Hwa Kang Journal of TEFL May 2002
TEACHERS' HOMEPAGES AND TESOL
ABSTRACT
This study examines the different perceptions between students and teachers of the purpose of ESL teachers' homepages. It creates and administers a short survey of students' expectations with regard to teachers' homepages. The results are analyzed and the 10 top categories of interest to students are selected. These top 10 represent 65 percent of the total preferences expressed by the students. Then 201 websites, from a well-known ESL directory on the Internet, are examined to find out whether the webpages provide content and interaction that meet the expressed needs of students. Findings highlighted both how the nature and extent of the differences between expectations of teachers and their student visitors. In conclusion, recommendations for teachers are made for teachers wanting to develop their own website as well as for areas of further research.
Introduction
The advent of the World Wide Web provides a great opportunity for teachers to create new and varied avenues of interaction with their students. This medium allows for creating content and interaction between students and teacher (Dickson), and creates an opportunity for students to develop at a speed more suited to their own individual preferences. Although homepages have been around since the early days of the World Wide Web with some of the best TESOL websites, such as Dave's ESL Cafe, starting from the efforts of teachers to harness the World Wide Web, only recently have teachers increasingly begun turning to the web and developing their own homepages in significant numbers. Little work, however, has been done to research these homepages and whether they are in any sense providing material and content of interest to students.
So this study examines the perceptions between students and teachers of the purpose of ESL teachers' homepages. It initially creates and administers a short survey of students' expectations with regard to teachers' homepages. The results are analyzed and the ten top categories of interest to students are selected. These top ten represent 65 percent of the total preferences expressed by the students.
Two hundred one websites are provided from a well-known ESL directory on the Internet. These are examined to determine whether they offer content and interaction that meet the expressed needs of students. Recommendations are then given for teachers wanting to develop their own website as well as for areas of further interest in terms of research.
Literature Review
"Technology itself does not determine human behavior, such as how we teach. However it does create the possibilities for new forms of behavior and of education" (Warschauer, 2001). There is a significant body of evidence that addresses the use of webpages for projects created by students, but almost nothing can be found that addresses specifically the creation of webpages by teachers for students and the reactions of students to those webpages. However, any attempt to examine this issue needs to look at both the students and the teachers themselves.
Students' Technology Environments and Their Attitudes to Technology
CyberAtlas showed that out of Taiwan's population of 22.3 million, over 6.5 million were users and over 5 million were classed as 'active' users. iamasia even more recently pegged domestic Internet penetration in Taiwan at around 31percent. Given the relatively young population with 22 percent of the population being under 14, according to a recent report published by Tradeport, both of these numbers suggest there is still a large potential for the development of the Internet in Taiwan in general and in education, particularly (National Trade Data Bank qtd. in Tradeport).
In the United States, generally considered to be further down the road of the computerizing both schools and the home, "According to a recent report, published by the U.S. Census Bureau, 'Nine of every 10 school-age children (ages 6 to 17) had access to a computer in 2000, with two-thirds having computer access at home and 80 percent using a computer at school. Sixty-five percent of children ages 3 to 17 lived in a household with a computer in 2000, compared to 55 percent in 1998. About three in 10 children used the Internet at home in 2000, up from two in 10 in 1998'" (quoted in CyberAtlas). With the increasing prevalence of computers and the rapid rise of high-speed Internet connections in Taiwan, society here seems to follow closely the model provided by the United States.
Moreover, Schoepp notes that the Internet tends to increase and enhance student levels of motivation when they are learning English and using the Internet as part of their study. In Schoepp and Erogul's study of Turkish EFL students' behavior and use of the information technology outside the classroom, they highlighted that on average their students spent 10.9 hours per week on the Internet using English out of an estimated 13.5 hours of total computer time in English. Moreover, "In response to the statement computer technology at the University has enhanced my English language learning, 78 (86.5 percent) of students either agreed or strongly agreed." (5/9).
