Second Language Acquisition) res earchers who wish to contribute to
knowledge about instructed SLA.” 11
There are various ways to tackle the topic of computers being used to teach
languages, some of these focusing on the typology of CALL, others, on the other hand, following a rather chronological outline of th e main events and directions characterizing
CALL through the years.
Thus, talking about attempts to esta blish certain typology, during the 1980s and
1990s, a series of different CALL programs were identified by Davis and Higgins
(1985), Jones and Fortescue (1987), Hard isty and Windeatt (1989) and Levy (1997).
Among these programs some were gap-fillin g and cloze, others multiple-choice,
adventures and simulations, action mazes, sentence-reordering programs, and even
"total Cloze", a type of program in which the learner has to rec onstruct a whole text.
You can find more modernized versions of these early programs even nowadays.
As for the rather chronological appro ach to CALL, such theoreticians as
Warschauer and Healey in 1996/ 1998 identifi ed three historical phases of CALL:
Behaviorist CALL, Communicativ e CALL and Integrative CALL.
Although, as I previously stated the com puter started being used in education
since the 1950s, in the field of language teaching examples of CALL were not
documented until the 1960 when a number of projects were undertak en to explore how
the computer could be used for foreign la nguage in higher education. One such project
took place in New Zealand being done by Colle tt, who took the idea from a colleague of
physics of his who had used the university mainframe. A nother example belongs to
Boyle, Smith and Eckert who, in 1976, deigne d a computer-based French test, equally
developed on the university mainframe. Mo re briefly, one could say that CALL in the
1960s and 1970s was basically supported by mainframe computers connected to
terminals on a single campus or by telephone line connected to terminals off campus.
Computer-based activities were developed using programming languages and were
stored on mainframe computers to be used later by students.
These first years belonged to the behaviorist phase of CALL, which according
to Warschauer was conceived in the 1950s and implemented later on in the 1960s and 1970s. The programs that were designed to help the acquisition of language were
basically repetitive language drills, hence the name these programs sometimes had, of
15

“drill and practice”. In this phase the comp uter was perceived as tutor, delivering
instructional material to th e student. The reasons why these drills were considered
useful and are still used even today are firs t of all the fact that by being repeatedly
exposed to the same material is beneficial a nd essential to learning, then the fact that
such drill activities are facilitated by the co mputer which can present the same material
more times and can provide immediate feedback and thirdly the presentation of material
and new information can be acquired indivi dually, by each student at their own speed
and rhythm and can be accessed as many times as needed.
During this phase of CALL there were designed a number of tutoring systems,
one of the most sophisticated and talked about being PLATO system. This system,
running on its own PLATO hardware, comput ers and terminals included vocabulary
drills, grammar explanations and drills and even some translation tests.
In the 1970s when the microcomputer was introduced, there appeared a whole
new range of possibilities of use, and thus the behaviorist CALL started losing ground;
moreover the behaviorist approach to langua ge learning was f ound faulty at both
theoretical and pedagogical level.
The second phase of CALL spanned dur ing the 1970s and 1980s and was based
on the communicative approach to teaching. Language theoreticians had come to the
conclusion that doing drills and repetitions was not really the best way to provide a very
authentic material and to foster communication, so a change was needed.
As major aspects of Communicative CALL, John Underwood (1984) mentions a
few12:
• It prefers to focus more on the use of fo rms rather than on the forms themselves;
• The grammar is taught implicitly rather than explicitly;
• It allows and encourages st udents to produce original utte rances rather than just
manipulate preset language as it was w ith the behaviorist phase of CALL;
• Everything that the students produce is evaluated in an objective way, without
congratulating messages, or on th e contrary without judgment;
• It does not tell students they are wrong and is flexible to a va riety of responses
from the part of the students;
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• The target language is used exclusivel y, thus becoming more and more natural
to those involved in the education.
During this second phase of CALL there were developed more programs meant
to provide skill practice, in a different wa y than through drills. Mainly the software
created was focused on paced reading, text reconstruction and other language games.
Still, the computer owns all solutions and answers, thus being still a tutor. In
comparison to the behaviorist CALL activitie s (drill and practice) , though, the student
has some choice, control and interaction. In this same period the focus is put on
stimulating the students’ discussion, writing, or critical thinking. So there is an obvious
evolution from the previous stage with the students working on higher levels of
thinking. Here some software should be mentioned- some games that obviously were
not created with the purpose of teaching languages in mind: Sim City , Sleuth , or Where
in the World is San Diego? Besides being seen as a tu tor and as a stimulus, the
computer was also seen as a tool. 13 As a tool the programs do not provide just
information but rather put the students in s ituation where they are required to use and
understand language. In this range of pr ograms and tools we can mention word
processors, spelling and grammar check ers, desktop publishing programs and
concordancers (a concordancer is “a computer program that automatically constructs a
concordance. The output of a concordancer ma y serve as input to a translation memory
system for computer-assisted translation, or as an early step in machine translation.”)14
Yet, since the activities in this period of CALL were considered to be aiming at
marginal aims rather than central ones, they met quite a lot of criticism. Despite the advancement that the communicative approach of CALL had in comparison with the
behaviorist approach, this second phase stil l had its downsides as it focused on skills
and language structures in a compartmenta lized way. Language teachers started feeling
that it would be probably better to try and in tegrate various aspects together, rather than
deal with each aspect separately. When lear ning a language it is clear that any activity
you might be involved in, it involves more than just one aspect of the language. Thus,
there appeared the idea of using projects as well as task-based activities. This was
fortunately possible in the y ears to come, thanks to the great advancement and progress
in the field of technologies.
Thus, besides the behaviorist and the communicative CALL, a third phase
appeared brought about by the more and more complex needs of language teachers and
17

students as well as by the vari ety and complexity of program s designed in the last two
decades. This third phase, called by Warschauer the integrative CALL , started around
the 1990s, with teachers shifting from a cognitive view of communicative language
teaching to a socio-cognitive view which implies real language being used in an
authentic context full of meaning. “Integrativ e CALL seeks both to integrate the various
skills of language learning (listening, speaking, writing, and reading) and to integrate
technology more fully into language teaching.”15
This integrative approach to CALL is based on two important technological
developments: multimedia computers and the Internet.
Multimedia technology makes use of a variety of media (text, graphics, sound,
video, animation) that can be accessed on a single machine. What is even more special
about multimedia is its more complex fo rm “hypermedia”, which makes links and
connections among the different parts of the program. As a consequence, each learner
can access the sources in their own time and choose their own path about it. When multimedia is used this implies an integrati on of skills (e.g. listening with reading), “but
it too seldom involves a more important type of integration – integrating meaningful and
authentic communication into all aspects of the language learning curriculum.”
16
It is more than obvious that hypermedia has a lot of advantages, maybe the most
important being that of offering more au thentic learning environment through the
combination of both listening and hearing. Then, by combining media you also combine
the skills that are used by students while pe rforming those tasks. For example it is more
than natural and necessary to combine reading skills, with speaking, writing and even listening skill in order to achieve the goals of that particular activity. This combination of various media actually becomes a great way to teach languages, as we all know that
each of our students has a more or less di fferent way of learning and remembering
things. While using the students’ listening skill, or that of writing or reading, it is an even more certain way to cover all possibl e types of learning and to make sure all
students are given the chance to improve certain skill or to acquire new ones. Still related to our students’ individuality, hypermedia offers them the possibility to navigate
in a pretty free way through it, going from one point to another, focusing on some
aspects they feel they need to work on mo re and skipping or ju st going through others
that seem simpler to them. Moreover, while focusing on the content to be acquired, there is also some focus on language form or learning strategies. That is, whenever the
18

students feel the need to check some grammatical point, or to look for some vocabulary
item that is not known to them they can do that without really disturbing the main
lesson. They can get explanations, instructions , or prompts to help them to acquire the
right learning strategy.
One such example is mentioned by Chape lle (2001) in her previously mentioned
book and is related to learni ng Spanish in the US. After clicking the icon for the
program the student sees images and hears so unds from Madrid. The student arrives in
front of a house, rings a bell and then has the chance to talk with one of the characters
provided by the program. A dialogue in Span ish follows between the student who uses
the microphone and the character from the program. If the sentence (question/answer) pronounced by the students has a grammar, pr onunciation, or vocabulary problem then
the character feigns not understanding, or he sitates until the student gives the correct
sentence.
Another similar example is provided by the program Dustin which was
developed at the Institute for Learning Scien ces at Northwestern University. This time
there is a simulation of a student arriving in the US. As a foreigner just entered in the
US, the student has to go through customs, find transportation to the city, check in at a
hotel etc. The students interact with simulate d people appearing in video clips, and write
down the answers. If the answers are correct , the students get the chance to move on to
other activities, yet, if the responses are wrong the students are shown examples or have
to solve the task broken into smaller parts. The student can ask for explanations, or
instructions at any time, he/she can listen to what has been said once again or for as
many times as it is necessary, ask for transl ation etc, thus bein g in control of the
situation all the time.
These were but two examples of how hypermedia can be used and was used in
teaching foreign languages. Of course in spit e of the advantages mentioned a bit earlier
there are also downsides that probably encourag e linguists and IT specialists to try even
harder to create efficient pr ograms rather than get disa ppointed. Due to these problems
multimedia software for language teaching has failed to make a big impact. One
problem that appeared was related to the insufficient preparation and training of language teachers. Teachers could probably easily produce their own teaching materials using authoring programs like for example T oolBook, but most of them do not have the
necessary technical skills and training. Then there is the cost to be taken into
19

consideration as well. Besides these quite obvio us reasons for the little impact that such
programs had is the fact that multimedia software ensures rather a pseudo- interactivity.
The programs are still not capable of understanding a user’s spoken input and
evaluating it not only for corre ctness but also for appropriate ness. Then these programs
should be able to identify the student’s problem whether it is related to grammar,
vocabulary or pronunciation and then take measures according to the results.
The Internet is the second advancement that c ontributed to the appearance of the
integrative CALL. Thanks to the Internet la nguage learners can communicate directly,
quite cheap and conveniently with speakers of that language or othe r learners of that
particular language from wherever they want and whenever they want. This feature of the Internet is mostly appreciated by t eenagers and youth and it helps them both
improve relationships with other people, a nd improve their communicative skills as well
as their social skills. The communication between people using the Internet can be
either asynchronous like for example through e- mails, forums and blogs or synchronous
like for example when people have a simulta neous conversation (in audio or written
form) through such programs as chat rooms, MOOs (Multiple-user-domains Object Oriented), Skype. What is great about comm unication online, thr ough the Internet, is
that it can be done individuall y, between one person and another, but it can also be of
the one-to-many type, like for example when the teacher wants to transmit information
to a whole group of students, or when a st udent has to make an online presentation.
Moreover, the Internet is an enormous s ource of authentic material as well as a
source of information that can be easily a nd quickly accessed. Stude nts can search for
the information they ar e interested in through millions of files – s ound, text, graphics or
video, files which are most of the time authentic materials. Another positive aspect about the Internet is that it can serve as a por tal of launching thei r personal ideas on
various topics. Thus, they can use the Internet to make their texts or multimedia materials public, to share them with friends or colleagues, or with the teacher.
It is not hard to see that the Intern et and the communication through computer
can facilitate and promote an integrative approach to using technology. Below I am going to describe an example as it was presented by Warschauer M. in his " Computer
Assisted Language Learning: an Introduction" in 1996, who in his turn was citing Bowers. The example presents a group of English for Science and Technology in La
Paz Mexico who use the Internet to write scientific works. As a first step they search on
20

the web to find articles that would cover their field; then they study and analyse these
articles. A next step will require them to write their own drafts online, so that the
teacher can check them, who will post in his/her own page li nks to further explanations
so that the students can easily find more info rmation needed to improve their language
and technical skills. A following step involve s students publishing their own articles,
which may be followed by comments from co lleagues or anyone in terested in their
articles. Since they have advertised their articles on appropriate web sites (scientific
newsgroups), the comments and the follow- up opinions can be trustworthy and taken
into account, thus helping the students to improve their articles even more.
Multimedia and the Internet provide, acco rding to Gündüz (2006) “an incredible
boost to Computer Assisted Language Learni ng (CALL) applications. First ignored,
CALL is finally achieving the recognition it deserves thanks in large part to these
developing technologies.”17 If in the 1980s and 1990s one could talk about projects and
attempts to use the computer in teaching la nguages that were carried out mainly in
developed countries. Nowadays thanks to the incredible progress of technologies and to
their widespread use, more and more instit utions and more and more teachers are using
computers and the Internet when teaching a fo reign language in a more or less extensive
way basically all over the world. Applying computer technology at class is somehow
helped by the growing number of students th at own a computer at home, thus making it
easier for them to understand what they are asked to do, as well as more pleasant and
fun.
Yet, despite this growing use of computer s in class, one should not forget that
the computer is just a human made tool, in capable of action. That is, it has no inborn
wisdom, no initiative and inherent ability to learn or teach. It will perform the
instructions exactly given to it by a human user. Thus, the com puter is just a servant and
it should not be forgotten that its role in teaching is solely a teaching aid.
No matter if one uses the multimedia comput er or the Internet, there is one thing
everyone agrees upon: this type of integrativ e activities have to be coupled with other
types of activities as well in order to ensu re the reaching of the goals. Using technology
all the time would eventually bring boredom in class and would fail to really help the educational process.
To conclude, it is quite obvious that what computers mean for the language
teaching has changed dramatically in the last three decades. Previously, computers used
21

in language teaching were limited to text. Th ere were plenty of simple simulations and
exercises, mostly gap-filling and multiple-choice drills. Thanks to great technological
and pedagogical developments, we can now include computer technology into the
language learning processes. Multimedia pr ograms that incorporate speech-recognition
software can plunge students into rich envi ronments for language practice. Concordance
software with large language corpora provides students with what they need to be able
to study language use in authentic contexts. The Internet itself provides a great number
of opportunities to communicate in the ta rget language, access texts and multimedia
information, and publish for a large audience.
Therefore, it can be seen that there has been a boom in the use of computers in
the past thirty years from involving students into drills, as it wa s in the beginning to
students' long-distance communication and co llaboration during re search and study and
in the production phase. Since the computer is capable of playing so many different
roles in and out of class, it is believed to be the most exciting and potentially useful aid
so far available to languag e teachers and learners.

1.3 Risks and Reward of Computers in Class

In a UNESCO Report- Learning: The Treasure Within written in 1996, four essential
pillars of learning were identified: 18
– learning to know;
– learning to do (to apply knowledge); – learning to be (getting a st rong sense of responsibility);
– learning to live together (developing an understanding of others and their history,
traditions and spiritual values).
These four pillars of education illustrate the society we live in as well as its
complexity and progress. Moreov er they ensure that the new generations, the students
of today, are well prepared for the knowledge society characterized by great speed of
action and information. The teacher’s role as an important socializing agent in preparing
the generations of the future must never be underestimated.
22

In this context, making use of technologies in schools not only enables students
with the computational skills, but also br ings more efficiency to the process of
providing information and knowledge that are rapidly changing and evolving each day.
This seems more than essential in the field of education today.
If the first achievements in the field of CAI (computer assisted instruction) were
rather focused on checking the students’ know ledge, or preparing worksheets for them
created in word processors, later there star ted to appear more complex software that
would encourage the active building of know ledge, ensure signif icant contexts for
learning, promoting reflection through stimulat ion of the student’s creativity, initiative
and their intellectual skills, and by avoiding routine.
Being more than just a simple tool of instruction, the computer and its use in
education cause a different approach to th e teaching-learning processes. The CAI gives
teachers the possibility to become animator s, guides, observers of the educational
process, evaluators, while also giving the st udents the possibility to self-educate, self –
assess, thus contributing activ ely to their own formation.
In the case of CAI, interactivity is generalized and the students are offered
permanent feedback, because there are visibl e and immediate changes on the screen of
the computer. This type of instruction involves research on the pa rt of the student,
guided by the teacher who helps the former in the technical operations, in the research
and identification of connections between information, thus guiding him/her towards a
new type of knowledge.
In terms of instructor-learner intera ction there are differences between the
traditional instruction and CAI (computer-assis ted instruction). Thus in the former the
students are all encouraged to think about th eir answers but eventually only one or two
students will answer; they are generally group- paced and educator led. In the latter, the
activities can be individually paced, controlled by the co mputer, the teacher or the
student himself, and this kind of activity wi ll require responses from each student.
The majority of specialists consider that we should not wonder whether
instruction is improved by the use of comput ers, but rather how we could better use
their unique qualities: interactivity, the precision of the operations, the capacity to
provide multiple and dynamic representations of phenomena and above all, the different way it can interact with each student according to their particularities.
23

From the writings on international level, there are a series of interesting
conclusions about the efficiency of the educational software, among which one could
mention:
– almost all studies show an evolution af ter using the computer in comparison to
other methods;
– the studying time is reduced;
– the attitude towards the computer is modified in a positive way;
– in CAI, exercising is efficient in shapi ng elementary skills, while tutorials prove
to be more efficient in the acquisiti on of high-level intellectual skills;
– CAI is more efficient as complementary in struction rather than as an alternative
form of instruction. Teachers that favour th e use of computers in class should not rely
on them entirely, neglecting the more tradi tional way of teaching. Computers should be
but a supplementary tool, not something th at would replace the traditional teaching
completely.
– the slow learners as well as thos e that have problems in acquiring the
information have more to gain than those that are already good at that particular subject.
There has been noticed through various surveys and studies that the use of computer-
based activities has helped especially the st udents that are poorly prepared or have
difficulties in acquiring certain information and skills.
– the strategies based on the use of the computer are more efficient at inferior,
low-level activities.
Like any innovation, CAI has faced several contradictory phases. At first there
was the opposition of the traditionalists as well as the material problems, then it gained a lot of ground among th eoreticians and practi tioners, and in the e nd it got to a stage
where everybody had to admit that CAI has both negative and positive parts.

1.3.1. The advantages of CAI

There are plenty of theoreticians both in IT and in pedagogy and methodology who
have tried to track down the good points ab out using the computer as well as the
Internet in the educational process. Many of them think that computer technology has
had a great contribution to th e teaching-learning processes in a few aspects. The first
thing to be mentioned should be the gr eat speed with which people can access
24

information through the Internet. As everybody has noticed lately on the Internet you
can find practically anything you want: scientific papers, rese arch and studies, personal
opinions on so many topics a nd subjects that it would take definitely more than a
lifetime to index the entire material. In comparison with the traditional ways of
communication, on the Internet, you have much greater speed and variety at low costs.
In a way one could say that communication is now simplified thanks to the Internet. It
can be said “that e-mail does not replace or reduce traditional communication; in fact,
such interaction increases.”19
Computers greatly contribute to research as well. Research that was impossible
just a few years ago can now be done tha nks to the great progr ess and innovations in
computer technologies. Possible examples refer to the way data are processed, acquired
and analysed as well as to highly performing programs.
Other advantages of using computer- assist ed activities in class that have come
out in scientific papers ar e briefly presented below:
– At each topic the student is informed about what he is going to learn, which enhances his motivation to learn;
– The work is carried out in the studen t’s rhythm. The student goes through the
material presented in his own rhythm, if they need to go through the material once again, they can do that. In the case of a softwa re or even a site, there are always links
that either offer the student tips or answers to different questions (the help section), or
takes the student to different places/ stag es whenever they feel like surfing around for
further explanation or just want to make revision etc. Consequently, the learning process is almost entirely stress- free as the student is not disturbed by any environmental factors. Thus he can feel mo re confident about his choices in answers
and can be more focused when information is presented on the screen;
– The appreciation and evaluation errors th at the teacher might be doing because
of stress or exhaustion are reduced in number. The tests that are computer-
designed are done with great objectivity; the students’ answers are evaluated very quickly and without judging errors.
– The stress and emotional trauma on the part of the student are also reduced, thus
giving a chance to perform well to the shy or more internalized children who in normal
condition do not perform well and who do not show their entire potential;
25

– The computer reacts to each answer of the student, giving him/her feedback; in
this way the student can know at any point what he/she has done wrong and can decide
about what to do next to achieve the goals of the lesson. Moreover, getting that
feedback so quickly reduces even more th e stress of the students while waiting for
results.
– The teaching material is introduced in a logical succession: the presentation of
the information and the working procedures, examples of solv ed tasks, and tasks to be
done by the students;
– By using the computer a great level of individuality can be attained, its actions
being programmed in such a manner as to create different educational situations
according to the students’ different learning needs;
– It offers the possibility of simulati on of certain proces ses and phenomena in
movement through animated images;
– It stimulates the interest for the new, t hus eliminating the risk that the students
get bored;
– It stimulates the students’ imaginati on and in time there appears a growing
intellectual maturity characterizing someone actively i nvolved in the learning process,
thus causing the shift from being the objec t of learning to becoming the subject of
learning;
– While using different items for the students’ evaluation, these are sent to each
computer in a different order thus preven ting the temptation some students might have
to copy from their colleagues;
– The information presented can be better organized in small stages, thus the
teacher is able to better m onitor the student’s progress at each stage of the lesson.
– The facility provided by th e computer to save and ma nipulate information also
makes it possible to keep scores, log errors and also compare the learners’ performances
between each other as well as in time to see th eir evolution. This prov es to be definitely
better than just storing entire piles of pa per with the students’ work. Besides, many
times some of the work can get lost; usi ng computer and data storage devices the
teachers can prevent that situation. Moreove r, having everything stored electronically
helps the teacher keep better track of the progress of the students, better spotting their
weak or strong points.
26

– The consistency and “patience” of the computer helps learning through
association and repeated expos ure; it also provides a user-f riendly environment for the
students who feel comfortable while goi ng through an educational process.

