 Wouldn't it be nice if you could put away all those textbooks and reference books and do all your language learning over the Internet? Well, to a limited extent, you can. |
Is the Internet making the classroom irrelevant? Not yet, but you might be surprised at just how much there is available for language learners. Best of all, most of it is still free.
In its short lifetime, the Internet has already become the world’s greatest home library. It is also on its way to becoming the world’ greatest shopping mall, and as telecommunication networks improve, it may even become the world’s number one television and radio network as well.
You might expect the Internet to be an excellent source of material for improving your English. Well, you’re right. The Internet is an awesome resource for just about every language skill imaginable – and most of it is still free.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that there is so much material that it can be difficult to find what is most suitable for you. And since anyone is free to publish on the Internet, there is a lot of material that is not particularly good. The Internet, is unfortunately, also one of the world’s greatest junkyards.
This column is intended to save you time in getting started. I’ve spent countless hours scouring the worldwide web for sites helpful to English language learners. I’m confident you will not be disappointed with many of my suggestions.
A word of warning, however. I’ve only scratched the surface and I’m sure I’ve missed dozens of jewels. That’s the frustrating thing about the Internet.
Get real
Before we turn to language sites, let’s not forget that the best content on the web has little directly to do with English language learning. Instead, it is found on websites designed for people who are already highly competent in the language.
You won’t find any language learning sites that can rival the vast resources of cnn.com, yahoo.com, cnet.com, elle.com, nationalgeographic.com or espn.com. The sooner you start visiting such sites, the better.
A good place to start is with websites offering news. Focus on major international stories and use your background from the Thai language media to help you understand what you read, hear and see. You might begin by trying yahoo.com’s full coverage section (http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/fc/). Here, you can find the same story reported by several different news organisations. If you have trouble understanding one, try another – and another. To see how the international press is reporting on Thailand, try http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/World/Thailand/.
With a little imagination and effort, you can even design your own language lessons. For example, cnn.com has full transcripts of almost all of its programmes (see http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/). They are three or four days late, but that’s all right. Just video-tape one or two and you have an hour or more of great material. This can be very good for spoken English if you tape a programme like Larry King Live.
For same-day transcripts of news broadcasts, try the Voice of America (http://www.voa.gov/verity/newsdirectory.cfm). You can also hear the latest broadcasts (http://www.voa.gov/newsnow/). if you have the free real audio plugin for your browser (http://www.realaudio.com).
The news is broadcast each half hour and the sound is of the highest quality – as good as your fm radio. There is one slight complication. The transcripts are an hour or more old, so the news you hear won’t always follow the script exactly.
Actually, I think that is good because it forces you to really listen. Try this. Read two or three of the latest news transcripts and then listen to the news. You’ll be surprised at how much you can understand. If you are really ambitious, repeat the process a half hour later.
Of course, VOA is most famous among language learners for its special english service. This radio service uses simplified English with a 1500-word vocabulary. It is available on the web (http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/) and you can even download audio files of the latest material and play them again and again.
Nothing can rival the United Kingdom’s prestigious BBC world service, however, when it comes to intermediate and advanced learners. Apart from the main service itself (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml/), it has an absolutely wonderful "learning English" section (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml).
If you are particularly ambitious, you might want to subscribe to a BBC discussion group where you exchange ideas with 2000 learners from 85 countries.(http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/youmeus/index.shtml).
Warning. You are promised about 20 e-mails a day, so you might want to try this for short periods of time. Subscribing is free and unsubscribing is easy and immediate.
Incidentally, cnn.com also has a section for learners and their teachers (http://fyi.cnn.com/fyi/index.html) and, of course, so does the Bangkok Post (http://www.bangkokpost.com/education).
Teach me
English at home: The owners of this site obviously enjoy what they are doing. You will too. |
By now, some of you might be getting a bit impatient to find out about a pure language learning site. Take a look at http://www.english-at-home.com/ for starters. I find it friendly, flashy and fast. There is very little waiting for pages to appear. The site is very well thought out too and almost everything is useful.
Speaking tips, for example, are designed to help you survive in conversations. You learn to work your way through understanding difficulties and, above all, you learn to say things correctly and politely. The site is particularly good for people who hope to work in a company where English is used.
