Seminar Descrpition

This course will continue what has been explored in previous seminars at our institute, namely ways of providing a bridge between university education and classroom practice through student/teacher collaboration. The main focus is on the potential of the WWW for ELT. Future teachers of English will be required to come to grips with the advances in the design and use of computer-enhanced language learning environments. What is needed is a critical media competence to guide the evaluation and selection of web-based resources. In addition, student teachers will have to learn to facilitate technology-enhanced learning processes under classroom conditions.

This course will provide a theoretical framework based on recent work in educational linguistics. Using this framework, students will learn to assess the potential and shortcomings of web-based resources for English. In close contact with several English teachers in secondary schools (Grades 7 to 12) and teachers from adult education, groups of students will develop a web-based project to be tried out in the last two weeks of January. Participants should therefore be aware that the seminar, at least for a few sessions, will alternate between campus and school locations. Both the phases of planning and the implementation in schools will be researched, documented, and evaluated during the final sessions of the course. Participating teachers will be invited to attend the concluding sessions.

Access: The course will be limited to 30 participants. You can register for the seminar during regular office hours with Frau Braun (room B 436) or during my office hours. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. It is necessary that you have acquired basic computer skills and have e-mail access, ideally (but not necessarily) from home as this makes working a lot more comfortable and a lot less time consuming. Computer access is still rather limited at the university.

Schein requirements: Regular attendance and active participation, regular contributions to conference forum, development and implementation of web-based project, some guided classroom observation in the cooperating school.

Resources: A comprehensive and up-to date collection of relevant readings is provided on closed-reserve in the library.