1.3.2. The Disadvantages of CAI
Despite the advances that education wa s offered through computers and technology,
there are parts or aspects in which the technol ogy has not rea lly been an advantage, at
least not 100%. One of the bigg est problems that CAI is conf ronted with are interactive
computer learning and long distan ce learning, that is , in the case of distance learning the
participants do not get personal while performi ng the educational act as there is no real
direct human interaction. Everyone wants “to experience warmth, human interaction,
the thrill of discovery, and solid grounding in essentials: reading, getting along with
others, training in civi c virtue. Only a teacher, live in a classroom, can bring about this
inspiration … Yet, everywhere [you can] h ear parents and principals clamoring for
interactive computer instruction.”
20(Schwarz, 1996)
“Communicating with people on the Intern et is not the same as face-to-face
conversation or even similar to writing or re ading an old-fashioned letter. The "virtual
community" of the Internet is populated by people with false identities, people with inaccurate information, people who express them selves quickly and with little reflection
or sense of accountability”
21 (Schwarz, 1996)
Moreover, according to Schwarz (1996) , with the use of computers and
technology “education will no longer be an unpredictable and exciting adventure in
human enlightenment, but an exercise in conf ormity and an apprenticeship to whatever
gadgetry is useful in a technical world." 22
Using computer technologies in cla ss can have certain weak points or
disadvantages as seen above and as they were presented in Manning’s and Schwarz’s
articles. Besides what they have stated a bout the downsides of computers, there are
other disadvantages that were pinpointed in various writi ngs and that I will briefly
present them below:
27

– the use of computers can reduce or affect the students speaking abilities in a
negative way, as they lose somehow the touc h with the presentation of one’s point of
view, with argumentation and ju stification of one’s opinion;
– In spite of favouring the students who may have problems of communication,
being either shy or lacking self-confidence, or exactly because of this aspect, using
computers does not encourage and promote co mpetition. The atmos phere while working
on computers is more relaxed, the students be ing rather interested in the process of
searching for and acquiring information and getting the task done, not individually but
rather in collaboration. Working with comput ers and on the Internet in the end, is about
collaboration, about working toge ther to achieve something.
– By excessively individualizing the l earning process, the dialogue between
teacher and student can be affected; the role of the teacher itself can be negatively
affected and undermined.
– There are disadvantages rela ted to financial costs and to the lack of technological
resources that should ensure optimal cond itions for such activities. Many teachers,
despite their openness towards everything that is new and technological, complain that
there are many times when the funds are no t enough to cover all the needs of a well
equipped lab;
– Another downside is rela ted to those teachers that seem unwilling to trust using
new informational technologies in their t eaching. Some do not feel they have the
confidence to do so, or that they lack the nece ssary skills, and others just refuse to take
these means of teaching, these tools into account because the tr aditional way seems
more than appealing to them and they ha ve seen many good results coming out of the
traditional way of teaching already.
– Sequencing the activities in small well defined stages can favour the students
endowed with analytical th inking only, thus disadvantag ing those with a global,
synthetic thinking.
– Many students use software for wh ich they have not purchased a legal copy.
The way they see it, as long as they use that software for school or education, there is
nothing wrong;
– Moreover, there are people that consider the computer more than just a tool used
to provide education; yet thes e fail to realize that having st udents and teachers meet face
to face in an interaction is irreplaceable. Fo r example, if you use the computer to assess
your students and to grade them, such an au tomated system would fail to see exactly
28

what were the student’s mistakes, and even if such a testing shows the mistakes, it does
it by applying certain rules inserted in th e program. There is no deep thinking and
reasoning about why the student might have done those mistakes, or about what the
students was actually trying to do;
– If you apply to an online course then you miss the opportunity to work with great
teachers, and there is no connection with other people, like for example colleagues,
professors. Moreover, if help is needed you can only use forums of discussions, but
there is no real help in th e sense of you talking with a teacher, asking questions or
further explanations.

1.3.3. Considerations on CALL- pros and cons

The first two parts of this sub-chapter ha ve dealt with good and bad parts of using
computers in the teaching-learning processes, while this third part is going to present
the pros and cons of CALL, namely what is good and bad about this specific side of CAI, which is CALL.
The use of technology in the classroom can increase motivation, decrease anxiety,
foster more student-centered activities an d provide students with more authentic
materials and audience. It can also prom ote greater language production as well as
enhance critical thinking skills. However, even with all these benefits, the integration of
technology in the foreign la nguage class presents some challenges and some possible
problems that teacher should be aware of.
In his book “Calling all Foreign Language Teachers: Computer-assisted
Language Learning in the Classroom”, Tony Erben points out certain difficulties,
challenges that the foreign language teac her might overcome. He mentions some
technical difficulties that are at a basic leve l, like incompatibility between the laptop and
the projector cable, or broken links to favourite websites, th e server being temporarily
down etc
23, problems that might bring frustratio n and stress both fo r the teacher and
their students. As advice, Erbern (2008) suggests teachers to check the technology
equipment before entering the lab with their students as well as to explain to them the
problems that might come up when work ing with computers and Internet.
Then teachers should not neglect traini ng their students in using the technology
before actually assign ing them certain tasks to deal with. Moreover, he should explain
to them any possible rule about that particular site/ software; otherwise the students’
29

frustration may become even bigger in time, thus preventing them from actually
reaching their goals, from performing their tasks well.
Another challenge that might make some teachers feel uncomfortable about trying
to use technologies in class is the classroom control. In a trad itional classroom the
teacher is in the center of teaching and l earning, yet in a poorly designed technology-
based classroom, both teacher and students might feel confused and somehow lost. That
is why a possible solution would be for the teacher to explain them explicit rules as well
as to set out certain limits. Another thing that might help ensure the optimal use of technologies in a foreign language classr oom is to have a good teaching plan. The
objectives of the lessons as well as the general procedures should be clear to both teacher and students.
As for better integrating technology into the foreign language classroom, there are
certain things a teacher should pay attention to while preparing such lessons. First of all
he should know his students’ skill levels, which is possi ble by administrating an
assessment of their computer skills that he can take directly from the Internet or he can
do it himself. Thus, having the results of that kind of tests will facilitate the development of appropriate lessons that would address the students’ technology skills
and language learning abilities. Moreover, th e teacher should monitor the students’
work and be able to help the students in their use of technology at any time.
Another aspect that requires the teacher’s attention is the choice of materials. The
teacher should create tasks that fit the stude nts’ learning potential and fit appropriately
with the technology. For example if your students are good at working with the Internet,
the teacher can assign them a Webquest on a topic they are familiar with, or something
at the same level of complexity, which will motivate them to use the language they are
learning to complete the task based on authen tic materials. Thus, the material should be
purposeful and contextualized which will allow the students to apply what they know of
the world to the language learning tasks. Another example would be those students that
are at the beginning of their learning the language. A techno logy that supports text and
images would help them get better acqua inted with the langua ge and with the
requirements of the task.
Talking about the choice of materials, most of the teachers think that it is very
complicated and difficult to cr eate an authentic material language context where both
target language and technology are integrate d. There are too many things to be taken
into consideration- how well the students ma ster the use of the computer and how well
30

they know the software they are using, or to navigate the Internet, then of course their
level of language, their strong and weak points, and then decide upon the best strategies
to take in order to improve th e students’ language abilities.
Last but not least, probably one of the biggest challenges is the shift in the role of
the teacher. While teaching using technology, discovery learning, learner autonomy and
learner-centeredness are promoted and encour aged. Some teachers might feel fearful
about such a situation and might feel they lose the role th ey used to have. In this
situation a possible solution w ould be to allow students to work collaboratively (in
pairs/ in groups), to engage them in interactive problem-solving or cooperative projects.
Besides these challenges that any fo reign language teachers might confront
themselves with, there are obvious disadvant ages or limitations that might make
teachers more reluctant towards the use of computers in the classroom activities, some
of these disadvantages being related to teach ing with computers in general and others
being specific for CALL.
– the equipment is less handy; in comparison with books that can be easily carried
out and accessed at any time and place, work ing with computers programs and Internet
can be sometimes hard or not very convenien t. You can not, for example, prepare stuff
or check papers while on a train, or even at home for some people. Besides, as teacher
you have to be prepared and know the soft/site well. That means more time and effort
on the part of the teacher to prepare. Many teachers think that using technologies in
class to teach languages takes so much more time than if they relied on their ordinary
textbooks and materials.
– the current CALL programs are not perfec t; most of the software designed today
for teaching languages deal with reading, listening and writing skills. Only a few
programs started focusing on speaking skills, bu t their functions are still limited. Even
more, computers are not suitable to all the activities that go on in the classroom, for
example in the case of open-ended dialogues, or open-ended questions; they can not
cope with the unexpected happenings and ambi guity. That is, the computer can not alter
its path of action inside a program according to the student’s answer. In the end,
according to Blin (2006), we can not talk abou t a real interactivity between the student
and computer, since the latter lacks the intelligen ce to react spontane ously according to
various unexpected learning problems as teachers can. 24
– CALL requires computers and software as well as other equipment that can be
expensive. Once computer laboratories are es tablished, it is not possible to re-equip
31

them for several years. There are many limitations of equipment and facilities, and
many teachers may not be able to do what they want to. For example, there are many websites and software that offer a great vari ety of advice, tips and concrete ideas and
activities for the English class, but many of them cost money which for some teachers
may be a problem.
Despite the disadvantages mentioned briefl y above, the number of advantages is
definitely greater. For some teachers they are more obvious right from the start when
they already see positive changes in the course of their class and in the outcome of their lessons, for others they become clear in time, after they got familiar with the technology used and after their students in their turn started to better master the technology used.
Even though at first, using computer technol ogy and Internet in the class to teach
languages may seem a useless complication, being chaotic and illo gical, once you as a
teacher learn to work on the PC and to na vigate on the computer, the whole situation
enriches itself with a pile of advantages.
First of all, there are times when trad itional language teaching in classroom proves
to be monotonous, boring and of course frustr ating for some students who lose interest
and motivation in learning that language. CA LL programmers can provide the students
with various kinds of interesting and absorbing computer activities, such as games, animated graphics, problem-solving techniques , and even drills which can become more
interesting in their electronic format.
The computer-assisted activities for language learners can bring about an optimal
use of the learning time; it means that th e students can choose the right timing for
learning. The students are very flexible a bout the place and the time and even the how
of their studying, which is very possible for the web-based in struction and CALL.
Besides, students can see the materials as many times as they want without being imposed any time limitation.
If the students can decide on the how, the when and the where and how much, that
means that CALL brings into the teach ing-learning process a great degree of
individualization. According to their own preferences and to the results, students can
decide on their own which skills they feel th ey need to develop and which course to use
for that, as well as how many times they need to access that particular course and why.
Something that was previously mentioned before is that the computer and Internet activities in the language class are compatible with the different learning styles
32

of the students. Thus, the computer can provide learning opport unities either through
sound, image or text, according to each student’s learni ng peculiarities.
The computer provides guided and repeti tive practice; stude nts can repeat the
course they want, having freedom of expression within boundaries created by
programmers, such as vocabulary or grammar. Grill-type CALL materials, for example,
are suitable for repetitive practice, which will help the students learn concepts and key
elements of the language.
One of the most important advantages of the growth of CALL is that software
creators (and language teachers) no longer feel they have to focus on grammar practice,
considering it the main goal of computer us e in the language classroom. There is a
growing tendency of using computers more and more for communicative teaching. Now
students are no longer pr ovided just with long lists of words to be learnt, but the
vocabulary is rather presented in a contex tualized manner through specialized software
using graphics, audio recording and even playback or video. More complex error-
checking tools can help students in the feedback they receive, directing them to practice
more until they can get to the next stage.
In terms of the writing process the computers have evolved greatly as well.
There are programs that can help students in the pre-writing stage by generating and
outlining ideas. Now word-processors, like Microsoft Word for example have a special facility that shows spelling or structure errors by underlining them. This is not all; once
the error is underlined the student is offered a list of possible sugge stions. This is real
help for weaker students, by not only pointing to the mistakes they have made, but also
giving them a choice, thus involving th em actively in setting things right.
Further, according to Higgins (1995)
25, pronunciation work in particular has
benefited from CALL. There are also many pronunciation programs that thanks to the
great development of technology can now us e voice recording and playback to allow
students to compare what they have record ed with a model. Most computer programs
stimulate some discussion among learners even if oral practice is not the main purpose
of the activity. Thus, the computer become s rather an environment which allows
students to use the target language, through different act ivities. Now dr ills include
games and to motivate language learning, th ere is also a competition involved.
33

One of the main advantages is also the immediate feedback. A delayed positive
feedback will fail to timely encourage a nd motivate the students, while a delayed
negative feedback will probably affect the knowledge of the student. Yet, with an
immediate feedback, frustration is eliminat ed and students can see right away their
mistakes and better understand them as it happe ns immediately after they have finished
their tasks.
In the end one should not forget that CALL activities, especially through the use
of the Internet, offer the students a great vari ety of authentic materials on various topics-
from vocabulary related to a specific fi eld, to grammar topics, or just nowadays
language, with its idioms, particular int onation or pronunciation. The amount of data
provided both by language learni ng programs and Internet is great and greatly varied,
which enhances the exploratory side of learning. You can access it fast and quite
efficiently whether you are looking for vo cabulary and grammar explanations, or for
sound files with an educational purpose. It also helps lear ners to easily control and
recycle the materials needed. There is al so a fun factor involved, which greatly
motivates the students into learning the language.
On a more general note, CALL programs, besides teaching a foreign language,
will provide the learner with some sort of computer literacy, which is becoming
essential in our modern society and which coul d be of great help in future training and
career prospects.
CALL has certainly both advantages and disadvantages and teachers should try to
know these strengths and weaknesses be fore and while applying CALL in ESL
classrooms. Despite almost becoming a tr end to use computer technology in the
language class recently, there are still limitations and weaknesses. Therefore, teachers
must first understand the advantages and disadvantages of CALL programs in use, know how to use the pluses for their advantage, and avoid the downsides that such programs can bring with them, before using them to improve the teaching process or to help students’ learning.
34

CHAPTER II: DIFFERENT USES OF CALL

Computer Assisted Language Learning is a matter of interest and focus for many
linguists, IT technicians as well as methodolog ists, even more so after the appearance of
multimedia technology and Internet. There are dozens of books written on the matter,
some of them more theoretical, others givi ng quite practical examples, ideas and tips
about how to use computers while trying to teach a foreign language.
Besides specialists in language teaching a nd IT, there are also institutions which
acknowledged the growing importance of techno logies in every aspe ct of our lives, and
particularly in education. Th ere has been concluded that the introduction of more
technologies and computer use in to the educational process is needed and considered of
paramount importance. There are several Euro pean institutions that have established
guides, plans and standards for the use of t echnology in education and training- Unesco,
the European Commission and The Internati onal Society for Technology in Education,
to name but a few.
In the pages that follow I am going to tackle some practical aspects related to
CALL, mainly the use of certain software pr ograms, multimedia and since Internet is an
important integral part of the computer us e nowadays, I am also going to mention its
uses in teaching languages. Yet, before doing that I am going to start with some aspects
related to the relation between teacher and computer/ Internet which I think is also an important side of the relation betw een computer usage and education.

2.1. The Computer and the Internet in Teachers’ Development

What is probably great about what language teachers can experien ce nowadays is that
besides the theoretical basis that exists- th e dozens of books, article s and studies that I
have already mentioned, there are more a nd more teachers who actually try and design
plenty of activities relying on the computer and the Intern et. Thus, if one searches on
any search engine available exercises or ac tivities using technology at class, they get
hundreds of sites each of them giving at least a handful of inspiring and helpful
suggestions, activities and projects. That is a good aspect for teachers, as they can see
35

examples of good or bad prac tices and so they can both follow the good examples, and
learn from their peers’ mistakes.
This, in fact, is another aspect that n eeds to be tackled while talking about the
use of computers in teaching languages. It is an aspect that is not that well covered and
is not considered as important, yet it is the one, that mainly contributes among the most
to the teachers’ well starting to use technology in class.
In most books theoreticians mainly cover the concrete uses of the computer and
Internet in class or at ho me, always involving student s in some kind of activity.
However, what I find pretty important for teac hers is what we, as teachers, can do with
the computer and the Internet. We no longer belong to just a loca l community; now with
the great expansion of the Internet we have become part of a larger scale community.
And this is very helpful not only for begi nner teachers but for everybody involved in the
educational, training processe s. Whenever you log on to th e Internet it gives you a sense
of belonging, you almost feel at home, as advice, suggestions and even encouragements are always given to you so freely and openly. As one might put it, once you are on the Internet is like entering a town whose c itizens are all your friends, and each door you
knock (site you access) welcomes you like a friend. At leas t that is the feeling you get
inside the teachers communities on the Intern et. It is something familiar and almost
personal about you getting the chance to meet others like you virtually and discuss
matters.
There are several ways in which the Inte rnet can help a teacher in his or her
development. First of all, the most important aspect needing to be mentioned is that the
World Wide Web (www) is becoming “the la rgest reference library in the world”,
encompassing “every topic known to man.”
26 Besides being a great source of
information to turn to, the World Wide We b offers space for your own personal ideas,
you can actually contribute to the existing data base with personal experience, thoughts,
questions or doubts. This is why the Web is in constant and continuous change,
extending at a great speed each moment.
For a teacher there are several possibilitie s both for sharing his or her ideas and
for searching for information. First of all, there are the so called gateway sites – sites
that contain links to other site s on a particular field of inte rest, plus material of their
own. On the Internet there are sites like that about any possible topi c, including English
language, an example being Da ve Sperling’ ESL Café ( http://www.eslcafe.com/ ). As
36

anyone accessing this site can see, there are various things you can do here, everything
being very well organized, both in the left- border menu and in the top menu. As it says
in the banner this site is “The Internet ’s Meeting place for ESL and EFL teachers+
students from around the world!” and this slogan is not too exaggerated, as here you can find inspiration not only as a teacher, but as a student as well, through the links to the
student section. There are exercises, ideas , grammar tips and lessons, quizzes, even job
advertisements as well as links to other E nglish language sites. Th is was but an example
of the hundreds and even thousands of such sites that there are on the Internet.

Another possibility that Eng lish teachers have while surf ing the net is to be part
of a professional association . This is not very common in Romania, yet, but it is quite
practiced in other countries where teachers are part of local, or regional, and even
national and international associations of this type. Being part of such an association, an
online community after all, is good for teachers, especially at the dawn of their teaching
careers, but not only. You can find out tips, plus meetings schedule and topics,
conferences coming, as well as training course s. Talking about conferences, one should
notice the great help offered by the Internet both to the organizers and the participants. Nowadays, thanks to the Internet it is possi ble to better organize such conferences,
seminars either locally or onlin e. In case it is online, in a vi rtual environment, thanks to
the videoconferencing capabilities, the participants no longer spend time, effort and
money to visit some remote places, but rather sit comfortably in their offices/ classroom
37

while the conference develops in a very natural way. If you still go to the conference in
person, the Internet facilitates your visit by providing inform ation about travel means,
prices, booking, accommodation and so on.
Another source of enrichment in terms of teaching experience is journals and
newsletters . Some of them have both the paper and the online version and other have
just the online version. Once you have located a journal that appeals to you, all you
need is to subscribe to it and then you can access their articles and materials. Their
importance is great as many of these journals are really specialized in particular aspects
of teaching
English. An example that I am going to present is The Language Learning &
Technology
Journal
(http://llt.msu.edu/index.html
.)
It is an online journal that I practi cally stumbled upon while searching for
information for my paper . To my surprise, I found entire articles written by teachers,
professors as well as language theorists that are very well documented and very precise
and detailed, and focused. Many of the authors are well known in the field of
linguistics, others at least to me, less known, but what is important is that they are
actually sharing their ideas with the whole worl d. You can subscribe to their journal, or
you can just go and read online the current issue as well as archived previous issues.
Going through some of their articles was really helpful for me, as they
practically tackled almost every possible topic related to teaching language through technology. It was a great experience, yet only one of the many opportunities offered by
such online specia lized journals.
As it can be seen from the examples above, there are many uses of the Internet
that teachers can take advantage of; besides journals, gateway sites, there are also the
mailing lists (“e-mail discussion groups focusing on a single theme”
27), grants and
scholarships, career advancement, newsgroups, chat rooms. The only important thing is
38

not to get discouraged by the entwined networ k of the Internet. It may seem hard at
first, especially if you do not master the computer very well and you are not too
accustomed to navigating around the Intern et. But in time, once you start to get
familiarized with what a site is, what it looks like and w ith how many things you can do
thanks to technology, you will definitely l ove “playing” with your new “technological
toys”, even when you have education in mind.

2.2. Software Programs in CALL and Multimedia

When trying to design activities for the langu age class, while using the computer, there
is a very important aspect to be taken into account, and that is the software programs .
These applications can function either online, on the Internet, or offline, inside your
own computer, thus being accessible at any hour. Closely related to software programs
there is the topic of media and multimedia to be taken into consideration. We are going
to see immediately the reasons why.
First of all a few things about media and then about its connection to the
software used in teaching during and for a language class will be mentioned. Media is
the plural form of medium deriving from La tin and refers to a means of communication
and source of information. Its meaning is “bet ween”, the term referring to anything that
carries information between a source and a receiver.28 Examples include video,
television, printed materials, animations , sound, computer programs, and the World
Wide Web. When these provide messages with instructional purpose they are
considered instructional media meant to facilitate and foster learning and
communication. When more media are co mbined then we can talk about multimedia ,
which is a term meaning that text, graphi cs, sound, video and animation are combined
to create an integral presentation. Nowadays in teaching and learning it is rather the
multimedia that is being used, as we rarely see just one media at a time. Even a text is enriched many times by images, or diagra ms, thus combining 2 media in just one
document.
These media of no matter what type can not exit just like that, you need to create
it, or if it were designed by someone else, you n eed at least to be able to access it, so in
both cases you need software pr ograms. Some of them were created especially with the
39

purpose of teaching languages in mind, yet others, probably the most popular and
common have a wider cover area.
There are various such programs that can be used to create plenty of material for
your students and to give them to work w ith and on. And one thi ng is clear for many
authors: teachers shall not us e technology just for the sake of it, but rather because there
are certainly obvious reasons to do so. In time plenty of studies have shown that using
computer technology in the classroom has a l ong-term effect on the educational process,
being the impulse of higher leve l thinking skills, of better critical th inking, as well as
more engaged learners and more responsible in their own learning. Even more than that,
there has been evidence of strategic thought in planning a nd executing projects,29
students being better motivated at involving in the accomplishment of the tasks given.
For a long time now, the computer has been used to provide supplementary
materials; lately, the progress and great adva nces in computer technology have urged
teachers to reevaluate the co mputer and its uses in the foreign language learning. Thus,
innovative programs, authoring software , CD and DVD technology, and complex
computer networks provide teachers with new methods of incorporating grammar,
culture and real language use in the classr oom while students gain access to various
types of language output- audio, visual, and textual.
As it may be seen, there are various t ypes of programs- there are those that
teacher and students can use to create different types of output files (written text, audio
clip, video clip, graphic, presentation etc) , and there are those so called authoring
programs (a new type of program, whose goal is to support and help computer users to
design appropriate learning programs30 ). It is very important to know how to choose
what you want your students to know and how you think they might do that. These are
but a few issues that any teacher should take into consideration before using various
programs in class.
As David Warlick (2005) says if the work can be done on paper and with pencil,
then there is no need to use the computer, on the other hand, if their work contains
images or other media and if it needs to be se nt by e-mail or to become part of a school
magazine, then the computer needs to be used. Again if the information you need to
perform a task can be easily found in books, th en do not use the Intern et to look for it.
But, if the information you search needs to be processed somehow, then you should use
40

the Internet. He continues by saying that “when we use technology for teaching or for
learning, we should use technology to take advantage of its unique capabilities.”31
There are many researches nowadays show ing that the software programs are
important and beneficial in building more knowledge in the learning environments.
Some of the students’ possibilities, when us ing these new technology tools, are to gather
information upon a certain topic, to organize it and to share with others what they have
learned.

