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ESL Meets DSL
5/29/2001
Adult students learning to speak English as a second language benefit from
a culturally contextual approach—sentences and paragraphs that reflect
contemporary culture and business practices. Not only do the students then learn
English, but along the way they also learn many of the actual words and phrases
English speakers use in everyday life. With computers such an omnipresent force
in contemporary life, making them the theme of an ESL course makes sense. One
such course is being offered by Contra Costa College's English for International
Students (EIS) department, where students study English in the context of the
Internet.
Helen Kalkstein Fragiadakis, chair of CCC's EIS department, teaches the English through the Internet course. The course, which enrolls 10-15 intermediate to advanced ESL students, teaches general English skills (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, reading, and listening) using, in large part, the Internet as source material. The foundation of the course is GlobalEnglish.com, an online English language learning service, which offers more than 700 hours of coursework on its Web site. Kalkstein Fragiadakis, who is also a textbook author and member of the GlobalEnglish advisory board, discovered that the Internet had a lot to offer her students. "Using the Internet, they get to read current material that is always being updated. It's always fresh content. The GlobalEnglish site is written with the ESL student in mind, so it's a great place for them to start surfing the Web," says Kalkstein Fragiadakis.
Kalkstein Fragiadakis's students came to the class with a range of computer experience, from none at all to quite a bit. "We (she and her part-time teaching assistant) did spend some time working with the novices, but the more experienced students helped the ones who knew the least," she notes. She points out that students learn a lot of English while they're learning to use a computer. "Learning computer basics, navigating Web sites, getting information, they use and improve their English skills. They're reading, speaking, listening, all while they're learning about computers."
Each of Kalkstein Fragiadakis's students took a GlobalEnglish placement test, which determined which course they would take to begin their studies. GlobalEnglish offers dozens of levels of exercises, packaged as assignments within courses, both in general English and business English. The site supports 10 languages, with an all-English alternative for anyone who d'esn't speak one of those.
In the course, students worked through exercises both in class and as homework, sent each other e-mail, and chatted with each other in the GlobalEnglish community chat rooms. "Students loved the chat feature, talking with other students from all over the world," notes Kalkstein Fragiadakis. They used both the open chat and hosted chat functions, and occasionally the voice chat, which was great practice but too noisy to use in class on a regular basis. "Chatting and e-mailing helped them speak and write in real English."
Kalkstein Fragiadakis also encouraged students to visit the skills center, essentially an online language lab, as well as the GlobalEnglish "magazine," a page with weekly news, features, games, and an idiom or slang word of the day. Kalkstein Fragiadakis created clever treasure hunts and activities that sent her students through the Web site's many areas looking for particular information, projects that enriched both their computer expertise and language skills.
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