Once again, however, it is hard to beat the British. They invented the English language, after all. It should be no surprise that the premier British-based site belongs to the British Council (http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/. Here, there are creative activities for kids, teens and adults.
The site is great for learners who want something other than a language school on-line. You can get some of that too, but you can also enjoy the songs and lyrics of some of the latest pop songs. You can even play games based on vocabulary in the lyrics.
 Digital Education Network (edunet): The tests here are fun, but you'd better have the latest plug-ins. |
Another free site in the flashy, modern category is den: digital education network (http://www.edunet.com/learning/index.cfm). It is grammar-oriented, featuring an on-line grammar reference and a grammar clinic.
If you like tests, this is a great place site to visit. You’ll need an up-to-date Internet browser and some plug-ins to take full advantage of the site, however. You will also need to register. Once you’ve registered, the site will remember you and the tests you have already completed.
Fill-in-the-blanks and multiple choice exercises are extremely popular with web-site designers. I suspect this is not because this is such a wonderful way to learn a language – it isn’t – but because such activities lend themselves so well to computer checking. Many sites offer this service.
With the bursting of the Internet bubble, a lot of the free exercise sites are no longer around, but one that it is http://www.better-english.com/exerciselist.html. Here you will find 250 exercises in a variety of categories. Some are easy, some are quite challenging.
Lighten up a little
 A site named "English at the beach" is bound to be fun. |
There is no harm in trying to have a little fun while you learn English. That’s what Englishday is all about (http://www.englishday.com/). Here you will find a wealth of language games and, best of all, an excellent collection of jokes. Example: Teacher: If I had seven oranges in one hand and eight oranges in the other, what would I have?
Student: Big hands!
I am particularly fond of a website from Victoria, Australia http://home.vicnet.net.au/~prace/beach/. With a name like "English at the beach" you know it has to be fun – and it is. The site contains short, easy readings which are fun for readers at all levels of proficiency.
English teachers are entitled to some amustement too and they need look no futher than the Language Fun Farm (http://www.teflfarm.com/index.html). I doubtg there is anything like it on the web and once I started, I had trouble contianing my laughter.
While the tone is consistently upbeat and light, this is not a trivial site. There is lots of value in the way of product reviews, articles, interviews with prominent authors and advice for novice and experienced teachers.
A Bangkok contribution
One of the berst sites for teachers origniates right here in Bangkok. It is called ESL Flow (http://www.eslflow.com) and it is run by a very dedicated teachers named Peter Snashall.
The site is a collection of links to communicative activities on a variety of topics at the elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate levels.
We’re not talking here about just one or two activities per topic. In many cases, there are ten or more. When I last looked, for example, there were 16 elementary level activities on food.
The site is well organised too, so it is easy to find what you want. There is even a search function that actually works. It is quite an ambitious undertaking for a single person.
Do-it-yourselfers If you are one of those impatient do-it-yourselfers who would like to search out your own sites without having to read through the suggestions below, here are some places to start. http://esl.about.com/homework/esl/mbody.htm Run by about.com’s ESL specialist, Ken Beard, this site has links to just about anything worthwhile on English language learning on the web. http://www.eslcafe.com/search/index.html If you want links in truly massive doses, try this site. Here you’ll find over three thousand listings in dozens of categories. While you are there, check out the site itself. Dave’s ESL Café is one of the top five ESL sites on the web. http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tl/ If you want a more manageable list, try the site, "Teaching and learning on the web". This is not just about English, so you’ll have to use the keyword box and type in "English" to find what you want. |
It’s not just English The BBC also has on-line lessons in beginning German, Italian and French as well as lessons in intermediate Spanish and intermediate and advanced Greek. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/languages/) |
Learning Thai Are there websites for people who want to learn Thai? Yes, a few. The best is probably is "Thai Language and Culture" from the University of Northern Illinois (http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Thai/) where you can find materials for all levels. I’m partial to this site because you can find the Mary Haas Reader there. That’s one of the books I used to learn Thai more than 30 years ago. To go very far with this site, however, you will have to download the Thai fonts it uses. For some rather advanced listening you can try the Thai Language Audio Resource Centre at Thammasat University (http://thaiarc.tu.ac.th/). You can even hear excerpts of speeches by His Majesty the King on this site. And for advanced reading and translation, don’t forget our own site at the Bangkok Post (http://www.bangkokpost.net/education/site2002/trsum02.htm). |
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |