The linguistic accuracy
Does the page have many grammar, spelling mistakes etc.
These features do not guarantee that you can trust the information on the site, but they are general guidelines which you can apply with your own knowledge and common sense to help you make an informed decision.
A virtual staffroom
The internet has a number of features that can provide teachers with information and support.
Discussion lists/groups
By joining an email discussion group teachers can communicate, learn and share with many other teachers. Once you are subscribed every message that you send is automatically distributed to all of the other members on the list, and you receive all the replies and messages from the other members.
Message boards
If you don't have the time or don't want to be looking at potentially hundreds of emails every week, then message boards are another good way to get or give answers to specific questions. Many sites have message boards on a range of topics and it is usually possible to look at the questions and answers without having to subscribe.
Discussion groups and message boards are like 'virtual staffrooms' through which you can communicate with teachers all over the world. If you are having a problem with a student, class or need ideas on how to teach a particular language point, you can be sure that other teachers have had the same problems. By joining message boards and mailing lists you can have access to the knowledge and experience of many other teachers which can save you time and also give you reassurance that you are not alone!
Communication
The net gives users the power and freedom to communicate instantly across the globe. If you can make contact with people from other cultures and countries it helps motivate students to improve their writing skills. Writing on the internet is more realistic than, say, a letter-writing exercise in class as the students have an authentic reason for writing.
Chat rooms
A chat room is a facility on the web which allows you to communicate directly and instantly with other people online. Unlike email, messages are displayed on the screen as they are written. It's like having a conversation, but in writing. However, as a teacher you need to be very careful using chat rooms with students. You cannot always be sure who your students are talking to - so if you plan to use a chat room try to find one that has been set up by a reliable organisation for use by school students.
Inter-school contacts
Making contacts with schools in other countries and establishing an email exchange programme is a safer route than chat rooms.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
This is the technology for setting up your own chat-room. If you have made contacts with another school, then it is possible to set up your own chat room using IRC with that school. This is much more satisfactory than using a general chat-room as you can be sure who your students are chatting with. Today, setting up your own IRC is not nearly as difficult as it sounds. But it does require research and planning. Of course, you can find all the information you need on the web! Although if you have access to a computer lab there may be a person who is responsible for that room who can help.
Remember as with any classroom activity the students will still need a task as a purpose for the chat and will need to be monitored carefully.
If you have any suggestions or tips for using the internet in the class you would like to share on this site, contact us.
To judge by the way some people speak, there is no place for grammar in the language course nowadays; yet it is, in reality, as important as it ever was exercise of correct grammar, if he is to attain any skill of effective use of the language, but he need not know consciously formulated rules to account to him for that he does unconsciously correctly. In order to understand a language and to express oneself correctly one must assimilate the grammar mechanism of the language studied. Indeed, one may know all the words in a sentence and yet fail to understand it, if one does not see the relation between the words in the given sentence. And vice versa, a sentence may contain one, two, and more unknown words but if one has a good knowledge of the structure of the language one can easily guess the meaning of these words or at least find them in a dictionary.
No speaking is possible without the knowledge of grammar, without the forming of a grammar mechanism. If learner has acquired such a mechanism, he can produce correct sentences in a foreign language. Paul Roberts writes: “Grammar is something that produces the sentences of a language. By something we mean a speaker of English. If you speak English natively, you have built into you rules of English grammar. In a sense, you are an English grammar. You possess, as an essential part of your being, a very complicated apparatus which enables you to produce infinitely many sentences, all English ones, including many that you have never specifically learned. Furthermore by applying you rule you can easily tell whether a sentence that you hear a grammatical English sentence or not.” A command of English as is envisaged by the school syllabus cannot be ensured without the study of grammar. Pupils need grammar to be able to aud, speak, read, and write in the target language.
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