Interactive Language Learning on the Web

The online journal, listserve, newspaper, magazines play an important role for language learners; it's providing you with authentic materials while teachers can find different lesson plans and ideas.

The article discuses some of advantages and challenges can any teachers face in creating Web-based language learning activities and what are the activities that can be used in these webs to teach language skills.

Creating your own web-based language learning activities have some advantages include: accessibility, renewability and adoptability.

Accessibility: By putting course material on the Web, teachers provide students with 24-hour, independent access to course information, and updates to Web pages and new assignments are immediately available to students.

Renewability: Once created, materials can be updated easily and often.

Adaptability: Web-based activities can easily be modified to support students at different proficiency levels or with special needs.

In addition, there are many challenges and difficulties that teacher may face while creating web-based activities:
§ lack of technical skills and in fact teachers think that they don’t have time to gain these new skills.
§ Types of computers and browser which students use and what is the connection speed they will be used to access activities.
§ Also, it's important to take into account individual with disabilities when creating these webs so they're not left out.

Teachers can teach all language skills: vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, reading and writing tasks and even pronunciation through this web. The writer also discusses the types of activities that can be used with languages skills.

 Also, teacher can assess and evaluate her students' own works online by developing an online test that students fill out and submit to teacher for grading and feedback. This type of online assessment can be done through the use of HTML forms and CGI script. CGI refers to "Common Gateway Interface" and there are many of these scripts available free on web.

In our context, in school and universities we don’t have such a web-based language learning, we only deal with it a little bit in university for some courses not all. It's because of teachers' lack of skills in how to create these webs and how to use it and I think they don’t believe on these new ways of teaching, they only deal with tradition ones.