2.2.1. Word Processing

Word processing is probably the most popular prog ram, widely used in education,
hence in teaching English as well. Ther e are various word processing programs
(Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, AppleWorks) an d they are quite basic program to write
and edit texts, which is spite of their simplic ity, can offer quite a lot of tools to work
with. Thus, the documents created can cont ain images, diagrams, border lines and many
others besides text. It is a very useful tool in the classroom for obvious reasons. If, when
you write something like an essay for cla ss on paper, every time you make mistakes,
you just have to start all over again on a new piece of paper, Word offers you the
possibility to delete just the word/ words wh ere there is a mistake without affecting the
rest of the document. Moreover, if you cha nge your mind about the order of paragraphs
or ideas, you can just rearra nge the content in order to find ways of communicating
better. The documents can be edited before goi ng to print, and they can even be spell-
checked by a special facility offered by Word.
Since the program offers the students the possibility that their work have quite a
professional look, without too mu ch effort I might say, this encourages them to try and
give their best; they will be more motivated as they feel they are engaged in some kind
of authentic task of publishing so mething professionally good looking.
Moreover, while focusing on composi ng, creating and communicating, students
develop higher-level thinking skills, as well as their confidence and they improve their
writing abilities. In terms of gains of usi ng word processing programs, there are studies
that show that many struggling students prefer using the keyboard to express their thoughts. Writing is often overwhelming for th em, as they many times need to edit and
41

rewrite their work; this can be tiring and very demanding on many students. While
using the word processing editing does not require crossing words out and rewriting
everything from the beginning. These alterations can be done very easily thus helping
students to finish their assignments much faster, and thus improving the students’
productivity. According to Linda Yackanic z (2000), after using the word processing,
students were able to focus on what they were writing rather than in how they were
writing, thus writing more and better. “We know that students write better and learn to
write better with a word processor. Writing becomes a craft with this versatile tool” 32
Another reason why Word is so popular with te aching is that it is easy to
integrate. Documents can be designed in ve ry beautiful and attractive ways; they can
also be used as templates thus saving tim e and effort, providing consistency. One more
advantage that I have just br iefly mentioned above is the spell checking option in Word.
This is a great tool as students can check their spelling as well as the structure of their sentence before handing their works to the teacher. Another possible use of the spell
check is to give the students some texts co ntaining errors and ask them to correct the
text, while the spell check is turned off; then, after discussing the texts in pairs or
groups and deciding upon the errors, ask them to turn the spell check on to compare
their version with the one of the Word. Or you can design and print different kinds of
exercises and tests, a variety of worksheets th at your students can work with, or you can
simply involve them in different activities using the Word. Either way, using the word
processing can turn your activities in something fun while also helping students to achieve or improve certain skills, mainly communicative, integrative.

2.2.2. Desktop Publishing Programs
Another type of program used when you wa nt your students to produce even better
looking and publishable pieces of writing is the desktop publishing software. This is an
advanced version of word processing which has more features av ailable to help you
combine easier images with text, have spec ial text layout, magazine-style columns,
graphics, borders. Examples of such softwa re are Microsoft Publisher, Page Maker,
Print Shop Pro, QuarkXPress, and Adobe In Design. As these programs are specialized
in making page layout and design easier and more integrating with text and graphic,
42

they help students in creating at a totally new level of professiona lism, thus enriching
their learning experience, improving their creativity and motivation. The results can
sometimes be true pieces of art, convinci ng, concise and very well done, using varied
language and visual output to support the students’ thoughts.
Some ideas that come to my mind about using desktop publishing software are
asking students to make posters about a topic stud ied in class, or to create an ad for their
favourite product, cards for special occasion, personal portfolios and even newspapers
or entire magazine. For example, Adobe InDesign can be very useful for designing
magazines. A possible activity could be to ask your students de sign a cover for a
specialized magazine of fashion (if your lesson was about clothes, fashion and
appearances), or for an entertainment mag azine (if you have just covered a unit about
music, fashion and cinema). And since you have the cover done, why not ask them to
continue writing some articles for the magazine. Or in the same zone of activities you can give them some headlines, they can be taken from different kinds of
newspapers/magazines. The students discus s them in groups to decide what the
headlines could be about and then decide upon a cover showing those headlines, where
they contribute with pictures they have eith er taken themselves if it is a longer project,
or taken from the internet. While they exercise their creativity and imagination, they
also improve their language, and pay more a ttention and are more focused on what they
do, as they want everything to look profe ssional. They would not like to have a
beautifully designed “product” full of spelling, vocabulary or grammar errors. Or they
can create travel brochures, if you have studied a unit about traveling and visiting places
or make an invitation to a certain event, wh ich could be a starting point for a letter of
accepting the invitation. These were but a fe w suggestions of what can be done with
your students and the desktop publishing programs.

2.2.3. Multimedia Presentation Software

With the great advancement of technologies and their use in edu cation nowadays, there
is no wonder that we speak more and more about multimedia and multimedia software.
It is becoming quite rare to imagine working on the computer and not combining at least
43

two media in order to produce a language output. That is why such multimedia
presentation programs have become more a nd more used both by teachers and students.
This kind of program makes it possible fo r teacher and students to share ideas
and communicate through multimedia, as it is much easier to illustrate, demonstrate and
clarify information through the use of tec hnology. As Warlick says “We grew up where
information was best delivered on paper. Our children, on the other hand, are growing
in a world with not only pictures and words but where video and sound abound and
where increasingly we interact with the information that su rrounds us in ways that put
us in control of knowledge.”33
Examples of such presentation softwa re are Hyperstudio, Kid Pix, Harvard
Graphics and probably th e most commonly used PowerPoint , from the Microsoft
package.
As I have previously said multimedia is the integration of more than one
medium into a form of communication delivered or accessed through the computer.
Thus, usually multimedia can refer to a co mputer-assisted technology that integrates
various media- text, sound, video or graphics. The benefits of using multimedia technology in education, and more precise ly in teaching languages are multi-faceted.
First of all, media can be us ed as a perfect tool to pres ent the new information to the
students in a more enjoyable and effective way. As such a presentation appeals to more
senses, thus having a greater e ffect, being able to draw and hold the student s’ attention.
It provides instructional variations and it reduces the time needed for the
accomplishment of the objectives. Using such pr esentations, the teacher can pinpoint to
the most important parts in his/ her lessons, by using special effects, colouring, sound, animation and various graphics.
On the other hand, the students themselves can create such presentations to
report results of certain studies they did, to present personal or more specialized
opinions on different topics. Students get th e chance to learn language while designing
instruction, becoming active part of their own learning process. Since they are so
actively involved in the learning process, th ey develop their critica l thinking as well as
higher-level thinking skills; they become mo re conscious and responsible about their
learning and about the content of their work. At the same time using such presentation
tools to express their opinion, they become more organized, their communication gets
44

better as they learn to expre ss their thought in a cl earer, more concise way, focusing on
the main points only, and justifying and exemplifying their ideas.
What is also beneficial about such presentation programs is that being easy to
manipulate, all your students can participat e; they allow students to work either
individually or in groups and either at school or at home. Besides being a great tool that
helps the learning of the language, it fosters the students’ creativity and imagination and
their collaborative skills. While working on such a project students learn to listen to
others’ opinions, to state and justify a point of view, to work in a group, to learn to
accept others’ ideas as well, and not the least their aesthetic sense will develop.
Yet, despite all these obvious and alr eady acknowledged advantages, there can
be traps as well in using such multimedia presentation software. As a tool such a
program has great benefits as long as the teacher has thought well about the activity and
has designed and prepared a very well though t presentation. Otherw ise such activities,
either of presenting new material by the teacher, or creating presentations by students
can become very tiring, confusing and in the end the objectives of th e entire activity will
fail to be reached. Anot her trap of such prog rams is that the students tend to pay more
attention to the aspect of the presentation, rather than to its content. There are many
cases when students miss the main point of the activity, while their presentations look
spectacular. This situation could be avoided by carefully monitoring their working, by
guiding them every step of the way and ev en by presenting them some appropriate
examples. For example, a good way to go about it would be to give them a template of every slide they are asked to complete w ith information. Thus, they will be focused
much more on the content of their presenta tion; while searching for information on the
Internet to answer their requirements, they will not wander around but rather work very
efficiently to finali ze their presentation.
One last point that should be taken into consideration while working with
multimedia programs is that besides being a great visual guide and aid for the lesson
designed by teachers to help them reinforce th e main points, such presentations can be a
good way to assess your students. If assessing is to be taken into consideration, then
rubrics defining the expecta tions should be designed and shown and explained to the
students at the beginning of the assignment, not at the e nd. The rubric should be very
clear, mentioning each objective of the activity that will be assessed as well as the
different levels that are possi ble to be attained. Moreover, the rubric itself should be
45

focused on the important objectives of the le sson, rather that on grading the aspect of
the students’ presentation, which of course is an aspect to be taken into consideration as
well, but not as a priority.
As long as there is a clear and well desi gned rubric, and as long as the activities
involving multimedia presentation programs are very well thought and designed, and as
long as both parts involved (t eacher and students) can easily work with the program,
then the use of multimedia software becomes a great tool that c ontributes both to the
acquisition of language, and to the students’ becoming more responsible as well as
independent in their work.
The presentation programs are not the only ones that help you use multimedia in
class, though. There are a great variety of programs that can help you and the students in
working with images, sound, moving images (v ideo) and others. When you are working
on presentations most of the time, besides text, you use images, sound and even animation.
If you need to work with graphics – drawings, paintings, photographs- then you
need certain specialized programs to help you organize your files or manipulate them to
make them more appropriate for use. Am ong these graphic programs we can mention
Corel, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrato r, PaintShop Pro, Freehand, Fireworks and
even Paint from Windows. Why are these pr ograms so useful? Le t us suppose that you
want your students to make a presentation of their summer holiday; the output could be
a PowerPoint presentation or a poster for exam ple. Of course in a traditional way you
would ask them just to write some lines about what they have done and where they have
spent their holidays. Why not make it mo re appealing by introducing technology use?
They could come with personal photos from their holiday and they could work on those
(resizing, contrast, colouring, maybe even adding text on th em with explanations). The
same goes with images taken directly fr om the Internet that might need some
retouching, or they can even try their hand at illustrations (Adobe Illustrator) for
example for a greeting card, or for a more sp ecial presentation where they need certain
graphics.
Of course an English language course should also insist on the listening
comprehension of the students, which can be quite easily done by having them listen to as many authentic materials as possible. Still in the area of sound the students’
pronunciation is also important to improve not only at th e level of words, but also stress
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of the sentence, intonation. All this can be achieved by using special sound programs
and ideally a microphone. Among these progra ms I could mention Winamp, Windows
Media Player, if you only want your student s to listen for comprehension, and if you
also intend for your students to improve their pronunciation such programs as Sound
Forge, Cool Edit Pro or Audacity can be used.
Possible activities that can be done are having the students listen to an audio file
of a text read aloud, and then have them read the same thing and record themselves to
see the differences; or they can listen to the au dio material to complete some tasks- fill
in with the missing information, or use the in formation taken from the audio material to
write an article for example, or use a song as a point of departure for further activities.
They can even imagine interviews with famous local people, or famous artists,
musicians. In such an activit y, of course they need first to agree upon the questions, and
then write them down, have them answere d, and only after having everything gathered
in a recorded audio material. The po ssibilities are numerous, depending on the
objectives, on your students’ English skills, on their willingness and ability to work with such programs, on your computer skills as a teacher as well.
Other media that seem to attract students more and more are video , animations
and virtual worlds . Of course programs that allow you to work with such formats are
more complex, some of them almost impossi ble to decipher. Esp ecially video programs
can be successfully used in teaching English. There are plenty of videos that students
can watch for a general or more detailed und erstanding, videos that cover a wide range
of subjects. Some of them are artistic; others were specifically designed for educational
purposes; they can be used as a starter for a conversation activity, or for an essay. For watching such videos all you need is a program that can play videos- Windows Movie Player, VLC, Quick player etc. Of course when talking about videos, there is also the more creative side of the situation with the students involved in making their own
videos. With a bit of patience and explana tions the students might become “directors”
for their own movies. With a simple video cam era they can record themselves having an
interview, or playing some scene in a play, or while debati ng upon various topics.
Another example that comes to my mind w ould be linked to a unit about tourism, and
promoting your town. They could film some scenes depicting the most important parts
of the town. To the moving images they could add their ow n descriptions and
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explanation, their own script . In order to do that such programs as Windows Movie
Maker, Video Studio (Ulead), Adobe Premiere could be used.
As for animations, creating and working w ith them could be a lot of fun, even
though personally I think it is not worth the time and effort, as such programs could be
hard to manipulate, and as the gains ar e not that numerous. If your students are,
nevertheless, attracted to the idea of creating their own avat ars, or creating cartoons as
part of an activity and if they already have very good computer skills, then such
programs as Bryce, Cool 3-d, Animation Applet, 3d Max or Animation Master can help you with that. As for virtual world tools, I think the advantages are quite amazing. The students enter a world where they take on new identities, they get rid of inhibitions, and
fears of mistakes, because in that virtual world they are no longer students from the 12
th
grade for example, but maybe explorers, or hi storians, or librarians, or knights. Besides
becoming more free thanks to this newly assu med identity, the entire activity in such a
virtual world has a meaning: exploration, or interacting with some other characters, or with objects, while discovering the place. Su ch examples of Virtual World Tools are
Art of Illusion, CosmoWorlds, 3D Canvas Pro, Dune etc.
Finally there are also the so called media utilities which are special purpose
media tools that are used to create and c onvert media for e-lear ning. In other words
these are programs that allow you to capture screen shots or m oving pictures of the
computer screen. This is very useful when for example you want to create a tutorial
about a program, or to give some instructions to students. Programs used can be FullShot, HyperSnap_DX, SnagIt, or SnapzProX for screenshots, and for capturing moving images there are Camtasia, H yperCam, Windows Media Encoder, and
SnapzProX. Imagine you would like your studen ts to learn how to work with a new
program they have no idea about but which could be used by them in creating audio
files. You just access the program and m ove around a bit presenting the menu, the main
functions, showing them an example or two while all this is being recorded by the
screen capturing program. While you mo ve around into the program using a
microphone you also record your voice explaining your moves and actions. You can record like that many things that can be us ed every time you need them, thus saving the
time and effort it would take you to explain all over again. Moreover, having everything captured like that, students can practise in their own free time and how many times they
think it is necessary.
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2.2.4. Authoring Programs

According to Macmillan Dictionary online vers ion authoring software is “software used
for creating files that contain video, pictures, words and sound.”34 Indeed such
programs are of much help for the English teac hers as they offer the greatest flexibility
in using CALL. They sprang form the teachers’ need to diversify their class as well as
to find more and more efficient ways of teaching and assessing, need that came in
contradiction with the teachers’ not being specialized in programming. Such programs
are already delivered with many different activit ies all available for us e, and at the same
time they function like a sort of template where the teacher can insert his or her ideas to
best fit the lessons to be taught. These progr ams focus mainly on the functionality of the
soft, while the content can be decided by each individual teacher. If at the beginning of
their existence and use, the authoring pr ograms contained only te xt, now they have
evolved to answer the needs of today’s computerized and highly technological world, containing sound, images, vi deo, animations etc.
Authoring programs can help the teacher e ither to design an entire course (under
the form of a site for example), or separa te activities, like for example a multiple-choice
exercise, or a matching exercise, a fill-in exercise and so on; the variety is huge especially as there are many choices available for teachers in terms of format, layout
presentation, structure and even in terms of feedback. Thus , an audio stimulus could be
added to a text, or teachers can provide supplementary aid through images. The students
may be given more options before making a choice, and the correct answer can be a
single or a multiple one. The feedback is always immediate and it can vary. It can be a sound or a graphic indicating th e good or bad answer, it can ju st tell you the results, or
on the contrary it can take you back to try again.
There are numerous programs that help teachers design courses, activities,
programs that have evolved in the course of time into allowing teachers to create very
appealing and efficient activities. Proba bly the most popular and revolutionary
authoring tools are Authoware and Director from Adobe, mark et leaders at the moment.
Director is more sophisticated requiring th at its users have quite good computer skills
and was not designed specifically for language learning or any other subject, but it is
rather a generic system. Having a huge im pact on multimedia production, Authorware
has great flexibility and allows the crea tion of amazing presentations and learning
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programs. With this authoring program as well, you need quite good programming
skills as the more you want your designe d learning program to be complex and
professional looking, the more you need to kno w. Besides their complexity, these two
authoring programs offered by Adobe are quite expensive and thus less available for
many teachers and educational institutions.
Another such authoring program is Multimedia Authoring for Language
Teaching and Educational Development (MALTED) developed as a European Commission funded experiment. It was designed to offer teachers great authoring
possibilities for language learning as well as a collaborative approach to authoring for
language learning. It uses a huge dynamic and evolving data base of resources, and a
variety of templates for the exercises. Ther e is also a template for courseware that
allows the teacher to gather more materials and activities into a meaningful sequence to
make an entire course. As for options availa ble, the teacher can de cide upon the display
characteristics and upon the media objects he or she wants to introduce into the
course/exercise. Though as a project it was stopped in 2000, MALTED can still function as an open source freeware ( http://recursostic.educacion.es/malted/web/
.)
Others such programs are JClic ( http://clic.xtec.c at/en/index.htm ) which allows
you to design different kinds of activities- puzzles, associations of words or sentences, or between pictures and words, crosswor ds, identification activities, open-ended
answers, multiple choice, etc; ContentGenerator ( http://www.contentgenerator.net/
)- a
Flash-based tool used to generate different kinds of applications like quizzes or games;
TaskMagic ( http://www.mdlsoft.co.uk/index.html ), an easy-to-use licensed package
that helps teachers create va rious types of exercises (s ound matching, picture matching,
text matching, grid matching, short dialogue exercises, multiple choice and others);
Crossword Puzzle Maker ( http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/ ) or EclipseCrossword(
http://www.eclipsecrossword.com/ ) for creating puzzles.
Probably one of the most commonly us ed and popular authoring program is Hot
Potatoes created by Half-Baked Software. It is so used probably first of all because it is
a freeware, it is easy to use and it offers a ha ndful of types of exercises that can be very
useful for reinforcing and assessing language. The purpose of the Hot Potatoes is to
enable you to create interact ive Web-based teaching exercise s which can be delivered to
any Internet-connected computer equipped w ith a browser. The exercises use HTML
and JavaScript to implement their interac tivity, but you do not n eed to know anything
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about these languages in order to use the programs. All you need to do is enter the data
for your exercises (questions, answers, respons es etc.), and press a button. The program
will create the Web pages for you to be uploaded to the computer, or on the school
computers in the lab, or even on the Intern et, where can be accessed by your students.
Since it is a program that I use quite fr equently I am going to present here some
of its basic features , possible activities.

As it can be seen above from the main frame of Hot Potatoes 6, there 5 main
types of exercises available for creation as well as The Masher which basically builds a
sequence of exercises into an indexed unit. The following brief presentations are based on the Help section of the program.
– JQuiz- helps you create question-based quizzes. Feedback is provided both for
right answers and wrong answers. JQuiz can create four different types of question: multiple-choice, short-answer, hybrid (a s hort-answer question that turns into a
multiple-choice question after several attempts), and multi-select (in which the student has to choose several of a set of options, then check the choices).

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– The JCloze- creates gap-fill exercise s. Unlimited correct answers can be
specified for each gap, and the student can ask for a hint and see a le tter of the correct
answer. A specific clue can also be included for each gap. Automatic scoring is also
included. The program allows gapping of sel ected words, or the automatic gapping of
every nth word in a text.

– The JCross program creates crossword puzzles which can be completed online.
You can use a grid of virtually any size. As in JQuiz and JCloze, a hint button allows
the student to request a free letter if help is needed.
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– The JMix program creates jumbled-se ntence exercises. You can specify as
many different correct answers as you want , based on the words and punctuation in the
base sentence and a hint button prompts the student with the next correct word or
segment of the sentence if needed.

– The JMatch program creates matching or ordering exercises. A list of fixed
items appears on the left (these can be pictur es or text), with jumbled items on the right.
This can be used for matching vocabulary to pictures or translati ons, or for ordering
sentences to form a sequence or a conversation.
53

From the same software designers there is Quandary , which is an application for
creating Web-based Action Mazes. “An Action Maze is a kind of interactive case-study;
the user is presented with a situation, and a number of choices as to a course of action to
deal with it. On choosing one of the options, the resulting s ituation is then presented,
again with a set of options. Working thr ough this branching tree is like negotiating a
maze, hence the name Action Maze”.35 Action mazes can be used for many purposes,
including problem-solving, diagnosis, procedur al training, and survey s/questionnaires.

This type of activity can be done very nicely in pairs or a group, where the
students can discuss every choice given in order to solve the assignments. Besides
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fostering a lot of interactivity, a lot of speaking as well as being a good reading
comprehension input, this kind of activity can be a lot of fun for the students with
unexpected outcomes based on each of their choices. Expressing one’s choice and
supporting it with ideas are also deve loped through this kind of activity.
These were but a few more commonly and more accessible authoring programs
that can be used to enliven and diversify th e traditional way of teaching. The activities
designed can be part of fixing the new informa tion, or it can be part of an assessment, it
can be given to individual students, or they can work in groups/pairs, and they can be solved alone or part of a larger unit, off line or posted out there on the Internet (in a
weblog or a site for example.)

