Using Internet

Most of our students prefer surfing on-line to opening up their English text book. This can be a good thing! We can use this to increase their exposure to authentic material which is also up-to-date and easily accessible.

So what kind of activities can our students do?

Firstly, they can make their own worksheets for class. Teenage students can choose an artist they like and find a biography on the Internet. With this they can produce their own comprehension exercises and activities related to synonyms. They can also make gap-fills for their favourite songs. I did this with a group of 14-year-olds and the best activity we used in class. By doing this, you ensure that your material is relevant to your students and the competition element makes them produce a high standard of work.

Another way to use the Internet for homework tasks is to incorporate it into your lesson plan. For example, if you are doing a unit on shopping, they can write shopping lists and go home to see who can find the best priced products. There are two ways of doing this: you either let students explore freely, or you give them a list of websites to search.

Other ideas include booking ideal holidays; exploring a city and finding cheap accommodation etc; and looking at passive forms in a variety of newspaper articles.

One activity I did in class was to send students to two websites. One was of a broadsheet newspaper and the other of a tabloid. They had to find the same topic and compare the article in terms of content, grammar and presentation. By choosing their own topic they were motivated to read and they could then feedback their topic to the class.

Finally, there are hundreds of websites created for students of English which have quizzes, grammar practice and forums. You can give your students a list of these sites to explore and to write reviews. They will have fun whilst doing so and will hopefully use them on subsequent occasions.