Moreover, Hao-Jan Howard Chen's recent experiment in creating an online language laboratory at National Taiwan Ocean University was both innovative and challenging. This experiment found that students were "very interested in learning more about the Internet and Web resources which might help them to improve their command of English. They feel that the virtual language lab is very convenient. They no longer need to go to the physical lab and they can gain access to the lab anytime they like." (28)
Overall, these factors of students increasingly having easy access to computer technology and Internet access at both home and school, positive attitudes to both the technology and English-related Internet, and a strong willingness to make use of the technology create a valuable opportunity for ESL teachers.
Teachers and the WWW
The invention of the browser gave the Internet a much more attractive face for educators with its multimedia elements. The possibilities for use as an educational medium were limited only by the imagination of the teachers/designers. Now, development of HTML tools for the everyday user allows even moderately unskilled teachers an opportunity to create their own homepages through a variety of means using tools that are appropriate for their skill levels, whether it be merely 'blogging,' using tools like Yahoo! Groups or Tripod's page creation wizards, or creating personal pages with freeware or commercial software (Dickson). Hoffman notes, too, "Although educators are likely to know what they want to teach, they are frequently unfamiliar with design principles. Nonetheless, designing their own materials is an attractive option and thanks to a number of authoring programs now available, teachers can accomplish this task without having to learn complicated computer languages and programming techniques." (Hoffman)
Furthermore, Warschauer lists seven benefits of including computer-based instruction in a language course as: "multi-modal practice with feedback, individualization in a large class, pair and small group work on projects, either collaboratively or competitively, the fun factor, variety in available resources and learning styles used, exploratory learning with large amounts of language data and real-life skill-building in computer use" (Warschauer). Warschauer and Whittaker go on to suggest that "it is not only a matter of using the Internet to learn English, but also of learning English to be able to function well on the Internet" (27).
Of course, for a teacher who intends to use such technology with her students, Felix warns: "The essential justification for any use of technology has to be the improvement of teaching and learning that it allows, and everything needs to be judged against this requirement" (Felix). Moreover, the teacher should also seek to identify what aims she is pursuing by including the technology as an element in her course of instruction. Warschauer noted in the Internet for English Teachers "Clarifying course goals is ... an important first step towards successful use of the Internet." If this is true of the use of the Internet within the classroom, it is also true of the teacher who is designing their website. (Warschauer)
Limitations
i. Students' Sample
The students used in the initial stage of the experiment were composed of 113 students in the Sophomore Year at Chinese Culture University in Taipei City, Taiwan. One class was primarily studying English as non-English students, while the second class was entirely composed of English majors.
ii. Teachers' Sample
The teachers' sample also had a significant number of limitations:
Method
The data was then collated, edited and combined into a single list. Duplicate website references were removed. This created an initial list of 201 websites from the original 208 sites. These seven duplicate sites were caused by their respective entry also including frame references. After consideration, the researcher decided it would be more convenient to use the framed references, as it provided a simpler way of linking to the different pages and easier, clearer navigation.
Primary Examination of Comments on the Websites
Each of the webmasters/teachers who submitted their pages for the directory was also invited to type in a few comments describing their pages for subsequent viewers at the time of registration of their website. Analysis of these comments produced a list of typical categories of activities found (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1
Further sifting eliminated the TESL-ESL unrelated links, allowing a basic list of typical descriptions to be compiled. Multiple entries were reduced to single entries. This produced a basic grouping of 56 entries. Additional sorting eliminated unnecessary entries to determine those which had a direct relationship with students (See Figure 2) resulting in a total of 30 elements that were of interest to students. This list was subsequently correlated with one found at http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/links/ESL/ which suggested a few other categories of possible interest for students, such as Free Lessons, Games, Help, Idioms and Slang, Internet, Online Textbooks, Penpals, Communicating, Survival English, and Treasure Hunts. Most either overlapped with, or were not directly relevant to, categories already in the survey. The final list was created and added to the survey.