2.3. Internet in English Language Teaching

Besides multimedia and authoring tools, the In ternet can become integral part of the
English teaching- learning process. If in 2.1. above I have covered some aspects of the
Internet in relation to teachers’ developmen t, in the lines that follow I am going to
present certain aspects that I consider quite useful and worth notici ng about the Internet
in relation to our students and to what you and your students can do on the Internet.
I am going to start by stating the obvious about what a grea t and huge source of
inspiration and a great treasure of resources the Internet is. Teachers can involve their
students into plenty of activities handled on the plate of the Internet by their peers. All
you need is an Internet conn ection, a browser and good site- evaluation skills. In fact,
the latter are of paramount importance as the Internet ab ounds in such sites full of
exercises and activities. Unfortunately, not all are appropria tely done from a
pedagogical point of view, and even those that are well done, are not always suited to
ensure the reaching of the goals. That is why, as a teacher, you should be able to
identify the good sources for you lessons and moreover, you should be able to help
develop into your studen ts this skill of di scerning among the possible sources for their
research for school. For that, you can either take already designed site-evaluation grids
or you can design some yourself for you and your students. As initial activities together
with your students have some sites (bad a nd good examples) analyzed according to the
55

criteria from the grid. Let your student decide which of th e sites could be used as a
trustful resource or not.
Out of the many possibilities offered by the Internet I am going to pinpoint just a
few, that I have considered to be among the most important- collaborative sites,
weblogs, WebQuests, and e-portfolios.

2.3.1. WebQuests
WebQuest – “is an inquiry-oriented activity in whic h some or all of the information that
learners interact with come s from resources on the inte rnet, optionally supplemented
with videoconferencing.”
36 As a method it was first developed by Barnie Dodge in 1995
in his attempt to integrate the power of the web into student learni ng and since then it
has become so used that now it is consider ed one of the most popular Internet-based
instructional strategies. This strategy has six components: introduc tion, task, process,
resources, evaluation and conclusion.
The introduction is meant to raise the student’s interest, by presenting the topic
in an appealing way to the stude nts. It should either relate to their personal interest and
even personal experience, or it should be intriguing like if they were asked to solve
something important. The task is the most important part of this strategy, as it provides
a goal and focus for the students, wh ile encouraging learning beyond rote
comprehension. There are possible types of ta sks- persuasion task (when students have
to develop a case, based on their research an d present it to an audience- the issue of
Rosia Montana); design task (when students are asked to design a plan, or a product- the
dream holiday) and journalistic task (student s are asked to gather and organized fact
objectively like journalists).
During the third stage- the process , the development of the quest is minutely
described: how the students will be organized, the steps of the entire activity, the
answers and results expected, the form of th e outcome etc. This, I would say is again a
very important stage, because, if done well and in a very organized and detailed manner, it can actually ensure a good progress of the quest. Guidance on how to organize the
information you can give your students guiding questions, concept maps, diagrams worksheets, PowerPoint templates etc. In this same stage the students will be provided
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with the links necessary for the completion of each assignment of the quest. In the same
time they will be encouraged to search other sites as well if they wish to; otherwise all
they need is in the site links given by you. This is a good way to have everybody involved in the activity, even those that may not feel very comf ortable with surfing
around on the Internet, or those that are not really sure about the validity of the
information they find on certain sites.
A fourth stage would be the evaluation of the students’ work where the students
get the chance to present their work to their colleagues and these are evaluated based on a grid that was given and pres ented from the start. This grid could cover aspects like
accuracy of the information, involvement of the students, cooperation, artistic values,
range of vocabulary used, correct ness of grammar etc. In the final stage- the conclusion,
there is usually a discussion when teacher re minds the students about what they have
learned and they share their expe rience of solving the WebQuest.
Despite being a much used and useful language learning strategy based on the
internet, WebQuests are not very easy to design as they require quite a lot of time and effort at least at the beginning of the we bquest experience. Teachers need to become
familiar with the resources found online, and then they should have the resources in
their discipline organized into different ca tegories (project ideas, reference material,
searchable database and others). When deciding upon a topic fo r your WebQuest, one
should make sure it fits the curriculum, it fits the students’ age and interest as well and
it has quite a lot of coverage on the web. Ot herwise, you risk involving your students
into something tedious, even boring, someth ing that does not represent anything for
them and in the end something that just wasted time without helping them reach the
goals of that activity.

2.3.2. Weblogging

Weblogs came into use in 1997 as being, acco rding to Barger (2003), “a webpage where
a weblogger (sometimes called a blogger or a pre-surfer) “logs” all the other webpages
she finds interesting. The format is normally to add the newest entry at the top of the
page, so that repeat visitors can catch up by simply reading down the page until they
reach a link they saw on their last visit.”
37 Another possible definition given by D.
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Winer (2003) cited in the same Education and Technology- an Encyclopedia says that
“Weblogs are often updated sites that point to arti cles elsewhere on the web, often with
comments.” A blog is “a conti nual tour, with a human gu ide who you ge t to know.
There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also
camaraderie and politics between the people wh o run weblogs; they point to each other
in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.”38
In recent years there has been a real boom in the development of weblogs, as
more and more people have chosen to sh are their thoughts and pe rsonal experiences not
only with friends but with the entire Wo rld Wide Web. If in 2000 there were only
around 1000 blogs in 2002, that is
only 2 years later, there were more than 500,000 blogs and that number is conti nually increasing.
A reason for this increasing popularity is the easy-to-use blog
management tools and storage. If in the beginning creating and maintaining such a blog required
some notions of programming, now with the a rrival of Web 2.0 and w ith the apparition
of new technology, it has become very eas y and handy for almost everybody to start
their own blog.

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The above blogs were suggested by Graham Da vies in a list of other blogs, most
of them free and thus very accessi ble for the teaching of English.39
Nowadays blogs have become a personal writing space for many people, yet as
part of today’s Intern et, blogs can be used quite effici ently for educational purposes as
well. They are easily linked to form lear ning communities in case of school blogs for
example, they can be considered a digital portfolio of the student’s assignments and
achievement and they can also be used as an online portal to presen t lectures, to give
assignments to your student and other resourceful links, and also for them to post the
answers to the assignments and their comments.
Blogs are useful when you particularly try to attract your students in reading
comprehension activities as well as in writing activities, while interacting with each other. As a start you should probably ask them to write about themselves and to read what the others in class have written. Even though they do not write extensively their curiosity is provoked, so they are more motivat ed both to read in English and to produce
texts in English. Moreover as I have previ ously stated about a ny kind of publishing on
the Internet, knowing that what they produce can be viewed and read by anyone, makes
them more conscious about their writing in terms of vocabulary choice, of grammar and
style and makes them try really hard to present something worthwhile reading.
Other reasons why blogging has become such a great tool for ELT are that blogs
provide extra reading for the students, guide students to online res ources appropriate for
their age and level of Englis h, stimulate after- school disc ussion, encourage shy students
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to participate and increase th e sense of community in the cl ass while promoting critical
and analytical thinking, and cr eative, intui tive thinking.
A typical blog can combine text, images an d other links to ot her blogs, and other
media related to its topic, everything bei ng posted using a template that publishes your
article in a simple form (a title, a categor y, the body of the article and tags- words that
help in the search). Besides th e articles that you post, there can be links to other similar
or favourite blogs and even sites as well as links to the archive of your published posts.
Aaron Campbell (2003) identified three types of blogs in terms of their use with
EFL classroom learning: the tutor blog, the learner blog and the class blog. 40 The tutor
blog is run by the teacher and it has several purposes in mind- to give daily/weekly
reading practice to students, to promote exploration of E nglish websites, to encourage
online verbal exchange through comments they may leave, to provide class information
and to provide a list of link for further study. That is, the blog can be considered a
follow-up of the activities in class ha ving posts about homework assignments,
deadlines, and further explanat ions about a topic you consider needs more clarification
for example.
The second type of blog- the learner blog- is run by learners and can be best
used to improve writing and reading skills. As with the first type of blog, this one can be
used as a follow-up of a writi ng activity that took place in class. This gives more
independence as well as more responsibility to the students, as it is them who decide
what links they are going to pos t there and what resources they are going to use. It helps
them get better navigational skills while fostering their pers onal expression.
The last type of blog according to Cam pbell is the class blog; as its name
suggests it shows the collaborative effort of an entire class. It can evolve around a project that the entire class works on, project that would give the students opportunities
of research and writing practice, or it coul d contain discussions, messages, images and
links on a common theme the students have for homework.
The kind of blog you choose as a tool for your students depends on the goals
you have set for them during a course, and i rrespective of the type of blog you choose,
this interactive has its obvi ous advantages. Despite the possible drawbacks (unwanted
comments, errors that might appear in the ma terial if this is not checked beforehand,
lack of privacy as blogs are often public) st udents really like this way of expressing
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themselves. For them it is fun and creative as they can personalize the blog; at the same
time it really helps them become more confid ent about their writing and it excites their
curiosity. Of course in order to achieve that, the activ ities proposed through the blog
need to be interesting, to challenge their thinking ability an d to actively involve them in
something. Blogging is not about rote le arning, but about comprehension, about
exploration and production either individually or in groups.

2.3.3. Wikis

Another way of sharing information on th e Web or starting di scussions and other
interactive and communicative activities is to set up a wiki (word deriving from the
Hawaiian "wiki-wiki", meaning "quick".)41 The first wiki was designed in 1995 by
Ward Cunningham, who later even wrote a book about the topic together with Bo Leuf,
entitled “The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web” . As a definition a wiki is a
collaborative site, that is, it is a site that is open to editi ng by different users. As anyone
that has been granted access to them can cont ribute to their content, wiki sites are
considered collaborative, fostering interact ivity and communicative activities. In other
words, a wiki contains a list of interlinke d Web pages that can be contributed to and
edited by more people.
Its particular characteristic is that it lets anyone who accesses the wiki to add to
or edit its content; yet, If you do not inte nd to make your wiki public you can decide
upon a closed wiki to which only some people can have access either to read it or even
to modify its content. In a wiki you can also embed pictur es and video recordings and
even other types of information according to the wiki provider.
Commonly used wiki sites are:
– http://wiki.wetpaint.com/
– www.wikispaces.com ,www.wikidot.com ,
– http: //www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki ,

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There are obviously quite many reasons in favour of using wikis with your
students, as this is yet anot her way to involve them in the production of written English
that would go public. When writing for such a site you know it is no longer you and
your teacher that read that text , but your colleagues as well, a nd in case it is not a closed
wiki, others will read it as well. Wikis are a wonderful tool for students to work together
in producing good quality texts. Moreover, being a collaborative site it can be very
handy when you plan your activity to have different assi gnments given to your students,
when you want them to assume roles a nd deal with only certain aspects.
A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which pages can be
created and updated. This is, in fact, another reason to use wiki in the EFL class. You do
not need to know HTML language or to kno w much about the Internet and website
designing in order to be able to design very usef ul activities for your students, and your
students will feel very comforta ble not having to worry about how to make the pages of
the wiki. Thus, their only interest will be to focus on the assignments given. The
students can work on wikis in class, or at home, they ca n work individually or in
groups/pairs. The whole idea is that the fina l product is made up by the various puzzle
pieces that each student or group of students contributed with.
There are various activities that can be designed for collaborative sites, like for
example you can upload documents which need correcting or redrafting and ask students to try to improve them. This activity can be applied even in the case of texts
written by students themselves if they agree to that. Another possibility is to ask them to
write a story collaboratively. T hus having given them a fragment as a start, ask them in
turn or in groups to continue the story, by addi ng parts to it. This act ivity is particularly
useful as it does not improve only the writing skills of the students, but also their reading skills, as in order to contribute with their part, they will also have to read what
their colleagues have published on the page.
Another possibility is play with words, sentence structure or grammar a little bit
by asking the students to change the tense of the verbs in a st ory for example, or to add
adjectives to make a text mo re descriptive. If you want th em to get even more creative
you can ask them to insert a new character in the story or to give them a story without
an ending and ask them in groups to imagine a possible e nding. Then in groups they can
discuss the endings and choose the best one.
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There are times when your students get bor ed of working with texts like those
described above. In those situations it is best to give a greater purpose to the activities.
You can involve your students in webquests, previously presented, or you can consider your wiki as a sort of learning record which all the students could contribute to. This could be based around themes, having separate pages within each theme for vocabulary,
useful expressions, grammatical structures, or it could be based around grammar and
students could research and shar e what they know about various tenses and verb forms.
If you create an entire wiki around a topic, then you could post there together
with your students a variety of activities m eant both to help them acquire and improve
aspects of language in relation to that topic, as well as to serve as an opportunity for
them to express their opinions on it. The theme should vary a ccording to the age of your
students, in order to avoid thei r getting bored if the topic is under their age, or frustrated
if it is something very hard or not very appealing to them. For example if the students are 15-16 years old a topic like Traveling could be quite appealing for them while a
topic like Global warming could sound more interesting to your 18-19 year old
students.
Considered to be social software to ols characterizing Web 2.0, Wiki and other
social software like blogs enable people to collaborate and create and join online
communities. Both of them focus on au thentic communication by involving the
participants into task-based learning and communicative activities. As the lines above
have shown, the benefits of using social so ftware for language learning go even further
by providing new tools students can use to communicate. They promote not only social
networking, but also knowledge sharing an d creation that go beyond the walls of the
classroom, by giving the stude nts the opportunity to access, use and produce authentic
language in real-world contexts.

2.3.4. E-Portfolios

“An e-portfolio is a digitized collection of artifacts, includ ing demonstrations,
resources, and accomplishments that represent an individual, group, community,
organization, or institution. This collection can comprise text-based, graphic, or
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multimedia elements archived on a Web site or on other electronic media such as CD-
ROM or DVD”42 (Lorrenzo & Ittelson, 2005, p. 1). They can also be defined as
“personalized, Web-based collections of wor k, responses to work, and reflections that
are used to demonstrate key skills and accomplishments for a variety of contexts and time periods” (Lorrenzo & Ittelson, 2005, p. 3).
43
In terms of software that can be used to set up and maintain an e-portfolio, there
are several possibilities, some of which unfortunately are not very accessible because of
money cost, or because they require that the users know quite a lot of HTML language,
or programming. Instead of using such programs as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage, you can try and design e-portfolios for your students under the form of wikis or blogs.
E-portfolios encourage personal reflection which ultimately creates a meaningful
learning experience for the students. Moreover, such digital portfolios often involve the
exchange of ideas and feedback. Another a dvantage of using e-portfolios in teaching
languages, and any subject in f act is their dynamic nature. T hus, they are a great tool to
help students practise developing both thei r reading and their writing skills and
processes. If you ask your studen ts to write a story or an essay, they can easily rearrange
paragraphs, edit sentences or change words as long as they are working on the computer. It is much easier for them especia lly as they can also access all sorts of online
resources while they are working on their as signments. E-portfolios do a great job in
fostering learning in the English language cl assroom by encouraging st udents to practise
the language through very modern teaching methods and techniques.
Like with almost everything that I have already presented so far- wikis, blogs,
when e-portfolios are created, th ey are done with an audience in mind other than just the
teacher. If students are supported to collect their work in the form of an e-portfolio that
can be posted on the Internet, they will realize they have a real audience. In the case of e-portfolios, the students can put their work on the Internet, thus being accessed by
anyone who has an Internet connection. Thus their writing improves, as well as their reading and communicative skills. Once they published something, encourage them to
also go through their colleagues’ portfolios and leave comments . This can be the start of
a communicative process. Sugges tions and praise can follow, and thus the format and
the content of the e-portfolio can be in c onstant change and evolution. The original
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published form can change many times accordi ng to the colleagues’ and the teacher’s
suggestions.
An e-portfolio is like a paper-based foli o, but being digital, it has some extra
advantages. With an e-portfolio it is now so much easier to work on your materials-
editing, combining, reordering them, as I have already said, but even more, they offer a
great range of forms and contents, layouts both multimedia and text-based. You can
even use hyper linking to connect documents within the same e-portfolio, or to make
connections to external sites and pages. This helps the students to easier make
connections between different topics, fiel ds or experiences. And finally, since e-
portfolios can be stored either on the Internet, on a site, or on a CD-ROM for example, they can be accessed anytime and anywhere in the world, by anyone you share access
with.
Portfolios are a good tool in the English cl ass as it fosters refl ective and critical
thinking, peer and self-evalu ation. Since they rely so mu ch on multimedia tools, they
can have quite a diversified content, from text, to audio and gr aphic files and even
video. Students can have different learni ng styles and strategies, working with e-
portfolios can help each of th em to acquire the new information and skills in their own
way. Moreover, their purpose is not just to be a summative assessment tool, but also a
formative assessment tool. Since its creat ion takes time, re-editing, rethinking and
multiple changes, e-portfolios are not only about the final outcome, or the product, but also about the processes that le ad to that final product.
Some of the tools and stra tegies that have been sugge sted above and others will
be described in the next chap ter, where concrete examples are going to be given of
activities relying on the use of computer that were applied in class with various aims in
mind.
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CHAPTER III: USING TECHNOLO GY-ENHANCED ACTIVITIES
TO FACILITATE SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNING

The second chapter somehow bridged the first ve ry theoretical part of my paper to the
third which is meant to throw some more light into the use of computers for the English
class, as it tries to go beyond theoretical boundaries and it illustrates with concrete
examples some of the uses that I have f ound quite helpful throughout the years. In the
second part I have combined some theoreti cal aspects with sugge stions of possible
activities involving the us e of computers and the Internet, so that in the e nd it has turned
out to be half theoretical and half practical.
In this third chapter, as I have alread y stated, I am going to describe activities I
have done with my students, activities that involve the us e of the computer. Before
proceeding I might need to justify the choi ce of activities and programs I am going to
present in the next pages. My intention is to present various activities, programs and sites as they were
used by me with considerations about their usefulness and my stude nts’ reaction to and
involvement in them. As guiding line I would use Bloom’s taxonomy in presenting activities from low degrees of difficulty to ac tivities that require reflection, analytical
thinking, power of association and deduction, hence higher level of thinking. That is
some activities will evol ve around the idea of remembering and knowledge , others will
go one step up in Bloom’s pyramid, to understanding of the concepts, then application
of the concepts and notions. Analysis , synthesis/ creation should complete the list of
activities described.
Another point that I would like to state goes hand in hand with the idea
according to which computer is only a supplem entary tool, meant to add more substance
to the more traditional way of teaching. Si nce computer as a tool and Internet are
considered supplementary, rather than altern ative to traditional methods of teaching, it
comes natural to rather have se parate activities using technolo gy, as part of a larger unit.
You usually insert technology-based activities within larger units that combine so much
more than just you, your students and the screen in front of them. There can be activities
that are very short, like five or ten minutes; they can be used as a warmer activity, or as
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practice and fixation activity, or to finalize a unit. At the same time, according to the
software, or tools used, or to the site acc essed, such activities can evolve around a
grammar issue, or they can be used to improve a language skill, like for example reading comprehension, listening co mprehension and even writing.
Besides presenting these disparate activ ities that will cover reading skills,
writing and speaking skills as well as gramma r, I will also present an entire unit that
was extensively based on the use of computer technology, unit that comprises reading activities, writing activities as well as speaking activi
ties. 44

3.1 Input/ Receptive Language Skills and the Computer

There are two major input language skills that are necessary to be acquired by our
students- the listening comprehension and the reading comprehension. These two are
very useful, not only during the English class, but mostly for later in life. Whenever a
foreign language is needed, one should understand the message first, whether it is under
written or spoken form, before being able to interact. Being able to get the message
right is the first step in interacting with so meone; it is a necessary part of human
interaction which if done well, can favour th e second part, which is the production of
the messages.

3.1.1 Reading Comprehension Activities
At first sight our students in ge neral consider reading to be th e easiest part of learning a
language. This would be explained by the so called “comprehensible input”, that is you
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understand the message even though not all words are known to you. 45 And it indeed
happens to almost all of them, no matter wh at their level of E nglish is. Those that
usually have problems with English will unde rstand the message only partially, but still
they will get at least a part of it, while the others that have a bette r mastering of English,
will get the entire message ev en if there are unknown words and expressions in the text.
The situation described above is an a dvantage during the English classes as you
can involve your students in a variety of reading activities, either as separate activities,
or as part of a larger activity. Thus, the students will get the opportunity to learn the
language intuitively, while having a larger task in mind than just the reading and while doing something they can enjoy. Therefore, reading activities as such should always
lead to something else, they should help th em build something larger, being just first
steps in producing something afterwards with the information acquired during the
reading stage.
The reading comprehension skills are present in our National Curriculum and
are required at the exam of Baccalaureate, where the students are asked either to
understand the main ideas of a text, or to get certain very detailed answers starting from
the text. They also need to be able to make associations among various ideas as well as among various sources in order to solve a task and to understa nd points of view,
feelings expressed by the writers.
A first step, especially with younger learners is to help them understand the
structure of a sentence, the words that word s collocate. One might say this is rather
related to writing, but in fact I think th e way someone understands how sentences and
paragraphs are made has an impact bot h on his reading comprehension and on his
writing skills.
Activity 1
: Sequitur
o Aims: – to identify the different parts of speech of a sentence,
– to identify the place of diffe rent parts of speech in a sentence;
o Level: pre-intermediate;
o Timing: 10 minutes;
o Classroom layout: if it is the first time students do such an exercise, to reduce
stress and to foster collabor ation, the students will work in pairs; otherwise they
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can also work individually. In the e nd it depends on what you want the activity
to develop;
o Tool used: Sequitur, authoring tool by TexToys;
o Procedures:
– The students have already turned their computers on and guided by the teacher
they access a folder on the desktop,
– In order to avoid distraction, before accessing the Internet page in the folder, the
teacher explains the students that they are going to do an exercise to help them
better understand and later master the stru cture of a sentence and a paragraph.
She/He also insists on the importance of context and how important it is to pay
attention to how words go together to form sentences.
– After they open the file, the teacher reads aloud the requirements and asks a
student to say in his/her words what they have to do. If everything seems clear then,
the students proceed to solving the exerci se; otherwise the teacher explains once
again what they have to do. – At the end of the activity, the teacher asks a student to read the text once again and
the students and teacher briefly di scuss upon it – vocabulary and ideas.
– If there is also a projecto r at hand, the teacher “plays” the exercise once again, this
time a bit slower pausing for questions before every step of the activity:
T: Ok, can anyone tell my which part is the first here? How do we start?
S: I think that “Kites have been part of many” because it starts with a
capital letter.
T: Very good, X!
T: Now, who can tell me, what could follow after many
? Many what?
Many …? And then elicits some possible answers from students.
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– Teacher and students go through the entire exercise like that, with teacher
insisting on collocations, what can go with what, as well as on the structure of the
sentence. Questions as Which is the subject of the sentence? Who does the action? What
are we talking about? or Where is the subject in the sentence? and others can follow.
This is a good exercise especially for improving the comprehension of instructions, giving directions or any other text that has a logi cal sequence. In spite of its
appearing quite simple, this type of exercise can be adapted to various levels of English, depending on the text chosen by the teacher. Th e downside of this ve ry helpful tool is
that unless you have paid and registered, there is a limit to the length of the text used.
Otherwise, this type of exercise is both eas y to design and enjoya ble for the students.
Another possible situation related to using this type of activ ity is in a totally different
context. You tell the students that a very complicated device has been found and they
are given some instructions to make it work; any wrong choice can trigger a bad
reaction from the device, so they have to pa y extra attention to their answers. Or to
make it even more competitive, there can be a contest between teams about which one
finishes the instructions the quickest.
Activity 2:
Rhubarb
The second activity is designe d through another authoring to ol by TexToys- Rhubarb; it
is similar with the first one with just a bit of variation. Moreover this exercise can be
used as well to enhance the vocabulary just ac quired, as I will descri be a little bit later.
o Aims: – to identify different parts of a sentence
– to complete a text with missing words according to the context.
o Level: intermediate
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o Timing: 15 minutes
o Classroom layout: Even if it could turn a fairly noisy activity, it is better for
students to be working in pairs. They are required to complete a cloze
text, thus to make predictions a nd guesses about the text is about.
o Tool used: Rhubarb, au thoring tool by TexToys;
o Procedures:
– As with the previous activity, the teacher briefly explains to the students that they
are going to “play” with words in sentences . With the computers on and the files open,
while the students are watchi ng the teacher tells them what they are supposed to do:
“You are presented with a text in which some of the words have been
replaced by stars; punctuation remaining intact. What you have to do is to guess
the words of the text one by one, by typing them in a box and pressing a button (or the RETURN key). If the word entered is in the text, all instances of it will
appear, replacing the stars, in the displayed text. Gradually, you can build up the text, word by word, until it is complete. “
It should be mentioned here that the teach er can decide if she or he keeps any of
the words of the text at sight or not. I thi nk the latter is better, the student being given
certain clues to really help him see meaning in context; otherwise the activity turns into
some awkward noisy activity that fails its purpose.

– the students work together to try to guess the missing lette rs and words. If
similar exercises have been done before the program remembers previously used
words and gives suggestions.
– while the students are worki ng, guide their guessing through different
questions: Ok, your sentence starts with a word followed by Internet , what can
come before? You have United with capital letter, what can come after? and so on.
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– as a follow-up activity, this text can be the basis for a conversation about
Internet in their lives, the importance of the Internet and what they use it for.
A variation of this exercise would be to remove a certain category of words
only, like for example adjectives, or verbs or adverbs. Like that, the focus is on the
position of words within a sentence and with much practice they will know without rote
learning that in English adjectives genera lly come before the noun, that a sentence
usually starts with its subject and so on.
As with the previous activity, the version of Rhubarb that I have used is not a
registered one, so again there is that limitation in the length of the text. This can be quite
annoying, but if you put this tool to use for younger learner it can work wonders.
Besides, you can deal with the separate paragraphs of a text, having your students
discover each paragraph at a time and then ask them to decide upon the order of the paragraphs to make the entire text. This can go in the case of Sequitur as well.

Activity 3:
Crazy writings
With this activity we are still in the range of identifying parts of a sentence. I have to
justify why I consider this to be a ma tter worthwhile insisting on. Many times it
happened to my students not to be able to r ecognize important parts of a sentence. Most
of them have already forgotten the notions from Romanian grammar so they find it
difficult to recognize the subject of a sentence, or where an adverb of manner should be
placed for example. So it has happened to ask th em what the verb of a sentence is or to
underline the adjectives of a sentence and they found it hard. At first sight this could be
related to grammar, but it is not only grammar that is at stak e here. In fact all aspects of
language are so intermingled that you cannot talk about one aspect without bringing into discussion others. So talking about functions of words in a sentence is grammar but is
also reading comprehension at first level of reading, as you have to know how words
concatenate in a sentence to grasp its meaning.
o Aims: – to identify different parts of a sentence.
– to identify different functions of words (a noun can express a person,
an object, or a place; an adjective can refer to what kind or how many;
adverbs refer to how, when, where and how often etc)
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– to foster creativity
– to foster reading for pleasure – to foster interactivity and speaking
o Level: pre-intermediate
o Timing: 20 minutes
o Classroom layout: first individually, then in groups
o Tools used: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
– Wacky Web Tales
o Procedures:
– Students are instructed to go to http://www.eduplace.com/tales/ ; the teacher
explains to them wacky means (foolish in informal and slang language) and why the
site is called Wacky Web Tales.
– before proceeding to
the actual activity, the students and teacher access a link they find on the first page
http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
, that sends them to further explanations about the
different parts of speech. Together with the students you go through the information
on the page, telling the students that they can return to it at any time during the
activity if they feel the need.
73

– then coming back to the first page you instruct your students to click on the link A
crazy night at the library ; a new page appears where the students have to introduce
certain words as asked.
The teacher asks questions to make sure they know what to do. They go through all
the words required just orally and briefly, w ith teacher eliciting an example from the
students for each line of the exercise;
– during this stage the teacher walks around and gives further suggestions or
explanations if needed.
– before the students hit the button See your Wacky We b Tale, which would take
them to a page displaying a story containi ng the words they chose, they verify the
words inserted once again;

– after hitting the button, this takes them to their story which can then be copied into
a word document and printed.
– a discussion can follow, with students r eading various stories and then talking
about them.
– there can even be a contest, where all st ories are entries and students decide which
turned out to be the f unniest, or the strangest.
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This kind of activity is very entert aining helping students acquire important
skills and knowledge of language, yet wit hout feeling the pres sure of learning
notions related to grammar or sentence structure by heart. Besides, the product
obtained can become good starters for conve rsation in class, as well as for writing
activities. If you want to ta ke your activity to a higher le vel, your students can even
decide to print a booklet containing their stories. This activity can be much fun,
especially as you allow your students to ha ndle the layout and th e graphics of the
booklet as well.
Thus, an apparently simple activity of identification of elements in a
sentence can lead to more complex activities involving higher thinking skills. The
students can be the judges of their own stor ies; they improve their analytical as well
as their argumentative skills. Even better, in a world where having computer skills is necessary, they can evolve beyond simple editing word documents to more complex operations with graphics , publishing tools.

Activity 4
: Canine schools
The 4th activity that I propose involves students in to reading a text, which can vary in
terms of length and difficulty, in order to look for certain precise information, in other
words it is an activity of scanning for precise information. Of course such an activ ity can be very well done on paper, however with Kubbu,
a tool that I am using for th is activity, there are obvious advantages. Kubbu is a site you
can access at www.kubbu.com
that offers teachers the possibility to create various types
of exercises and to administer exercises and tests to their students. The great thing about
this site is the easiness with which activitie s can be created both as separate units, but
also as part of a sequence of exercises; then once you have designed an activity it will
be there at your disposal, you can use it a ny time with your students. Moreover, once
you have created accounts for your students, th eir answers and results will be stored for
a month in case you have a free account. Like that you can compare the students’
evolution in time, after repeating for exampl e the same kind of activity several times.
More will be said about this site, as it will be used more times for other types of activities as well.
o Aims: – to read for specific information- scanning
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– to read for a general understanding of the text
– to foster conversation
– to make students aware of the role pets (dogs) can have in helping the
disabled.
o Level: intermediate/ upper-intermediate
o Timing: 15 minutes
o Classroom layout: each student sits in front of a computer in the first part, then
they work in groups and the interact ion will be both teacher-students and
students-students.
o Tools used: www.kubbu.com
o Procedures:
– teacher and students have a brief discussion about the pr evious lesson- Pets from
Mission II, and the teacher informs the students they are going to read another text
about dogs this time and that they have some multiple choice questions to do below
the text. The teacher tells them they have 10 minutes for this scanning activity. Moreover she reminds them this is not a test and that the results are useful to show their position and their evolut ion in terms of reading skil ls, so talking with their
colleagues is not helpful in the long run.
– while the students read the text and answ er the questions, the teacher walks around
in order to prevent students’ tendency to talk.

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– after the students finish answering the questions, or after the time is up, they click
the button I have finished which takes them to the results page. Even if most of the
answers were wrong the message the student gets is not very critical, but rather tries
to encourage the student to try and do better next time. On the results page, there is a link to another page where you can s ee which the right answers were.
– after all students have seen what the an swers were and what their result was, the
teacher discusses all the questions with some of the students a lit tle bit, thus making
sure that students do not ju st accept an answer given by the computer, but that they
also understand why a certain questi on has that particular answer.
– this activity can be followed by discussi ons about the important role that certain
pets can have in helping to alleviate peopl e’s trauma, physical and mental disease as
well as disabilities.

Activity 5
: Donating Houses to the Community Instead of Demolition
This activity is a little more complex, comprising various stages- from simple to
complex, from understanding words in a context to understanding the meaning of a text.
As source of inspiration for this activity I have used the site
http://literacynet.org/ , a site supported by CNN which offe rs for educational use a series
of stories based on news items and articles. The stories have two forms: abridged and
full length. What is great about this site is th at they have the article followed by a series
of activities from vocabulary, word se lection, multiple choice, sequencing and
conclusion activities. Moreover the storie s are categorized into various groups; you
have stories related to education, sc ience and technology, ad venture, crime,
environment, health and others.
o Aims: – to identify the meaning of words according to context,
– to identify the globa l meaning of a text,
– to identify particular details from a text
– to retell in their own words the content of a text
– to foster communication;
o Level: upper-intermediate;
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o Timing: 45 minutes
o Classroom layout: pair and group wo rk, teacher- students layout
o Tools and materials: http://literacynet.org/cnnsf/houses/home.html , the
computer;
o Procedures:
– the students access the site indicated by the teacher, where they go to the full length
story- Donating Houses to the Comm unity Instead of Demolition, a student reads the
story loud while his/her colleague silen tly read the text from the screen.
– the teacher tells the students that a seri es of activities will follow, based on the text-
vocabulary and ideas expressed and that they have the instruction for each exercise
clearly stated on top of each page:

– the students start with a multiple-choice exercise checking their understanding of
words from the text. This exercise is done in pairs, or individually. If it is done in
groups there are higher chances that someone knows the answers so the exercise would
fail to really show how much is known by all the students. If it is done individually or in
pairs, the teacher sees easier who needs more reinforcement with some of the words. At
the end of the activity, the an swers are checked orally, a nd if there are wrong answers
given by students, the teacher elicits explanat ions first from students and then if no one
is able to provide, she provides the explanations.
– the next activity evolves around some words selected from the text; again meaning
within a context is in mind, as well as particul ar details from the text. As in the previous
stage at the end of the exercise the teacher checks the comprehension and the answers of
the students. This activity is done in pairs as well, but the pairs are different from the
previous activity.
– the third stage checks the global understa nding of the text, with multiple choice
questions. It is an activity that is done in groups, so that they can discuss the questions
among them in order to choose the right answ er. After the activity is done, the teacher
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elicits the answers from differe nt groups and then together with the students discusses
their answers and guides them through prom pts to the correct version, in case of
mistakes.
– a sequencing activity follows, with students being required to put some ideas in the
order they appeared in the text. Again they can work in groups to discuss their choice.
The answers are orally checked; no further discussion is required at this level of
activity, as it is quite self-explanatory. – a conclusion activity follows based on a few questions that require a higher degree of
understanding. It can be done directly orally with teacher just as king the questions and
eliciting the answers from the students, or it can be done as the previous exercises-
using the multiple choice version provided by the site. – as a follow-up activity, or homework the students are required to write their own
opinion on two questions:
1. What are other ways more affordable housing can be avail able for the needy?
2. Is it the government’s responsibility to provide suitable housing for all? Why?
Since their answers will be published on the site below the requirements, you
advise them to pay extra attention to their choice of words, to check their grammar and
sentence structure, to be concise, clear. The answers expected for these two questions do
not depend entirely on the comprehension of the text, but rather on the students’ high-
level thinking skills; they are expected to come up with their own opinions, examples or
arguments.
Many of these activities could have been done on paper as well. Why the choice
of computer then? There are various reasons for my choice of technology. First of all
because this site, and there are probably others similar as well, offers well structured
units of lesson focusing on reading comprehension and fostering speaking as well. There are ready made texts and exercises th at were created for educational purposes.
Moreover, since the sources of the texts ar e pieces of news that were published
or broadcast, you have authentic materials. Another reason is the immediateness of the
feedback the students get afte r each activity. It is a good way to have all students’
answers checked at the same time and it is also environmentally friendly and it saves
both money and time to prepare the handouts. Just think how much amount of paper
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would have been needed to print the text fo r all students and then to print the exercises
as well. Even more than that students seem to work better while on computer, as they
feel somehow less threatened by it than by a piece of paper with a lot of activities to do
in front of them; this is probably because on the computer they are confronted with
doing the exercises gradually, step by step as they are presented on different web pages.
Before going to the next activity I would like to point out that this type of
exercise can be done by teachers as well with a little variation. You can print the text
and then make the exercises in Hot Potatoes for your students to solve. Like that with
some research, teachers can creat e reading activities in relation to various topics that are
in the curriculum.
When talking about reading sk ills there is another very important aspect to take
into account: the students’ prediction. What does a title or an image tell you? What should we expect to find in a text? Exerci sing their prediction skill s is very important
for their reading skills, as it already gives them an approximate idea about what to expect. Through discussions in groups and then with the entire class about their
predictions, their reading will be focused, guided. It is a good way to avoid their being confronted too sudden with certain texts before being a bit familiarized with the topic first.

Activity 6
: Predictions
o Aims: – to predict the topic of a text
– to identify the global meaning of a text
– to express one’s point of view – to foster speaking
o Level: intermediate/ upper-intermediate
o Timing: 20 minutes
o Classroom layout: teacher-students
o Tools: computer, PowerPoi nt presentation, projector
o Procedures:
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– the teacher prepares a PowerPoint presentati on with a few slides containing an article.
Through its functions and tools, this program allows the t eacher to place the title and the
different paragraphs of the article in a se quence. Unlike a printe d article where you see
both the headline and the story in the same place, with PowerPoint you can actually
decide to reveal the headline first and then the article, all with a simple click of the
mouse. In case you want to make things even more interesting you can decide to reveal
the article paragraph by pa ragraph, thus involving the students into even more
prediction practicing.
– the first slide appears on the wall; it contains a title- Girl’s Diary Tells Story of War –
and an image only. 46

The teacher elicits guesses and predictions from the students: OK, can anyone tell what
the title means? What could this refer to? Now let’s take a look at the picture? What do
you see? What kind of war do you think th e story is about? Is it something that
happened long time ago, or do you think it is something more recent?
– after hearing their opinions, th e teacher clicks for the next slide where the students see
just the first paragraph of the article. Th en with another clic k a second paragraph
appears and so on. Before revealing the next paragraph the teacher asks questions to
guide their predictions.
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– as a follow-up activity the students are required to write a page diary about a day
during the Sarajevo war.
This kind of exercise can be done with newspaper headlines you see on the
internet, or with images repres enting various aspects of life. In this respect the internet
is a great source as you can find thousands of pictures in great quality and size that you
can just share with your students by one click of the mouse. Using the computer makes
it easier for you to either project the picture for all your students to see it in large size
and then start a conversation a bout it, or they can see it in the screen a nd then do an
activity upon it.
Activity 7:
Reading comprehension and deci sion making- The Action Maze
The Action Maze is “an application for cr eating Web-based Action Mazes. An Action
Maze is a kind of interactive case-study; the user is presented with a situation, and a
number of choices as to a course of acti on to deal with it. On choosing one of the
options, the resulting situation is then pres ented, again with a se t of options. Working
through this branching tree is like negot iating a maze, hence the name "Action
Maze".”47 This activity involves reading skills as well as a lot of sp eaking, which makes
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it really useful. Moreover it is a fun activity students communicate a lot, read and enjoy
themselves while doing that.
o Aims: – to foster reading skills,
– to foster problem solving,
– to foster critical thinking, – to improve decision making,
– to provide speak ing opportunities;
o Levels: pre- intermediate; intermediate
o Timing: up to 45 minutes;
o Classroom layout: groups;
o Tools: Quandary- the Action Maze
o Procedures:
– The students are introduced to the Action Ma ze, they are told that each time they are
presented with a situation they are give two or three choices and depending on their
choice they are led to a different situation until the end. Stud ents should be also warned
that depending on their choices they might find the way out of the maze, or they might
get to a dead end, hence forced to start all over again.

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– in groups students discuss each choice they ha ve at any given situation and they make
a decision.

The activity depends on the time it takes the students to get to the end of the
story and on their succeeding or not to get out of the maze. Some of them might need to
start the activity once again, so it is better to allocate quite a lot of time from the start.
During the activity the teacher move s around to give advice or more
clarifications if needed. More over online dictionaries are av ailable for students if they
need to clarify the meaning of certain words from the text.
Variations of this activity could be to give different mazes to different groups
then have them share their e xperience and story with the re st of the class, or you can
have a competition- all groups get the same maze but the group that manages to solve
the puzzle first is declared the winner. Of course this kind of activity can be adapted to
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fit to different levels of English as well as to different topics. It can be even used for
problem-solving, diagnosis, procedural training, and surveys/questionnaires.

Activity 8 : An Ideal Home for an Ideal Holiday
This activity is meant to reduce a tendency I have noticed with my students; I am sure it
is not a singular case, unfortunately. When ever they are asked to collect some
information for a subsequent task they tend to get lost inside the information jungle and
no matter how little information is required fr om them, they will come up with entire
copy-pasted pages.
In order to prevent such situations gui ded reading should be applied, that is
students should be given precise worksheets to work with, so that they look for precise
information only. Of course when they read something they more or less get the general
idea about that text, but they do not have that filtering judgment to help them get just the essential or what was requested from th em. If the teacher gives them some precise
guiding lines, after the reading activity they have just the pieces of information needed
for the follow-up activities.
o Aims: – to read for precise information, scanning
– to describe houses
– to express one’s point of view and bring arguments to sustain it
– to foster communication
o Level: intermediate
o Timing: 45 minutes
o Classroom layout: in groups
o Tools: an Internet site http://www.forgottenhouses.co.uk/index.html
, computer,
worksheets
o Procedures:
– this reading activity comes after the lesson Going Underground (Mission 2) and is
reinforcing vocabulary related to houses, different types of houses and words to
describe houses. To make th e reading activity more meani ngful the teacher tells the
students that she would like to spend two weeks in Cornwall. She tells them the
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maximum of money she is willing to spe nd for her holiday there is £ 400-500 per
week. She needs the students to look for th e best offer within that range of money.
– after the teacher has explained the situ ation to the students, she gives them a
worksheet that they will have to complete with some information about the kind of
house, the location, facilitie s available and others.
– what students have to do is not only to go through some pages of information but
they also have to find the best choice. Thus, in their groups students discuss and
agree upon the same house, and then they fill-in the chart with the required
information.
– They report to the teacher their choice with reasons why they have chosen that
particular house. After each group has pr esented their choices, there follow some
supplementary questions from the teacher to find out more details about the houses
and to provoke them to speak. – as a continuation of this activity, rath er as a homework, students will access the
same site this time choosing their dream holiday location, irresp ective of money but
just following their preference. When back to school, they will present their dream
holiday house.
This activity can be done on various topics like holiday destinations, or places to
visit and things to do in a certain location, etc.

3.1.2. Listening Comprehension Activities
This is the second input skill of param ount importance for a better mastering of
language and for a better understanding of a message. As with reading above, in order
to motivate students to be better listeners, the activities involvi ng listening should be
just first stages of a larger task, hence giving a meaningful expe rience and purpose to
the students’ education.
As easy as it may seem it is not always very handy to invol ve students into
listening activities. The lack of listening devices or of sound systems on the computers
can sometimes prevent such practice. Moreover, even though our students are
“exposed” to English language almost daily through films or videos that they watch
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either on television or on th e Internet, some of them do not s e e m t o h a v e t h i s a s a n
advantage on their side. Why is that? The si mplest explanation is that most of their
listening experiences coincide with watching experiences. Very rarely they have the
opportunity to just listen to a message wit hout any visual input. So in time they have
become quite accustomed to get the message they hear, as long as they also have a
visual aid, like a film or a video.
This situation explains why sometimes when they need to listen for specific or
general information in a classroom environmen t, without visual aids, many of them feel
confused and lost and fail to grasp the m eaning of the audio. Another explanation for
their reluctance and hesitation would be some students’ inability to make the connection
between the written word and its sound. It happened many times, unfortunately to hear a
student say that he/she did not know what a certain written word meant, and then when I
pronounced the word he/she immediately kne w what it meant; or the other possible
situation to listen to something and say they do not understand but then when they see
the words as well, it all becomes clear to them. Without my intention being to point
fingers to anyone I would dare say that unfortunately our students are accustomed to
rely on the written text too much; possible causes are the ones previously mentioned
with the lack of audio devices, as well as a too much relying on written materials.
What students should do is avoid being panicked as they see they do not
understand what they are listening to. They should be told they do not have to
understand everything from the start. Listen ing well takes time a nd practice, so they
should try doing that or you as teacher should expose them to listening experiences. On
the other hand, at least for the beginning, the audio input should not be long, as it could
become tiring as well as frustrating for them. It is better to have shorter but more numerous episodes of listening, than try to ex pose students to long listening activities
that would eventually give them a sense of uselessness.
In order to help students overcome this hesitation they have with listening
materials I have designed certain activities that have been used in class or can be used
with students. Some of them may seem simplis tic, but I think that starting from simple
is the best way to get to more complex and high quality situations.

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Activity 1: London
o Aims: – to identify the sound of written words
– to discuss about cultural aspects of London
– to identify various places and monuments in London
o Level: intermediate
o Timing: 50 minutes
o Classroom layout: individually, pair work
o Tools: Winamp mp3 player, computer , worksheets, Audacity, London, Oxford
Bookworms Factfiles48
o Procedures:
– there is a pre-listening stage with t eacher initiating a dialogue about London.
Questions like: Do you know where London is? Or what can you tell me about London?
Can anyone tell me at least one place or monument that you can visit there? and others.
While students give some answers the teacher writes some key words on the
blackboard. This pre-listening predictive activity has the role to introduce the students into the listening experience and to tune them somehow to the topic.
– the teacher gives the students a sheet c ontaining a text about London and tells them
they are going to listen to the same text bei ng read. This is helpful for them as it helps
them make the connection between written fo rm and sound. The audio text is played
two times with students following the text on paper during the first listening, and
without printed aid for the second listening.
– after the listening stage, there follows a discussion between teacher and students
regarding the text about London with quite general questions: Can anyone tell me
something they found out from the text? C an anyone name a park you can go to in
London? etc.
– the teacher divides the class in groups that will discuss a certain topic about London;
one group will talk about transportation and eating out in London, another about things
you can visit in London, like museums and othe r interesting places, a third one will deal
with family places and going out and anothe r one with shopping. On their worksheets
the students will discuss and comple te with the required information.
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– after they have completed their individual sheets, all groups briefly present their
information to the rest of the class, so that in the end everyone has completed the
worksheet.
As a follow up activity next time, the students will listen to another audio file
this time about city transportation and do some listening comprehension exercises.

