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Wild Rose
Using Web-based Activities for Teaching ESL 
Christina Gitsaki, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Administration, Japan
Richard Paul Taylor, Nagoya City University, Japan 
 

The use of the World Wide Web for teaching English as a second or foreign language is becoming increasing popular. With most of the information on web sites in English, the web offers an abundance of language teaching resources and a wealth of information that teachers can use in order to expose second/foreign language students to authentic language use. Exposure, however, is not enough to trigger language acquisition. Students need to be involved in meaningful tasks that integrate the use of information technology in the language classroom with language acquisition. In the absence of teacher guidance and student-centered tasks, the web sites will do very little to help students learn English. This paper presents an instructional system designed to guide ESL students through their exploration of the WWW and help them carry out web-based projects that will ultimately help them improve their reading and writing skills, enrich their vocabulary, and practice English conversation. 



Christina Gitsaki holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Queensland, Australia, and she is an Associate Professor at the Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Administration in Aichi, Japan. She teaches English Conversation, Computer Communication Skills, E-mail Skills, International Business English and English through Electronic Media. Her publications include papers in System, CALICO and ReCALL. Her main research interests are in CALL, second language lexical acquisition, and materials design.


Richard Paul Taylor holds an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, and he is a lecturer at the Nagoya City University, in Aichi, Japan. He teaches English Conversation and Computer Communication Skills. His main research interests are in the areas of CALL and teaching methodology, and he has published with CALICO and ReCALL.