Figure 2
Student Survey
Three additional questions to determine students' attitudes to using the Internet for learning English, as well as their experience of, and attitude to, visiting their teachers' homepage were provided. Students merely had to indicate a simple Yes/No answer. For the second part of the survey, using the newly compiled list, students had to select five items they would consider to be the most interesting to help them improve their English on the Internet. Questions in the student survey focused on student perceptions about the value of the Internet as a learning site and actual use of a teacher's website. (See Appendix A). The results of the survey would determine students' priorities with regard to their acquisition of English via the Internet. It was also expected that these survey results would help to determine the nature of the ideal teacher's homepage, and help measure those that were out there already to see if they were providing what students felt they either wanted or needed. Given the limitations of this pilot study, only the top 10 responses were chosen as worthy of interest in the subsequent analysis of the teachers' websites.
Website Survey Method and Problems
Not Found Error is seen as an invitation to correct the link, "Link Check Status = NOT FOUND ERROR Please tell us the new URL, if you know it" with a more suitable hyperlink to a new email message detailing the old address and asking for appropriate input. Internet Explorer noted that many of these pages could not be found or displayed. However, when initially checked, some error messages were discovered to be themselves erroneous.
Of these 43 websites, 11 were incorrectly recorded and found to be available at the time of checking, one of which had moved and another of which was at least partially available, but the host computer had temporarily prohibited access. Once the survey of all the websites was carried out, the total number of unavailable websites found was actually 49, slightly exceeding the initial estimate.
Table 1: Question One
Have you ever used the Internet to help you improve your English? (N=113)
Yes |
61 |
53.98% |
No |
52 |
46.02% |
Invalid |
0 |
0.00% |
Table 2: Question Two
Have you ever visited your teacher's homepage on the Internet? (N=113)
Yes |
16 |
14.16% |
No |
96 |
84.96% |
Invalid |
1 |
0.88% |
Table 3: Question Three
Do you think visiting your teacher's homepage on the Internet would help
you learn English in any way? (N=113)
Yes |
103 |
91.15% |
No |
9 |
7.96% |
Invalid |
1 |
0.88% |
The majority of the students surveyed here indicated that they had indeed used the Internet to improve their English, though this was not a significant majority. While the nature of their particular study was not investigated, it was nonetheless interesting to note the percentage of use. Though nearly 85 percent of students had never visited a teacher's webpage, the researcher was surprised by how strongly they felt that visiting their teacher's homepage with over 91 percent of students implying they would find it beneficial. These statistics are instructive when compared later with the teachers' websites.
From the 113 papers came 548 answers (See Table 4), with three papers ruled invalid due to either too many choices or no selections expressed, while one paper only had three choices selected. Because of the limitations imposed on the data collection it was decided only to select the top 10 criteria for the survey of teachers' websites. However, these items alone accounted for over 65 percent of the total choices expressed by students. The selected items are indicated by an asterisk.
Table 4: 30 Criteria
*Those items selected as the Top 10 criteria for the website survey.
|
Type of Response |
Total Responses |
Percentage |
1 |
Listening* |
63 |
11.50% |
2 |
Songs* |
54 |
9.85% |
3 |
Reading* |
43 |
7.85% |
4 |
E-Mail * |
38 |
6.93% |
5 |
Communication* |
32 |
5.84% |
6 |
Speaking* |
32 |
5.84% |
7 |
Vocabulary* |
28 |
5.11% |
8 |
Humor* |
24 |
4.38% |
9 |
Course Information* |
22 |
4.01% |
10 |
Writing* |
21 |
3.83% |
11 |
Activities |
19 |
3.47% |
12 |
Culture |
17 |
3.10% |
13 |
Business English |
16 |
2.92% |
14 |
Photographs |
16 |
2.92% |
15 |
Study Abroad |
16 |
2.92% |
16 |
Grammar |
14 |
2.55% |
17 |
Online Course |
14 |
2.55% |
18 |
Assignments |
13 |
2.37% |
19 |
Dictionary |
13 |
2.37% |
20 |
Classes |
10 |
1.82% |
21 |
Lessons |
7 |
1.28% |
22 |
Puzzles |
7 |
1.28% |
23 |
Quizzes |
6 |
1.09% |
24 |
Testing |
6 |
1.09% |
25 |
Links |
4 |
0.73% |
26 |
Tips |
4 |
0.73% |
27 |
Internet Guide |
3 |
0.55% |
28 |
Software |
3 |
0.55% |
29 |
Biographies |
2 |
0.36% |
30 |
Projects |
1 |
0.18% |
|
Total |
548 |
100% |
Results of Website Survey
Area of Interest |
Responses |
Percentage |
Student Ranking |
Course Information |
42 |
27.63% |
9 |
Reading |
22 |
14.47% |
3 |
Communication |
16 |
10.53% |
5= |
Vocabulary |
14 |
9.21% |
7 |
Writing |
7 |
4.61% |
10 |
|
6 |
3.95% |
4 |
Listening |
6 |
3.95% |
1 |
Songs |
4 |
2.63% |
2 |
Humor |
3 |
1.97% |
8 |
Speaking |
3 |
1.97% |
5= |
Total |
123 |
n/a |
n/a |
Of the original 201 sites, 49 (24.38 percent) were unavailable when accessed for this survey. A surprising 88 websites (43.78 percent) offered nothing in the top 10 student-selected categories. Only 64 websites (31.84 percent) were responsible for the data produced in the above table, which is a remarkably low level. Moreover, comparing the student preferences with the teacher preferences indicated a large gap in the perception between what was being wanted and what was being delivered, e.g. Course Information, Vocabulary and Writing all ranked in the bottom five among students, but the top five among teachers; while four of the most desired by students, namely Listening, Songs, and Email all ranked in the bottom five among teachers.
This clearly suggests a major divergence in what teachers perceive as being ideal for a webpage, and the students, of whom over 91 percent expressed a desire to visit their teacher's pages. Teachers are missing a valuable opportunity to reach out to students with their homepages, especially since so many students expressed a desire to visit the homepage of their teacher.
Discussion
The mismatch between teachers' websites and students' expectations for their homepages is quite pronounced, even where teachers have taken the effort to create a student-oriented website. The reasons for this are unclear, as the survey did not investigate the methods and motivations of the teachers who created the websites.
Conclusion
Theoretical Implications
This article has examined an aspect of teachers' and students' lives that is becoming increasingly common, and outlined the accompanying potential and problems. Future research should focus being broader in scope so that they can correct any biases that may have entered into the study due to the small sample sizes. Since this was only a pilot study, we need also to undertake a more detailed survey of teachers with their own homepages to find out what motivated them to publish class-related materials online, what kind of content is effective based on their experience, and lastly, how it relates to their classroom instruction, if at all.
Referring to a previous study done in Egypt, Warschauer (2001) notes "while Egyptian colloquial Arabic is used in much informal chatting and email use, nearly all formal communication by email in Egypt--even between one Egyptian and another--is conducted in English." This surprising fact suggests that as teachers of EFL we need to understand and adopt this technology as a form of electronic literacy in a world where the use of English is increasing dramatically.
Works Cited
Chen, Hao-Jan Howard. "Creating a Virtual Language Lab: An EFL experience at National Taiwan Ocean University." ReCALL. 11:2 (1999), 28.
Dickson, Kenneth. "A Random Walk Along the Information Superhighway Part III: WhatDo You Want to Create?" Hwa Kang Journal of TEFL. 7 (2001), 117-136.
Felix, Uschi. "Virtual language learning: potential and practice." ReCALL 10:1 (1998) 54. Hoffman, Suzanne. "Computers and instructional design in foreign language/ESL instruction." TESOL Journal. 5:2 (Winter 1995-1996). 25-26.
iamasia. "Taiwan." 5 Feb. 2002. <http://www.iamasia.com/country/taiwan/taiwan.cfm
Internet Explorer 5.5. Microsoft Corporation. 2001.