Activity 2 : Transport
o Aims: – listening for locations
– listening for numbers
– listening for details
o Level: intermediate
o Timing: 50 minutes
o Classroom layout: pair work, individual work
o Tools: computer/ cd player, worksheets, Developing Tactics for Listening49
o Procedures:
– the teacher reminds the students that last time they discussed London and that
transportation is quite an important aspect when visiti ng London and any place for that
matter. So you tell your student s the activities that follow are based on listening and are
about transportation. Students are given a que stionnaire that they are going to discuss
and answer with their colleague.
– as a second activity, students listen to an audio and number some pictures
according to the listening material. This ex ercise is meant to foster the general
understanding of a message, by relying on previous knowledge. Students rely on words
they know, or on sound effects they hear in the background to deal more easily with the
task.
– a third activity is of the true-false t ype, with the students listening to a dialogue
between a taxi service and a client. There is also a sec ond listening of the same audio to
listen for numbers.
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– the next activity is a multiple-choice exercise with the students listening to another
audio. The file is about taxis and conditions offered by taxis. This activity is meant to
foster listening for specific details.
– a last activity involves speaking as stude nts will discuss in pairs about the means
of transportation they use, about their favourite means of transp ort with reasons why.

Activity 3 : What’s in the world today?
This third activity is rather meant as a tutorial about how to use a text-to-speech
program, such as TextAloud . Why is it useful for students to be able to master such a
program? The voices used by the program ar e considered natural voices, yet there
should be mentioned that they, unfortunate ly, sound pretty unnatural. The advantage
though is that such a program is helpful for st udents as they can practically turn any text
into sound. Such a program, thus, could have a benefic effect both on the students’
listening skills as they can actually produce their own listening material at any time, and
on their pronunciation.
o Aims: – to introduce students to a text-to-speech software,
– to prepare a short audio material,
– to discuss news, – to present news,
o Level: pre-intermediate- advanced;
o Timing: 45 minutes (installation of the program included);
o Classroom layout: frontal, with teac her showing them on the projector
o Tools: projector, computer, TextAloud
o Procedures:
– The teacher plays a short audio material for her students, and then she explains
them that each of them could create such material once th ey have the necessary tools
and a written text.
– the teacher downloads the trial versi on of the program TextAloud from the site
http://www.nextup.com/
, then she installs it on the co mputer. She explains the students
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while showing that basically all they have to do is to follow the installation instructions.
This program, once installed supports various voi ces that need to be installed separately,
so the teacher installs one voice- Crystal, again showing the student s all the steps, and
then she starts the program.

– the teacher shows and explains the steps to produce an audio material starting from a
text. She tells the students that they can either write the text directly into the work
window, or they copy-paste a text there. Then with the cursor placed at the beginning of
the text you click on the Speak icon on top.
– the program starts playing your text and according to what you hear you can modify
some settings related to speed and pitch. You can also change the tile of your audio file at article list . If you are satisfied with what you hear, then you click on the To File icon
and your file is saved to a defa ult location. The file obtained is an mp3 file so it can be
easily played on any kind of player.
– the next stage of this activity is for the students themselves to try to work with the
program. The teacher tells them she would lik e to listen to a piece of today’s news. As
suggestions she gives the st udents a couple of links ( http://edition.cnn.com/
,
http://www.foxnews.com/ ) where they could find news and tells them to take a piece of
news from the site and turn it into a sound. As guiding lines the teacher tells them to
look for shorter pieces of news, as their materi al will form an entire news report at the
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end, containing the most important news of the day/ week. The assembling part can be
done during the next class.
Activity 4:
My movie guide
Besides listening to audi o files, another way to improve the students’ listening skills is
to provide video input during th e classes as well. What better source of listening to use
than fragments from films or film trailers? There are several reasons why such video
files would be even more efficient while working on the students’ listening skills.
First of all, we all know how popular films are especially with teenagers and
young people. Then trailers present visual cont ext in which the dial ogue takes place, we
have action accompanying speech as well as ge stures, facial expressions and other body
language to support the script. Ot her reasons for using trailers in class are that many of
them are available for free on the Intern et and they have very good image quality.
o Aims:- to listen for general understanding of the message
– to take notes as they listen – to reinforce words related to films and types of films – to identify the main aspects related to a film – to talk about films
o Level: advanced
o Timing: 40 minutes
o Classroom layout: individual, in groups
o Tools: computers, QuickTime player, http://trailers.apple.com/
, Internet,
worksheets,
o Procedures:
– The teacher starts a conversat ion with the students about what type of film they enjoy
watching just to make them think about movi es in general. Before doing the actual
activity the teacher writes some basic vocabulary related to film industry on the
blackboard (trailer; exclusive; plot/ story; genre- drama, comedy, suspense, thriller,
horror, love story; cast; director; rating.) While writing these words on the blackboard
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the teacher elicits their explanation/ translation from the students to make sure
everybody knows them.
– the teacher gives the students a hand-out with some que stions and guide them to
access a website link http://trailers.apple.com/ , where each of them will choose a trailer
they seem to like. They will watch their tr ailers individually and then will answer the
six questions on the hand-out. 1. What movie did you choose? 2. Why did you choose this trailer? 3. Who are the actors and actresses in the movie? Who is the director? 4. What did you like/ di slike about the trailer?
5. Give the outline of the movie after watching the trailer once again, if it is not very
clear, describe what the trailer showed
6. Would you recommend it to your friends? What about your parents? Why? Why not ?
If there are more people that have chosen the same trailer, this activity can be
done in groups as well. After they have th eir answers ready a pr esentation stage can
follow with students presenting their chosen film.
– as a follow-up activity, based on the informa tion the students gathered after watching
the trailers they can create a Movie Guide that they can publish on a blog, with separate
entries for each movie and with link to the mo vie trailer. If they have problems with
creating a blog, this part of the activity can be done together with the teacher in class. If
they are quite computer-litera te they can even design a poster for the movie chosen.
Another variation of this activity is to ask them all to watch a particular trailer
that you choose, as this is in connection with a unit you have been studying. A third
possible version would be using a part of a movie that you can cut from the entire movie
by using Windows Movie Maker. After the st udents have watched the fragment, there
will be a discussion about what they think abou t it, and then the teacher will ask them to
imagine the rest of the story- what happens to the main char acters? Is there a twist in
the end or is it rather predictable? After they have decided upon a possible story each
group will present it. The next class the stude nts will watch the film to see how close
they managed to get to the real version. It is a fun activity, which not only improves
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their listening skills but also foster s communication, higher- level skills, and
imagination.
Activity 5
: Social networking- a blessing or a curse?
This activity is meant not only to give st udents opportunity to practise their listening
skills, but also to make them aware of so cial networking and the possible dangers as
well as gains related to it. As an example students will study a very well- known site
that offers social networking services- twitter.
o Aims: – to guide listening through prediction,
– to listen for specific information,
– to discuss about social networks, – to reinforce vocabulary relate d to Internet and communication,
– to listen to a piece of news;
o Level: upper-intermediate;
o Timing: 50 minutes;
o Classroom layout: in groups, as well as individual work;
o Tools: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
, Internet, computers, worksheets;
www.twitter.com
o Procedures:
– as a brainstorming activity the teacher accesses the site www.twitter.com and asks
students if they have ever he ard of it, if they have ever used it and what it is. After
listening to some of their answers the teach er points out to the great popularity such
social networking sites have got and writes on the blackboard the tit le of an article
the students are going to listen to. The headline is Pope Sends First Tweet, On An
iPad http://www.breakingnewsenglis h.com/1106/110630-vatican_news.html ,
which may sound shocking enough to raise so me questions. The teacher asks the
students what an iPad is (= a line of tablet computers designed, developed and
marketed by Apple Inc. primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content)
50 and what they think
about the headline.
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– pre-listening activity- students are given a hand-out with some questions about
first-time experiences with certain comm unication and technological devices. In
pairs each of the students will complete th e table with answers given by his/ her
partner.

– after exchanging information and sharing with the rest of the class, the students go
through a prediction stage with a true/false exercise.
– still for prediction and familiarization with the article the students do two
vocabulary exercises, one of phrase matching and the other synonyms matching.
– for confirmation they will listen to a piece of news while filling in the gaps of the
written news. You can listen to it twice only if needed; otherwise since the news
item is pretty short one listening should be enough. To check their answers have one
or two students read the entire text, while another one writes the missing words and
expressions on the blackboard. In this way you avoid having slower students
disturbing the class while tryi ng to complete their text.
– after the completion exercise has come to an end, the students are going to work in
pairs to answer some questions about the text and their impressions about the text.
This can be done on paper, or they can ev en post their questi ons and answer on a
blog entry.
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I should point out that this ac tivity was based on the site I previously mentioned, a site
which offers several advantages. It uses auth entic materials, it presents news related to
various topics which makes it interesting to st udents, it is up-to-date and the materials
presented have an educational purpose in mi nd. As far as it is possible and it can be
connected to regular things you usually do in class, this site is worthwhile using.

Activity 6 : How it is made
This activity is meant for more listening input for the students as they listen to quite a
long material about how certain things are made. The aim is to listen for information
that would tell the entire making process of these objects. As a source of inspiration I
have used episode four from season one of a very famous documentary – How it’s
made. Why my choice of mate rial? My first and probably most important reason is that
my students really like watching this documenta ry, as it is very well done. It is quite
educational and entertaining and it gives qui te simple explanations about complex
processes of making various simple things that surround us. The episode in question
presents five things- the Internet cable, the water supply, the t ooth paste, the tower
cranes and the pencil.
o Aims: – to listen for specific information,
– to listen for a general understanding of a message,
– to introduce and reinfor ce technical vocabulary,
– to talk about inventions and technology
o Level: advanced;
o Timing: 50 minutes;
o Classroom layout: groups;
o Tools: computers; Intern et/ Windows Media Player
o Procedures:
– The teacher tells th e students that they are going to watch around 10 minutes of a
documentary on how a certain thing is made. There are five groups of students each of them dealing with a different topic.
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– the teacher gives the student s some guiding worksheets so that they listen for some
specific information to complete them with the required information. This activity can
last more than 10 minutes which is the length of the material, as it is quite hard to grasp
the whole meaning from a first hearing. In fact two or even three hearings are advisable.
During this activity the teacher walks around from one group to another to guide and
facilitate their understanding. If the students ar e hesitant about certain words and
expressions that appeared in the video, advise them to use an online dicti onary to look
them up.
– after they have finished completing their sheets each group designates a person to
present their object and how that object is made to the rest of the class. This activity
might need more time than is left after the listening and watching activity, so instead
you might just want to have a little conversation about the objects that they have seen
being produced and then leave the presentation for the next time.
The activities above were but a few po ssibilities of involving students in
listening and reading experiences. As it can be seen both listening and reading activities
per se are a rather isolated case, they usually being part of a larger task to be completed
by the students. Another point to make is th at authentic material would be the best
choice in terms of improving the students’ list ening and reading skills, especially as the
Internet is almost an endless source of mate rials. Last, but not least it should be said
that whenever we involve our students in reading or listening activ ities, these should
always be given a purpose, they should not, if possible, be isolated activities done with
the reading or listening expe rience in mind only. As it was s een in the activities above a
teaching-learning experience involves all skills in achieving a task.

3.2 Output/Productive Language Skills and the Computer

The other two major skills that a teacher sh ould try to improve in his students are
speaking and writing. These two are very impo rtant in any situation of communication
and they are the ultimate aims of any langua ge learning. As I have previously said
reading and listening are equally important, but it seems that our students appear to feel
more comfortable with these i nput language skills. They are mo re at ease with listening
to some audio/ video file or to someone talk ing as well as read something. On the other
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hand many of them seem to find it hard to share their thoughts a nd opinions either in
writing or orally.
Many of the students seem to be blocked when they have to say something.
When asked they admit they understand what they have to do, so they clearly get the
written message, but they cannot find their wo rds and even if they know the words they
fail to put them together. In the same way, ev en if they can use dictionaries to find the
unknown words needed to complete a writte n homework, they have problems with
building sentences together. As for speaking, their mind is blocked, they have the impression they have forgotten all words and thus, are unable to utter a word.
This situation has possible explanations as well as possible solutions. The reason
why our students sometimes have difficulties wi th expressing themselves in writing and
orally is the lack of sufficient practice of these two skills. In their lives students have
much more English input through Internet an d television, so eventually there appears a
gap between his/her receptive skills and his productive skills. More over, at class the
focus is usually set in unde rstanding the written message , as well as reinforcing
vocabulary and grammar items, while the speak ing is many times left out. Why is that?
To encourage students to speak despite the mistakes or the insufficient number or words
the students might know, takes quite a lot of e ffort and time, especially in a class of
around thirty people. As for writing the number of students a teacher has in a class, makes it possible for the teacher to correct p iles of homework, yet it is sometimes hard
to get to explain the mistakes and give suggestions for better writing to all your
students.
A possible suggestion for such a situati on is to expose your students to as many
productive activities as possible. They say practice makes perfect; maybe perfect is too
much to be said, yet, it is undoubtedly true that with much practice students acquire and
improve certain skills. Thus, a good idea is to design communicative and interactive
activities for your students, something very us eful in the acquisiti on of productive skills
and yet quite entertaining and not at all tedious, frustrating or exhausting.

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3.2.1. Writing Activities

Writing should be encouraged from simple le vel- the words to the more complex ones-
sentences, paragraphs and entire pieces of writing. Hence, if writing is in intended, then
vocabulary practice is needed as well. When simple words are in mind, we talk about
reinforcing vocabulary that was previously introduced. Besides ex ercises offered by
textbooks and worksheets that the teacher can do, there are other pos sibilities to work
with words offered by the computer and the Internet.
Activity 1
: The Human Body
o Aims:- to reinforce vocabulary about parts of the body – to foster communication – to match definitions to words – to learn mind-mapping as a useful tool to store and remember words
o Level: Intermediate
o Timing: 45 minutes
o Classroom Layout: individual and pair work
o Tools: http://www.manythings.org/
, https://bubbl.us/ , Jclic/ Hot Potatoes,
http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show/86149710 , computers;
o Procedures:
– The students have previously studied a unit about “ The Human Body” and now
reinforcement is needed for the newly acquired words. The teacher guides the students
to a site that is very resourceful in term s both of word games and of listening material.
The site offers an entire list of word ga mes, like hangman, crosswords, match game, and
find the words, all of them grouped in categories.
– on the site http://www.manythings.org/vocabul ary/games/k/words.php?f=body_1 , the
students will access a game of hangman that requires them to fi nd as many words as
possible from the required thirty of the game. Even if it seems a simple game, the
number of words required (30) as well as th e number of mistakes allowed (8) takes the
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exercise to quite an advanced level. To ma ke it more interactive the students will work
in pairs. The time allocated for this activity is up to 15 minutes;

– in the same area of word gaming, the teache r will get a matching exercise made in Hot
Potatoes with the words and definition gi ven. In the same range of matching the
students will change partner and will solv e a crossword made by the teacher in Hot
Potatoes. The activity is meant to identify words related from the same topic starting
from a given definition. This second part of this activity is a littl e bit more complex as
all the students have is definitions. It is no longer just iden tification, but rather
remembering the new items of vocabulary.
– as a final step the teacher explains that a good way to organize new words so that they
are better stored and accessed, is to make mi nd maps/ conceptual maps. Like that all the
words you think have something in common or are related in some way- grammatically,
lexically or semantically- can be grouped. For this the te acher shows the students two
such conceptual maps created previously on two sites by the teacher. The students are
also given the two addresses, but before they start, the teacher he rself shows them how
to do such a map. As they do their mind maps , this time individually, the teacher walks
around to offer help if needed.
– for next time ask them to so lve a word search game that th ey can find at the following
address http://www.manythings.org/vocabular y/games/q/words.php?f=human_body ,
and to make a print screen of the exercise when it is finished. They will send the image
to your e-mail before coming to class next time.
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The ideal for this kind of word games and exercises is to have authoring
software at hand or a site that works as a t ool for the teacher. Surfing on the Internet I
have found one more very useful site that offers everyone tools to create various types of word activities- http://www.discoveryeducation.com/
. Once you access the Teacher
menu and then the Puzzlemaker submenu you find various types of activities: word
search, criss-cross, hidden message and othe rs; as for authoring t ools teachers have at
their disposal Hot Potatoes as well as Jclic. I am pretty sure th ere are more sites and
software that can help teacher build various vocabulary activities. The activity briefly
presented above was just a simple example of what can be done with the help of
computer and Internet. Of c ourse the degree of difficulty and complexity can differ
according to what kind of target group you have. Even though such activities may seem childish at first, if they are well done on the right language level of the students, then
their only aim is to ensure a better acqui sition in a more friendly and enjoyable
atmosphere.
Activity 2
: Story Starters
This activity is meant to guide students’ writing in a funny yet educational way. As
setting off to write a text always seems hard at first and as students are hesitant and lack
confidence, it is always a good idea to involve them in to something they find
entertaining.
o Aims: – to identify different types of writing,
– to stimulate students’ creativity,
– to stimulate conversation for exchange of ideas, – to write various types of writing- descriptions, narratives, articles, ads,
– to discuss and identify what makes a story compelling (surprising plot,
strong characters, details about settings you have never seen),
– to generate inspiring story starters;
o Level: upper-intermediate;
o Timing: 50 minutes;
o Classroom layout: teacher- students, group work, individual work;
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o Tools: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/storystarters/storystarter1.htm ,
computers, worksheets, http://ro-en.ro/ , http://www.dictionar-roman-englez-
online.ro/
o Procedures:
The teacher has previously presented the students various types of writing and
explained certain characteristics in terms of content, style, language used and register.
– The teacher accesses the li nk mentioned above and invites students to write their
names as asked and at the second stage to spin the wheel. The tool present in this site
creates automatically interesting and creativ e, sometimes even funny, story starters:
Write a birthday party invitation for a gr eedy lawyer who stars in a TV show.
Write a TV commercial advertising a young spider monkey who wins the lottery.
These were but two examples of possible story starters. As it can be seen, the type of
writing varies quite a lot, but all of them are appealing to students. At the next stage of
the settings the students choose a template (notebook, letter, newspaper article and
postcard) and then the working space is ready.
– The students spin the wheel, in groups; thus all the members of a group will deal with
the same story. This is incentive for convers ations and interactivity. After they have
become familiar with how their story star ts, the teacher gives each group a worksheet
where they can write some main guidelines- main character, setting, story theme,
summary of the beginning/ middle/ ending of the story if this is the case.
– this is the stage where you can decide to have your students work either individually
on their stories, or to have them create a chain story that starts with the given story
starter. Like that you can actually share th e responsibility among f our or five people,
which might seem helpful for them, thus invo lving even slower learner in a “frustration-
free” activity. Moreover, chaining the story fost ers interactivity and collaboration. Yet if
you decide that your students ar e more than capable to handle an entire story, as I have,
you can have them spin the wheel individually and then write their respective stories.
– during the writing process the teacher’s role is of advisor and facilitator, as he/she
walks around to help and give tips. She/he also encourag es the students to use online
dictionaries if needed and to feel free to ask the teacher for explanations if needed.
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– when they finish writing they can print their story so that everybody can read it
afterwards. Moreover, like th at their writing can be corrected by the teacher and the
class can even decide upon the best story.
– if paper and coloured printer are available, the students can even d ecide to print a book
containing their stories. This type of activity can be real fun fo r them as it involves their creativity, their
personality and if intended so, it can bring speaking and interactivity into class. Why
did I mention the students’ personality? Sin ce they can decide upon the template- layout
of their story and since they can also embe llish their story with drawings, and above all
contribute to the story with their own ideas , it is quite obvious how much of their
personality is invested in this activity. Activity 3
: Literature for me
This activity involves worki ng with a collaborative lear ning platform for teachers,
educators and schools, which can be found at http://edu.glogster.com/ . This site, as it
says, is a platform where you can either sh are your work with other users or you can
browse around and see other people’s work; it can be something done by teachers for
their students, or it can be the students’ work and projects.
o Aims: – to develop the students’ esthetic taste,
– to develop the stude nts’ evaluating, analytical and synthesis skills as
necessary tools for filtering information,
– to search for specific information about English and American writers, – to select favourite quotes from a number of writers,
– to present those quotes in a creative way
– to write thei r opinion about a literary quote at their choice.
– to make a literary calendar as their final project o Level: advanced
o Timing: 3-4 hours
o Classroom layout: groups, individual
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o Tools: the Internet, computers, worksheets
o Procedures:
– the teacher tells the students that they are going to make a literary calendar for 2011
and briefly brainstorms ideas about what the calendar should contain. Eventually
students decide that each month should show a writer that was born in that month, with
picture, date of birth and death as well as a famous quotation from that writer.
– the teacher divides the class into 12 groups each of them dealing with one writer. A
short activity of browsing and searching the Internet follows, in order to select the
twelve writers.
– after the writers have been selected th e teaches gives the students a guided reading
worksheet, to prevent having them copy-past e entire pages of information. They are
only going to search for full name, dates of birth/death, place of birth, famous writings,
quotations, and the short summary of the most famous work of that writer.
– this activity starts in class, but will continue at home as we ll, as the students have quite
a lot of information to look for. – when the worksheets are completed, meani ng for the next class, the students will
create an account on http://edu.glogster.com/
, where in groups they will create a poster
about literature. For some of them sear ching for information about English and
American writers was their firs t encounter with literature, so in a way, this way can be
considered as their reaction to that experience. They post quotes of favourite writers as
well as images of them. This is again quite a creative activity as the site mentioned
above offers various tools that can be used to better express your ideas. You can add
graphics, text, images, video and sound, and you can even draw on the spot. Both the
layout and the background are very attractive an d incentive to creativity. – this proved to
be quite a useful stage of the entire project, as it made th eir encounter with literature a
pleasant one. Moreover, the posters themselves served as starters for the subsequent
writing activity, which required the students to pick a quotation and wr ite their opinions
about it.
– the final stage- the creation of the litera ry calendar, due to higher computers skills
needed, was done by only two students who ga thering all the information from their
colleagues put everything together using Ad obe Photoshop. As final considerations
about this project I s hould admit that I was a bit afraid students would be reluctant about
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getting in touch with litera ture. Thanks to the technolo gy used I managed to make
things a little bit easier for them, and in th e end some of them even became curious to
read entire works, which I consider to be quite a gain.

Another variation of this same tool was done with the 11th graders who were
required to express their opini on of fashion, appearances a nd first impressions. As you
may see, this tool can be used in various ways; it can be a starting point for further
activities, or it can be a closing stage after previous searching, depending on the
students’ level as well. For example, if st udents’ English level is not very high then
creating such a poster can be considered the final product; yet if they have a high level of language production, then maybe such a pos ter would work better as a starting point
for more complex activities. At the same time, we should not forget that this poster can
also contain videos and sounds, so if you want to make it more complex for your
students you can have them introduce such files as well. For example, they can make a poster introducing themselves through imag es, texts and sounds; they can record
themselves talking about favourite things or about the place they live, then put images
and other graphics and voila: the final project is ready!
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Activity 4 : Storybird
This activity is based on a collabo rative way of writing offered by http://storybird.com/ .
This is a site where you can actually wr ite your own little st ories and books using
graphics provided by various artists. Moreover, this site can also be used to improve
your students’ reading skills as well as to fo ster their reading for pleasure. As a source
of writing activities, teacher s can create accounts for th eir students and give them
assignments. It is a great tool for teachers as you can actual ly create several classes and
add students for each class, then give them assignments, either as a separate optional
course or as projects a nd homework related to topi cs studied in class.
o Aims: – to foster students’ creativity,
– to associate image with text
– to describe an image – to express feelings – to reinforce the use of adjectives
o Level: intermediate/ upper-intermediate
o Timing: 40 minutes
o Classroom layout: individual and teacher- students
o Tools: Internet, http://storybird.com
,
o Procedures:
– the teacher accesses the storybird site and asks students to do the same. They have
already made account on this site, so time will no longer be lost with doing that.
– the students have previously talked about British and Amer ican writers having studied
some fragments as well. In this context the teacher tells them that she would like them
to try and write in a rather literary fashi on and as an incentive they are going to use
storybird, which offers them a great variety of artistic works. – the teacher points to the great advantage that imagery can offer them, being such a
great source of inspiration, something they could rely on for a better focusing upon a
subject as well as for more creative ideas. She advises the students to choose the artistic
work they are going to use according first of all to their personality and preference but
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also to fit the topic, which is Music in my life . Then she publishes the assignment so that
every student has it on their main page.
– Before the students start c hoosing their imagery for the st ory, the teacher reads loudly
the rest of the requirements of the assignmen t: the students should try and write up to
five pages, including the cove r, to use at least 5 adjectives related to the way people
feel.
– the writing stage follows with students wo rking individually on their stories. The
teacher tells them that the spelling check of the site is turned on so that they can see
their spelling mistakes and avoid them. More over, the students can work with online
dictionaries at any moment, if needed.
– by the end of the class they save and publis h their assignments so that the teacher can
go through them until the next meeting, when th ey go over them if they want to. Some
of the students can sometimes be pretty shy, so only volunte ers will read and show their
stories.

If time and opportunity a llow it this kind of activity can become a permanent
one, and it can be the basis for a writing opti onal course, for example. If that is not
possible, it can still be a great tool to fo ster creative writing am ong your students. The
“downside” is that if you want to have your students’ works printed you cannot do it,
unless you buy the book.
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3.2.2. Speaking Activities

Speaking is a productive skil l that supposes quite a good mastering of the language,
which is probably why many times students f eel they are not ready to speak, or unable
to find their words. When they have this fe eling they should be encouraged to use the
language nevertheless, even though they feel they cannot find their words. A good idea
is to have them practise speaking as much as possible, from short and simple sentences
to longer dialogues and even oral presentations or debates. At first you can even have
them repeat what they hear to practise the flow of the sentence and the intonation. And
then gradually raise the difficu lty of the speaking activities, so that unconsciously the
students start using the language without feeling pressure. Anot her point to make is that
sometimes your students might f eel reluctant to sp eak in front of th e whole class; to
help such students divide the class in sma ller groups and have them talk in that new
environment.
Activity 1
: Voki
This activity is not a speaking activity per se, as speaking usually involves both a
transmitter and a receiver of a message, but it involves students in transmitting a
message orally. Voki is a fr ee service that allows you to create personalized speaking
avatars and use them on blogs, profile, and in email messages. This is a great tool as
you can actually make your avatar say various things. It can be a very short message,
like hello for example, or it can be even a pr esentation about you. The site offers the
possibility to use text-to-speech tools to give voice to your avatar, but you can also
record yourself directly on the site or before using an audio recording program and then
upload the message there. Voki has a special area for education which is meant to motivate students to participate, to impr ove message comprehension by exploring Voki
as an effective language tool. The site also offers lesson plans and other teaching ideas.

o Aims: – to improve students’ pronunciation
– to transmit a message in simple words
– to express themselves
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– to reinforce vocabulary
o Level: intermediate
o Timing: 40 minutes
o Classroom layout: Teacher- students at first, groups, individually
o Tools: Internet, computers, www.voki.com , microphones,
o Procedures:
– the students have already made accounts and during this class they are going to create
an avatar and they will give him/her voice. – using the projector the teacher shows them how to choose a character, how to
customize it and of course how to give vo ice to their avatar. While the teacher is
explaining, each student individually creates his/her own avatar. When the appearance is ready, the teacher explains to them that there are four possibilities to make your
avatar say something. You can type a me ssage and then choose from the voices
available (male and female), or you can reco rd yourself with th e cell phone (I personally
have not tried that yet), then you can record yourself with a microphone, or if you have
already something recorded into your com puter you can just upload that file.
– for now the teacher will just have the stude nts type a message and then play it to
choose the right voice. This us e of Voki could be beneficial for listening activities as
well, as after having created such avatars th ey can listen for specific information for
example.
– after they have “played” a bit with their avatars, the teacher tells the students that they
are going to use the microphones to have thei r avatars speak a message for them. To
make it simpler the students can write the text on their notebooks first so as to be more
organized in their ideas and not to mi ss anything that might be important. The
requirement is that the students introdu ce themselves through their avatars, be
mentioning name, age, favourite pastime- hobbies , as well as favourite music and films.
– they have the rest of the time to do their recordings as they might sometimes need to
redo it several times.
– in the other 10 minutes that are left before the break the students and teacher listen to
some of the avatars speaking about h obbies and different favourite things.
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This kind of activity can take a more pe rmanent aspect if for example you make
a blog where the students will post their dail y/weekly avatars talk ing about a certain
topic. You can have them for example pr esent a proverb each day, or an English
expression, or you can ask them to talk about various topics, like my favourite season ,
or my favourite means of transport , the city I would like to visit and so on. Using Voki is
fun for them and through the use of avatars ev en when they record their own voices, it
gives them a sense of security, it is as if they are not 100% exposed, but rather some
kind of puppeteers. One downside of my ac tivity is that if the students record
themselves at class, all of them at on ce the activity becomes quite noisy; a solution
would be to ask them to prepare the recordi ng at home and then just upload it into their
Voki account.
Activity 2
: Wordle
This activity uses http://www.wordle.net/ which according to the front page
presentation is a tool that helps you crea te word clouds from a text that you provide.
The clouds give greater prominence to words th at appear more frequently in the source
text. You can tweak your cloud s with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.51 The
use of such word clouds is pr obably at its best as a st arter point for a communicative
activity, but I really think it can be also used as a fi nal product of the students’ work.

o Aims: – to foster communication
– to foster the expression of personal ideas – to foster the expression of suppositions and argumentation – to be an incentive for creativity o Level: upper- intermediate to advanced
o Timing: 10 minutes
o Classroom layout: teacher- students
o Tools: computer, Internet, paper, projector
o Procedures:
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– the teacher has prepared a word cloud, using www.wordle.net and now through the
projector she/he shows the pos ter to the class eliciting ideas from the students. The
teacher tells them that words that have a bigger font are more frequently used in the text
and then she/ he asks the students to guess what the text could be about. Of course
thanks to a setting in Wordle you can choose not to include all the words of the text into
your poster, but rather only the most important in terms of frequency or semantic value.
As students are guessing the possible topic of the text, the teacher writes on the
blackboard their answers.
– When the students have given more or less all their guesses, the teacher displays the
entire text for them to confront their predic tions with the real text. Of course such an
activity can lead to further discussi ons about that particular topic.
Another more interactive ve rsion would be to have your students create such a
word cloud in groups and then give the cloud to another group. Then each group will
discuss to reach a consensus about the topi c and ideas expressed by the text behind the
cloud. This activity would foster speaking ev en more as well as students’ prediction
skills. Moreover, as students themselves create the posters, they can decide upon the
layout, the colours and fonts used, which ma kes them be actively involved into the
learning process. It can be done at different levels depend ing on the degree of difficulty
of the text used and on the topic of the text. Of course if it is some controversial matter,
like pollution for example, a simple poster can lead to complex discussions, whereas if the topic is quite simple to deal with, like for example the description of a street for
example, then the conversation will be quite short and at simple levels.

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In the same area of conversation starters, mind or conceptual maps can be used.
(https://bubbl.us/ , https://www.mindmeister.com ) In case of mind maps, though, the
discussion is rather guided as the students have the central idea in the middle and then
as sub- categories they have the less im portant ideas. Nevertheless, since such a
conceptual map usually contains only se parate words with arrows showing the
relationship between them, the students’ work is to come up with the missing pieces, to
complete the ideas into an oral presentation.

Activity 3 : Interviews
The following speaking activity is a little bit more complex as it also involves written
preparation. Basically the students will perfor m an interview that will be recorded and
that have it edited. This is a good way to fo ster speaking through interaction, moreover
having the preparation before, it is a way to make students feel more comfortable about
their performance. After all, they have the opportunity to record themselves before the
actual activity at class, and th ey can do this as many times as needed, if they are not
pleased with the outcome. This is not di rect communication, yet it is useful for
improving the students’ pronunciation, stress of words and within sentences.
o Aims: – to foster communication skills
– to improve intonation and pronunciation
– to ta lk about present i ssues of our city.
– to write an interview – to develop critical thinking – to practice formal language – to give and take an interview; o Level: advanced;
o Timing: 2 hours;
o Classroom layout: groups at first and pair work later; individual recordings;
o Tools: computer, internet, Audacity, microphone, paper;
o Procedures:
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– the teacher informs the students that they ar e going to discuss the current issues of the
city and possible solution, as pects that they are not really happy about in the city.
– the students are divided into groups with each group finding three or four such aspects
and possible remedial solutions. During this stage the students talk with each other
trying to find common aspects and to agr ee upon the best ideas to be presented.
– the next stage has the students working in pairs. Having all the information they
agreed upon with the re st of the groups they are going to write an inte rview about the
current issues of the city plus solutions suggested. The teacher tells the students to
imagine that one of them is a journalist taking the interview and the other a representative of th e local administration, for example the mayor. For the rest of the
class the students will continue writing their interviews.
– for the next class each student will read their part several times, as well as record it
inside the computer. They can do that either with the S ound Recorder from Windows or
with any other program available to them. They are instructed to do the recording
various times until they are pl eased. If they are not very sure about how to pronounce
certain words or sentences, they can always use text-to-speech utilities which would
read the text for them and then they can repeat.
– during the second class, the students will be using audacity to combine the words of
the two interlocutors; like that the final pr oduct will be in entire interview between two
students about the problems that preoccupy them. – of course after they have finished the enti re interview, students and teacher play some
of them and a final discussion follows rounding out the main ideas expressed during this
activity.
This kind of activity is quite challenging for them as it involves their writing
skills, their synthesis and analytical thinking as well as their speaking skills. Moreover
impersonating someone, playing a role makes them feel more comfortable with the
mistakes they might make, as if somehow th ey were not theirs. Another advantage is
that the students have time to prepare beforehand; this is good pr actice for subsequent
spontaneous communicative activities.

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Activity 4 : Giving Directions
This activity is but a possibility of using Google Maps during the English class, while
enhancing interactivity and communication between the students. Google Maps is a
very great tool that can not only be easily applied for giving directions, as I have, but
also for describing streets, or buildings, or for example for establishing a tourist
itinerary with the most important landmarks of a city.
o Aims: – to reinforce vocabulary related to giving directions,
– to foster communication,
– to improve their directional skills o Level: intermediate
o Timing: 30 minutes
o Classroom layout: in pairs
o Tools: the Internet, Google Maps, computers
o Procedures:
– the teacher divides the class in pairs and tell them that they are going to take a walk
through London; one of the students in each pair will guide the other one while he
himself is making the itinerary. The students will see only their computer, and they cannot mention the final destination until th e end when they check the outcome. What
students can use are expressions about giving directions like: You are now on St.
James’s Street, Go ahead until you reach the corner with Street X, here turn right
,….and others. The students can use just the maps or they can enjoy the images through the special viewing offered by Google Maps.
– basically, all students watch London’s map, with one student in each pair guiding the
other’s steps to get to a particular place. If the directions were well given and
understood correctly then both students shoul d get to the same point in the end. The
teacher instructs the students to build dialogue s about directions, that is you do not have
just one student directing and the other following the directi ons, but you have an
interaction. The students followi ng the directions given by th eir colleague ask for more
clarifications and details. The one that give s the directions can al so ask questions to
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make sure his/her partner has not got lost. Like for example: we are now on X street,
what can you see on you right? and others.
– since the teacher cannot a llow the students to wander endlessly and without some
boundaries or limitations she/he tells the students that each walk should not take more
than five- street distance a nd that they should take turns.
Another version of this activity would be with the teacher guiding all students,
for example in tourist visit meant to “see” some of the most famous places in London.
Like that while wandering in London you can also check their knowledge of London’s
landmarks. To save time and to avoid exhausting your voice while maybe repeating
several times the same directi ons, you can record the itinerar y and then just play it for
them. Yet this activity would rather be appropriate for listening comprehension
activities.
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CHAPTER IV: ENGLISH FOR CAREER – A
COMPARATIVE STUDTY

The previous chapter tried to present various ac tivities that have b een done or will be
done during the English class by using computer and Internet. Most of them tried to
involve the students into interactive, meani ngful and communicative activities meant to
develop and improve both their recep tive and their productive skills.
This last chapter, as part of the experi mental side of this paper, attempts to
present a comparison in terms of results and implications between two groups of
students that dealt with the same unit in two different ways. The unit under analysis
refers to the English for Career and its aim is to arm students with what they need when
applying for a job, mainly how to write a correct and efficient application letter. Where
the need for such a topic with them?
In today’s society the job market is mo re and more flexible and in permanent
movement and evolution, this perpetum mobile bringing ab out the necessity of a better
training and formation before applying fo r a job. Today’s graduates and those of
tomorrow need to be “armed” with as many of the 21st century general skills as
possible, as well as with other diverse skills and capabilities to faci litate their access to
employment. Another reason for my choice of th is topic for my stude nts is that many of
them really need some guidance in applying for a job; sometimes they are tricked into
working for free for a period of time, othe rs miss their chance of getting a good job
because they are not prepared well, and some others can even get the job but in the end it turns out it is not what they wanted, but they failed to read the job as well. No matter what the situation these youth really need counseling and guidance, they really need to see that someone is there for them and trie s to arm them with th e necessary tools to
succeed on the job market.
After establishing the unit and the aims to be attained, I have worked on and
collected the methods and techniques that would introduce the new concepts to the
students as well as help them acquire the skills and competences needed. After having
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collected the material needed, the next step was to establish the two groups that would
be taught this material. The two gr oups were the experimental group- 12th B and the
control group- 12th C.

4.1. The Control Group

The control group was taught and assessed usin g rather traditional methods that will be
briefly presented below, yet having the same aims as target as with the experimental
group.
o Aims
– to identify in the texts read, points of view, attitudes and feelings expressed,
– to analyze some situations depicted in a text in order to take a decision,
-to offer answers, in writing and orally, to a questionnaire in general interest
topics, with justificat ion for their options,
– to express in writing/orally some ideas and personal points of view and to
support these with arguments and examples,
– to write letters/ other f unctional texts on various to pics, to various types of
recipients and with various communication purposes (to inform, to obtain something, to
invite, to refuse etc) using the appropriate language register,
– to identify the different steps in getting a job,
– to identify the different s ources of job advertising,
– to identify the component part s of an application letter,
– to identify the characteristics of a functional text- the application letter, – to produce an application letter which would ensure him a further interview for
the job of IT consultant
o Level: advanced
o Timing: 4 hours
o Classroom layout: mainly in groups but also individual and frontal
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o Tools: textbook, worksheets computers, Cambridge English for Job Hunting52
As it will be later seen, the aims were the same as in the experiment group, but
the approach was rather diffe rent. Basically I have used a more traditional approach,
still modern but not using a ny kind of computer technology.
As procedures, I have firstly made the topic familiar to the students by
presenting them the real- life situation in which they are trying to apply for an IT
consultant job, with the empl oyer requiring a letter of appl ication and CV in English.
They are also given a questionnaire to esta blish the students’ l earning needs regarding
application letters and formal style in ge neral. As a second phase of the didactic
scenario, the students have anal ysed in groups several models of applicati on letters, to
see the structure of such a letter as well as the content and the styl e that should be used
for application letters. While they analyse th e models, they also complete a worksheet
with information regarding the content, the structure as well as the style and language
used in the letters.
As a follow-up activity each group will pr esent their worksheets and together
with the teacher, they will draw a conclusive image of application letters. Now that they
have a general image about what applicat ion letters mean, the teacher draws the
students’ attention to other as pects that are more or less important when applying for a
job and when writing an application letter. These refer to knowing yourself, with your
strong and weak points, being able to “read” th e job market that is to understand exactly
what a job ad requires according to how it sounds, to know where to look when you
want to find a job ad and to know what to include in a lette r of application.
For the next class, the st udents would bring examples of job ads, either from
newspapers, or from magazines, or even “rum oured” jobs to be analysed and discussed
together. As a more concrete activity, after analyzing the ads they brought, the students
wrote similar job ads on their own and then circled them around among the other
groups. Discussions followed focusing on the ads they created- what jobs were
advertised, what were the requirements for th e jobs, or what kind of people were wanted
for those jobs. After they wrote the ads, in groups they decided what they could write in
an application letter for such a job, what as pects they could tackle and in what order.
After they presented their ideas to the teach er and the rest of the class, the next
assignment would be to write an application letter this time for a specific ad for an IT
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consultant for a company form Sibiu. I shoul d probably state that after the assignment
was explained to them they were also given the assessment rubric, so that they know
exactly what points they were supposed to score in their lett er of application. When they
brought the letters I corrected them and scored them accordi ng to the rubric previously
given to them, and a discussion a nd presentation stage followed.
The aims of the unit were mainly reach ed, though there were noticed a certain
reluctance from the part of the students towards certain activities, as well as some obstacles related to the organization of the ma terial and lack of supplementary aids, like
dictionaries for example. Sometimes, the activ ities tended to be tedious, and the results,
even if quite good, could have certainly been better. More will be said about this
approach after I present the experiment group’s work as well.

4.2. The Experimental Group

This second group (12
th B) is considered the experimental group because the students
were taught the same unit English for Career , yet this time with modern computer
technologies and Internet. Thus the entire unit relied extensively on the use of computer
and Internet tools. The reasons for choosing this topic as explained above, were the need
to help students better be prepared for af ter graduation when they want to apply for a
job as well as help them become more familia r both with the Englis h for career, as well
as with computational skills.
In this learning unit, the students will look for information about job ads, about
how to prepare before applying for a job, main ly how to write a CV and an application
letter required by employers. The aim of th e activities is writing an application letter
from the perspective of a young person who wishes to get a job as an IT consultant at a
company from Sibiu. The project is meant to involve students in a real-life situation, by
giving them a meani ngful task to do.
During this series of activities I have created a Wiki page at www.wikidot.com ,
where I have posted the students’ assignmen ts, predictive, formative and summative
assessment tests and questionnaires. In the same site, the students will post their answers to the activities proposed by the te acher. As a final product the students will
119

write an application letter for that particul ar job. The application letters are presented
under the form of a web page rea lized with Microsoft Publisher.
As objectives of this entire unit I could mention:
– to identify in the texts read, points of view, attitudes and feelings expressed,
– to analyze some situations depicted in a text in order to take a decision,
-to offer answers, in writing and orally, to a questionnaire in general interest
topics, with justificat ion for their options,
– to express in writing/orally some ideas and personal points of view and to
support these with arguments and examples,
– to write letters/ other f unctional texts on various to pics, to various types of
recipients and with various communication purposes (to inform, to obtain something, to
invite, to refuse etc) using the appropriate language register,
– to identify the different steps in getting a job,
– to identify the different s ources of job advertising,
– to identify the component part s of an application letter,
– to identify the characteristics of a functional text- the application letter, – to produce an application letter which would ensure him a further interview for
the job of IT consultant
o Level: advanced
o Timing: 4 hours
o Classroom layout: mainly in groups but also individual and frontal
o Tools: computers, Internet, www.wikidot.com
, Google Docs, Microsoft
Publisher, Cambridge English for Job Hunting53
o Procedures: – At the beginning of the learning un it the students will be involved in a
brainstorming activity which leads to the creation of a conceptual map “Looking for a
Job.” The students will also be given two questionnaires meant predict the students’
learning needs as well as to raise their interest for the topic. The teacher will then
explain to them about their ulterior involve ment into a project as well as about its
120

finality (the application letter); they will be administered the KWL graphic which will
be completed in various stages- at the beginni ng of the project- with things they know
and want to know about the topic and at the end – with things they have learned. To
make it safer and simpler to administer a nd store this graphic is done through Google
Docs. Still in this same stage the students are also given the assessment grill for their
application letter, since having it right from the beginning can really guide them through
the learning and editing process.
– The students are explained what a projec t is- they are going to receive a series
of assignments either on paper or on the In ternet- computer. During these activities they
will be searching for various information that they will use to write an application letter
correctly.
– a first step when we want to get a job, I would say is knowing oneself, that is
knowing your own strong and weak points as well as your transferable skills and
preferences. In groups the students will access the wiki site and they will discuss a
conceptual map first and then will create one for themselves. Then still in groups they
will explore some reflective questions and w ill post their answers on the wiki page. Two
more activities follow- matching and analyzing, meant to clarify the transferable skills
for them.
– a next step after you have managed to know yourself is knowing how to read
the job market. The students discuss the source s of job ads and how to read these ads in
order to avoid being tricked or trapped in unpleasant situations. Ma ny of these ads have
special jargon, abbreviations or sometime you ju st have to read betw een the lines to get
the right message. The students access sites su ggested by me and they choose ads to
discuss in groups, the aim of this activity be ing to help them bette r understand what a
job ad truly says.
– I have initiated a brainstorming activ ity around the differe nces between a CV
and an application letter, the language used a nd the structure and cont ent. I have showen
a model of application letter to have them talk about and analyze its structure, content
and language used. I draw the students’ attention to the wa y their skills and
competences should be exemplified. They should not just enumerate their good points and skills without also trying to exemplify them.
121