Kelly, Charles. "Guidelines for Designing a Good Web Site for ESL Students." Internet TESL Journal. VI:3 (March 2000). 5 Feb. 2002. <http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kelly-Guidelines.html
Kelly, Charles. "TESL : Personal Pages of ESL Teachers." 29 Sept. 2002. <http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/links/TESL/Personal_Pages_of_ESL_Teachers>
National Trade Data Bank. U. S. Department of Commerce. 6 May, 1999. Quoted in
"Taiwan" World Factbook. TradePort. 2 Feb. 2002. <http://www.tradeport.org/ts/countries/taiwan/wofact.html
Pastore, Michael. "Computer, net access standard for many Americans." The Big Picture Geographics. CyberAtlas. 6 Sep. 2001. INT Media Group Inc. 2 Feb. 2002. <http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/demographics/article/0,1323, 5901_879441,00.html>
Schoepp, Kevin. "Basic Web Design and the World Wide Web: A Content-Based Instruction Course." Teaching English With Technology. 1:4 (2001) 2002. <http://www.iatefl.org.pl/call/j_article4.htm>.
Schoepp, Kevin and Erogul, Murat. "Turkish EFL student's utilization of IT outside the classroom." TEFL Web Journal. 1:1 (2001). 24 Sep. 2001. <http://www.teflweb-j.org/schoepp_erogul.html.
"The world's online populations." The Big Picture Geographics. CyberAtlas. 17 Jan. 2002. INT Media Group Inc. 2 Feb. 2002. <http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/geographics/article/0,,5911_151151,00.html>
Warschauer, Mark. "The death of cyberspace and the rebirth of CALL." CALL in the 21st Century. Escuela Superior de Administracion y Direccion de Empresas. Ed. Paul Brett. CD-ROM. Barcelona, Spain. 2001.
Warschauer, Mark and Healy, Deborah. "Computers and language learning: an overview" Language Teaching. 31 (1998), 57-71.
Warschauer, Mark and Whittaker, P. Fawn. "The Internet for English Teaching: Guidelines for Teachers." TESL Reporter. 30:1 (1997), 27-33. 28 Jan. 2002. <http://iteslj.org/Articles/Warschauer-Internet.html.
Appendix A
Student Survey*
Would you like to help your teacher conduct some research? If so, please answer the
following questions. If not, just return the paper to me.
1. Have you ever used the Internet to help you improve your English?
Yes |
No |
2. Have you ever visited your teacher's homepage on the Internet?
Yes |
No |
3. Do you think visiting your teacher's homepage on the Internet would help you in learning English in any way?
Yes |
No |
4. Circle 5 (five) areas from the following list of items that you would use to help you improve your English if you visited your teacher's homepage.
Activities |
Listening |
Assignments |
Online Course |
Biographies |
Photographs |
Business English |
Projects |
Classes |
Puzzle |
Communication |
Quizzes |
Course Information |
Reading |
Culture |
Software |
Dictionary |
Songs |
|
Speaking |
Grammar |
Study Abroad |
Humor |
Testing |
Internet Guide |
Tips |
Lessons |
Vocabulary |
Links |
Writing |
*This document altered slightly from original for purposes of publication.
Hwa Kang Journal of TEFL, Number 8, 2002, pp. 41-60. Copyright 2002. Language Center, Chinese Culture University.
http://www.hkjtefl.org/2002-Dickson-Teachers.html
Last updated: 06/24/02 11:25:58 PM
Kenneth J. Dickson (homepage) received his Master's Degree in Classical Greek from St. Andrew's University in Scotland, and went on to complete the RSA Certificate Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults. He has been an instructor in Taiwan since 1992, and in 1997 joined the staff of the Chinese Culture University Language Center as an instructor