– after having discussed and analyzing examples and models on the Internet and
Wiki, the students are given one week to prepare an entire application letter, bearing in
mind the assessment grill for their application letter.
– when their assignments are finalized, their entire work is published on the wiki
site together with their answ ers and reflections to all th e previous assignments. The
letter of application is created under the fo rm of a web page created very easily with
Microsoft Publisher and then added to the wiki site.
In the end this project proved to be useful in more than one way. First of all it
brought a real-life communicative situation to class, by involving students into
something that they would face in their n ear future, something that interests them
already. Then working on such a project w ith my students meant many very interactive
activities, as they mainly worked in groups, and above all it meant a lot of English being
used for something real and useful to them . It suddenly was no longe r just a lesson that
needed to be read and acquired, but something that the studen ts felt would help them in
the future. Many employers nowadays require in terviews, CVs and application letters in
English from their prospective employees, so this was another incentive for them.
A last point that should be made is that during and for th is activity computer
technology was used quite extensively, as bo th my assignments for them and their
products were published on the wiki site. Wikis, as I have previously said somewhere in
my paper, are collaborative sites, that is they involve people into interactive production
and expression. That is exactly what my students did as well, in groups, pairs or
individually they actually contributed to the creation of cont ent for entire pages in the
wiki. Besides wiki, the students and I have used conceptual maps made on different
sites www.bubbl.us and https://www.mindmeister.com , questionnaires and different
assessing tests created and st ored on Google Docs, PowerPoint presentation to introduce
the main ideas about the topic and Microsoft Publisher to publish the students’ works.
After finalizing the unit in both groups (the control and the experimental group)
I have come to certain conclusions based on several methods of evaluation and
comparison. In both groups I have used th e direct observation to notice how students
worked during the project. Even if stude nts from both groups worked quite well
together and under a pleasant and enjoyabl e atmosphere, there could be noticed a
greater implication and a closer collaborati on among the students from the experimental
group. The atmosphere was much warmer and in teractive, while the students felt more
122

confident about their decisions and in expres sing their opinions. At the end of the unit
the students from the experiment group felt mo re relaxed and pleased about their work
experience as well as about the results obta ined. Moreover, as I have already stated
when talking about the control group, worki ng with the computer and the Internet at
their disposal came handy when coming acr oss unknown words or expressions. The
onlone dictionaries were a real help to them.
Besides direct observation, another statistic method that I used referred to
comparing the final product of the students from both groups. While the results of the
control group were qu ite good, there is a slight improve ment in the results from the
experimental group. These would show that in fact, working with computers and the
Internet have indeed helped them better acquire the new notions, as well as better
achieve the initial objectives . The activities involving the use of the computer
contributed to a deeper mastering and control of the style and structure of an application
letter, while also involving st udents in real-lif e communicative activit ies. Even though
the results were not considerably better, the slight improvement justifies the use of the computer technologies as well as the Internet.
Below I will present some statistic data which show the results obtained by both
classes/ groups in comparison. As it can be s een and as I have alre ady stated, the results
are slightly better in the group where the act ivities designed were carried out my means
of the computer. In evaluating both groups I have used an Application Letter Rubric,
where certain aspects were followed: purpose of the writing, orga nization (number and
order of paragraphs), tone and style used, word choice, format etc, where each category
was graded from 4 to 1, where 4 is the highest grade and 1 the lowest.
According to their answers and the App lication Letter Rubric, the students were
in the end, graded from 10 to 1, yet for the sa ke of the statistic da ta to be presented
below, I will rather consider another scoring scale, with students with 9 and 10 scoring Excellent, students of 7 and 8, Good, while 5 and 6 were considered Acceptable; those
that scored below 5 were considered poor papers, and thus were given a low grade.
As it may be seen below at the same numb er of students (28) there was a slight
improvement regarding the skills acquired by the students between the two groups, with
the experimental group having more students having been graded excellent and good
marks. If in the control group there were only six people that were graded excellent, in the experimental group there were eight; as for good marks, on the experimental group
123

there were twelve people, while in the c ontrol group only nine managed to be graded
good.
Excellent Good Acceptable Poor
The Control Group 6 9 9 4
The Experimental
Group 8 12 5 3

024681012
Excellent Good Acceptable Poorthe control group
the experiment
group
In terms of the aspects aimed at through this unit, the students from the
experiment group not only enjoyed the activ ities more, but also were more actively
involved in them, thus being ab le to better achieve the aims of the unit. Moreover, the
second group was able to better master the st ructure and organizati on of the application
letter, as well as the skills regarding knowing oneself, being able to read and understand
well a job ad with its particular requirements. As you may see the results are not a lot
better than those in the cont rol group, yet due to the way the students reacted in the
experiment group it is quite obvious that using the computer and the In ternet in class are
more than helpful not only for the acquis ition of language but also for the students’
personal training in terms of so cial and communicative skills.
124

The analysis of the results as well as the direct observation are more than
conclusive: the use of computers and Internet during the English clas s in high school is
more than efficient and beneficial both for the educational process and for the students.
To prove even more obviously the usef ulness of the computer technology and
the Internet, both for the sake of this study as well as an impulse for further use of
technologies as supplementar y tools for the English cla ss, I also administrated a
questionnaire to the students from the expe rimental group after they had finished the
unit, to see, beyond my direct observation, what their attitude and impressions are after
working with the computer at the English class.
The survey, as I have already said, at tempted to underline how the students felt
while working on the project with the com puter and the Internet, how they worked
together and their overall impressions and feelings. Analysing the answers of the students ther e are certain conclusions to be drawn:
most of them enjoyed working with the co mputer, feeling like the activities somehow
became more pleasant, and yet they felt they were more focused on the requirements
and the tasks to be achieved. Ev en more than that, they felt like they were more actively
involved in the activities, being more res ponsible and independent in taking various
decisions either in group or individually. Taking part into the creation of wiki pages
gave them the sense that thei r opinion is important as they were allowed to decide about
how to express their opinions, about the layout and the aspect of their tasks.
The questions of the surv ey and their answers (which are in the brackets) are
presented below:
1. Was it hard to use the computer for this project?
a. Yes (9) b. No (19)
2. Was it more interesting to approach a unit by using computer technology?
a. Yes (20) b. No (8) 3. How did you feel during the unit, while working with the computer?
a. stressed (4) b. relaxed (13) c. interested (9) d. bored (2) 4. What aspects did you find most appealing?
a. using online dictionaries (7)
125

b. editing wiki pages (5)
c. searching on the Internet for information (7) d. making a web page in Publisher (9) 5. Would you like to use the computer and th e Internet more at the English class?
a. Yes (22) b. No really (6)
As it may be seen from the 5 questions above, most of the students found the
experience of working with computers durin g the English class ve ry entertaining and
appealing; moreover they felt they seemed to be more interested in the lesson than
before, as their attention was kept awake and they were kept actively participating in the
lesson. The learning experien ce became life experience for them since they not only
learned English but also got skills neces sary when applying for a job as well as
communication and social skills, and even computational and informational skills.
Overall after studying both the survey a nd the analysis of the two groups in
comparison, an obvious conclusion can be drawn a nd that is that the use of computer in
class can have beneficial effects not only on the teaching of English but also on teaching
in general. Moreover, coupled with the great technological advancement which characterizes out society, it seems to be of paramount importance to take into consideration the use of the computer t echnology and Intern et in education.

126

CONCLUSIONS

The paper presented above was an attempt to outline the role that computers and
Internet have had lately both in our daily lives and in various fields, mainly in
education. Why this attempt? Everywhere we would go, nowadays, and everything we
might be trying to do have a more or le ss strong connection with the world of the
computer. This commodity has become a necessity that we could hardly spare. We are in permanent connection with our friends a nd collaborators; we s earch for information
in various forms to be used both for work a nd for our personal life, we chat, we enjoy a
dynamic and ever expanding virtual universe. And this new exciting experience could
not pass by without having quite strong effects on the way practically almost everything
happens- the way we enjoy ourselves, the way time is spent and of course the way our
daily work is changed.
In this context of great changes due to technological progre ss in computer-based
operations and Internet, education has greatly evolved and diversifie d its manifestation.
To better bridge education to real life, thus helping students better acquire information,
the need to introduce the computer in sc hools was strongly felt. Our students spend
quite a lot of their free time on the computer; they navigate the Internet, or chat with
friends, some of them might be listening to music, or watch a video, or even buy
something. These are normal and regular things for them, in the end becoming quite an important part of their lives. Of course education should not ignore this special
relationship they have, on the contrary educat ion could actually take advantage of this
situation, by trying to bring computer technology into clas s to enrich and improve the
teaching-learning processes.
If the first part of my paper has cove red exactly this aspect of introducing
computers in education, with brief history and theories about how the computer could
be used in education and especially for teaching languages, the second part has
attempted to present certain sites or programs, certain tools that if used well can prove
to be very efficient in helping students bett er acquire a language. This was not entirely
meant as a theoretical chapter, as while presenting these tools, some examples of
possible uses were given as well.
127

To bring the paper to an even more practical area, the third chapter has presented
various activities that can be done with the computer as well as with the Internet. One
should know that there very many programs, CDs, tools and sites that can provide a
huge amount of material and activities for the English language class. In this third
chapter I have introduced but a few of them grouped according to receptive and
productive skills. Of course besides the activities proposed and described by me there
are plenty others that any English teacher co uld try their hand at during the class. As a
more complex chain of activities mainly involving the students working with the
computer while trying to accomplish some tasks in a real-life situation I have presented
a project about English for Career in the fourth chapter. As main source for the
information provided to my students I have used Cambridge English for Job Hunting
written by Colm Downes, all the informati on needed being posted for my students on a
wiki site. The same collaborative wiki site se rved as space for the students’ answers and
impressions as well as part of their evaluation.
As final thoughts I would rather say that teaching English through technology,
though an amazing journey and experience, it is quite challenging to achieve many
times; it is something that involves being c onstant in your goals, it involves curiosity
and openness towards what is new in technol ogy and education by always keeping up
with technological ch anges, and it also means not giving up, as sometimes various
problems-technical or otherwise, might a ppear. Moreover, as teachers of each new
generation, we know that educat ion will be in a continuous change and evolution as the
needs of each generation of st udents are different. And this is normal, change is normal,
it can be scary sometimes, but change and evol ution is life. And educating children is an
important component of life as we know it and as it can become, through education.
128

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132 NOTES

1 Alistair, S. Duff, Education for Information , Routledge Research in Information
Technology and Society, 2001, p.19;
2 Nesbit, J. C. & Winne, Self-regulated inquiry w ith networked resources – published in
Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 2003, p. 38;
3 Levien, Roger E., The Emerging Technology: Instructional Uses of the Computer in
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4 Kemeny, John C and Thomas Kurtz, Dartmouth Time Sharing, published in Science ,
Vol. 162, October 11, 1968, pp. 223-228;
5 Kulik, James, and C. Kulik, Effectiveness of Computer-bas ed Instruction: An Updated
Analysis , – published in Computers in Human Behavior , 1991, pp. 75-04;
6 Abrami, P., Understanding and promoting comp lex learning using technology ,
published in Educational Research and Evaluation, 2001, pp. 113-136;
7 Richardson, Virginia, Constructivist Peda gogy, published in Teachers College Record,
volume 105, 2003, p. 1626;
8 Abbey, B as cited in Children’s Learning in a Digital World , edited by Teena
Willoughby and Eileen Wood , Blackwell Publishing, 2008, p. 277;
9 Levy M., CALL: Context and Conceptualisation , Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997,p. 1;
10 Davies G. & Higgins J., Computers, language and language learning , London: CILT,
1982, p.39;
11 Chapelle, Carol A., Computer Applications in Second Language Acquisition,
Cambridge Applied Linguistics (2001), p.2;
12 Underwood J., Linguistics, computers and the language teacher: a communicative
approach, Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1984, pp. 134-135;
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16 Warschauer M., Computer Assisted Language Learning: an Introduction , published
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133
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32 Yackanicz, L. (2000). Reluctant Writers and Writing-Prompt Software, Unpublished
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33 Warlick, D. F., Raw Materials for the Mind: In formation, Technology, and Teaching &
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Pergamon Press Inc, 1982, p. 21;
46 Reading for Understanding D, Scholastic Inc., 1995, page 12;
47 http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/quandary.php , as accessed on 03.02.2010;
48 Escott, John, London (Oxford Bookworms F actfiles Level 1), Oxford University
Press, 1995;
49 Richards, C Jack, Developing Tactics for Listening , Oxford University Press, Third
Edition, 2010, page 6-7;
50 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad , as accessed on 22.10.2010;
51 www.wordle.net .
52 Downes, Colm, Cambridge English for Job Hunting , Cambridge University Press,
2008, pp.6-46

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APPENDIX

LISTENING
Activity 1: London
A quick and easy way to get to different places in the c ity is to use an Underground train. The trains run all
day and most of the night. Buy your ticket before you get on the train. It's better not to make your journey between
eight o'clock and ten o'clock in the morning, or four o'clock and six o'clock in the evening. These are called the 'rush'
hours. Thousands of people are going to work or coming home ag ain then, and it is difficult to move or to find a place
to sit on the train.
You can see much more of London from one of its famous red buses. Some special visitors' buses take you
to many of the interesting places in the city on one jour ney. It takes about one and a half hours, but you can break
your journey and get off (and on again) at the different places you want to visit.
London taxis are called 'black cabs'. Most of them are black, but some are not. You can stop one if it has a
'For Hire' sign on it. The rivers are usually friendly and helpful.
Why not take a boat trip along the River Thames? Boats leave Westminster Pier and Charing Cross Pier,
and they go to Tower Pier and Greenwich.
If you are interested in culture and are crazy about art and history then there are some places you absolutely
have to visit.
Westminster Abbey is more than nine hundred year s old, and is a very famous London church. After
William the Conqueror, every King and Queen of England wa s crowned king or queen here. Westminster Abbey is
more than nine hundred years old, and is a very famous London church. After William the Conqueror, every King and Queen of England was crowned king or queen here.
The Houses of Parliament are near Westminster Abbey. This is the home of the British government. The
clock high up on the building is called Big Ben. Buckingham Pa lace is another place you s houldn’t miss, as it is the
Queen’s home in London. At half past eleven most mornings the soldiers at Buckingham Palace 'change the guard'. It
takes about thirty minutes, and hundr eds of visitors come to watch.
The Tower of London is now a museum, and one of London's most famous buildings. More than two
million people visit it every year. If you are in love with nature and prefer more relaxing activities you can choose to
walk in one of London's beautiful parks. There’s Hyde Park with a lake in the middle, then next to it there is
Kensington Gardens with the statue of Peter Pan. If you visit London with your child then you should go to Regent
Park where there is a zoo with a lot of birds and animals from around the world. There is also St. James’s Park which
is smaller but still very beautiful to see.
If you are interested in shopping then Harrods is probably the place to go; it is not only the most famous
shop in London but it is considered to be one of the most famous shop in the world. A nother choice you have is
Oxford Street which has a lot of big names Selfridges, Ma rks and Spencer, John Lewis and many others. If you are a
fan of older things and antiquities goi ng to one of London’s market is the thi ng to do. At the market in Portobello
Road (open on Saturdays) you can buy old clocks, old chai rs and tables, and hundreds of other things, whereas at
Petticoat Lane they sell cheap clothes and things for the house.

136
If you are tired of so much walking you can take a rest and enjoy a delightful meal in one of London’s pubs
and restaurants. A good place to go to is Soho, a part of London where there are restaurants covering many cuisines
of the world- you have Chinese, Italian, Greek, French a nd many others. In London you can also enjoy simpler meals
if you decide to go to a pub where you can try the traditional fish and chips.
At night, London has a great variety of entertainment, from theatre play s in West End to the numerous
cinemas in the same part of London. If music is your th ing then you should go to the Royal Opera House in Covent
Garden, or to the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gore. In the same time London is rich in street performers and if
you like walking and enjoying the night atmosphere of th e city, you can choose to watch such street performances.
As for museums and galleries, London is a real treasure. You have The British Museum, the biggest
museum in Britain, which is visited by millions of people each year. Another great museum housing famous paintings
is the National Gallery, in Trafalgar S quare. The Museum of the Moving Image on the South Bank tells the story of
cinema and television, and there are many things for visitors to see and do. You can act with actors on a film 'set'. Or
you can even read the news on TV!
Madame Tussaud's is a museum famous for its people made from wax. You can see famous people from
the past and famous people of today.

137

Activity 5 : Pope Sends First Tweet, On An iPad
1. TRUE / FALSE: Read the headline. Guess if a-h below are true (T) or false (F).
a. The Pope sent a first tweet on an iPad . Earlier tweets were on a mobile. T / F
b. The tweet was on the same day as another special day for the Pope. T / F
c. The tweet was to ask everyone in the world to love each other. T / F
d. The Vatican Twitter account does not follow anyone. T / F
e. The Pope has encouraged the Catholic Church to use technology. T / F
f. The Pope said priests should use tech to spread the Bible’s message. T / F
g. A spokesperson said the Pope was unimpressed by the iPad. T / F
h. The spokesman said the Pope was not in awe of technology. T / F
2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article.
1. launch a. react
2 marked b. attempt
3. effort c. following
4. audience d. urged
5. gather e. start
6. encouraged f. period
7. threshold g. commemorated
8. era h. wonder
9. respond i. collect
10. awe j. beginning
3. PHRASE MATCH: (Sometimes more than one choice is possible.)
1. launch the Vatican’s a. wider audience
2 With my prayers and b. of a new era
3. connect with a c. follows no one
4. update this d. deeper relationships
5. has over 50,000 followers but e. at the new technology
6. use it to communicate the f. blessings
7. stand at the threshold g. news portal
8. new technologies create h. moment
9. clearly in awe i. three times a day
10. It's a lighter j. Bible’s message

138

Activity 6 : How it is made
Y
OU ARE GOING TO WATCH A PART OF A DOCUMENTARY HOW IT ’S MADE ; PLEASE WATCH IT CAREFULLY
AND TRY TO FIND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR OBJECT . YOU MAY ALSO CONSULT THE
FOLLOWING SITES TO FIND INFORMATION :

– http://www.madehow.com
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_network
– http://www.saws.org/
– http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal?COUNTRY_CODE=US& COOKIE_SET=false
– http://www.ehow.com/about_6123758_ fiber_optic-cables-made_.html
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber

1) Name of object:
2) Place the documentary is filmed:
3) Materials used:

4) What/who makes it:
the man

the computer

other type of machine

5) Company mentioned:
6) Mention 2 things that you already knew about your object:
7) Mention 2 new things that you find out about your object:
8) Describe the process of manufacturing your object:

139

READING
Activity 5 : Donating Houses to the Community Instead of Demolition
This old house is still in pretty good shape, but its newly rich owners
wanted something bigger and better on thei r expensive Los Altos lot. Instead of
bulldozing the house, as other newly rich Silicon Valley owners have been
doing lately, they decided to give it aw ay to the city of East Palo Alto.
Roger Gaw is a Los Altos homeowner who wants to donate a house;
"We paid a lot of money to have the house moved here. And someone gets a
home. So it works for everybody."
The idea quickly caught on. A tax br eak for well to do home builders and
a nearly free home for a needy family, add up to good business for real estate
agents.
Christina Luiz is a real estate agent in Silicon Valley. "I personally own
two homes that could be used. I talked to one of my other builders, and they
said, they too, would be willing to donate the homes in perfect condition. And I
said, how could I do this, and East Palo Alto told me, we're getting calls from people who want to donate for tax reasons." In no time, the city of East Palo
Alto found itself with eight donated houses.
Mayor Sharifa Wilson says of the sit uation, "One of t he dilemmas that
East Palo Alto has is that we don't own any property. So the dilemma is what do
we do with the houses that people offer us?"
Over the past few decades, East Palo Alto has been an island of difficulty
in a world of affluence. Poverty, drugs and drive-by shootings earned it the title
"murder capital," a few years back. Now it 's benefiting from a trickle down effect
from its wealthy neighbors. Once it fi gures out how to handle the windfall and
share the wealth.
Mayor Sharifa W ilson says, "I can im agine at some point everybody will
be screaming, give me the house, give me the house. This kind of thing. That's
the only thing I'm a little bit leery about."
For East Palo Alto, it's an embarrassment of riches. More houses than
they know what to do with.

VOCABULARY
1 Demolition
Sporting contest.
Partially tear down.
Lower in rank.
Act of destroying or wrecking
2 Bulldozing
Bull riding
Clearing land or houses with a tractor

140
Day sleeper
A special tractor
3 Silicon Valley
Bay area known for computer technology
California desert
Fertile farmland
Refers only to Palo Alto
4 Donate
A person who gives
Control or rule
Give or contribute
Dome roof
5 Dilemma
Old or run down
Stray or turn aside
Difficult problem that needs resolving
Easily solved problem
6 Decades
Ten dollars
Ten year periods
Decline in morals
Ten sided figure
7 Affluence
Plentiful wealth or abundance
To exert power
Fluent in two or more languages
Rich person
8 Poverty
Low income
Productive
Poor effort
Condition of being poor or scantiness
9 Trickle
Cheat or deceive

141
Tease or excite
Use of tricks
To drip slowly or in a thin stream
10 Windfall
Sudden gain or good fortune
Blast of wind
Windsock
Reward or prize
11 Leery
Cunning look
Greedy
Distrustful or wary
Accepting and trustworthy
12 Embarrassment
To suspend trade
State of being self-con scious or ill at ease
Turn red in the face
To be proud

142

Activity 8 : An Ideal Home for an Ideal Holiday
Type of house Location Facilities Price Others

143

WRITING

Activity 3 : Literature for me

STUDENT ’S NAME :
__________________________________

WRITER ’S FULL NAME

DATE OF BIRTH / DEATH

PLACE OF BIRTH

WORKS WRITTEN

MOST FAMOUS WORK

BRIEF SUMMARY / COMMENTS

QUOTE

144

DECLARA ȚIE,

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engleză la Colegiul Tehnic Energetic Sibiu, declar ca aceasta lucrare îmi apar ține. Ideile
ce nu apar men ționate în noti țe sau în bibliografie îmi apar țin.
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bibliografie cât și in referin țele de la sfârșit.
Menționez deasemenea c ă această lucrare nu a fost obiec tul niciunui concurs sau
alt examen.
12.08.2011
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