Russell Stannard considers what you can do with computers actually in the classroom.
So far in Webwatcher I have never really dealt with using computers in the classroom, mainly because they aren’t available in most ELT classes. This is now changing to some degree, and more teachers are asking me about how to integrate computers into lessons. Here are two suggestions.
1. Elementary
This activity requires one computer for every pair of students. Tell Student A to go to www.worldweather.com and to click on the UK. Give Student B a worksheet (see below) with a list of cities in the UK and columns for weather conditions and temperatures. Ask Student B to complete the worksheet without looking at the screen, which means asking Student A questions about the weather in the various cities.
Comments
This is a very easy activity to set up. The clickable map on the website works really well and the students practise talking about weather conditions, numbers and the names of cities in the UK. It is a good idea to do some pronunciation practice first as students may have problems with saying the names. Doing this activity with a computer is not much different from doing the same thing with two sheets of paper, but it saves massively on preparation, is right up to date and authentic, and the students seem to enjoy the novelty of using computers in the class. It might be a good idea to do the same activity using another country. The weather can be a bit repetitive in the UK. When I last did it, nearly everywhere was ‘Cloudy’ or ‘Mostly cloudy’!
2. Pre-Intermediate
www.biography.com/search/index.jsp
In this activity students have to gather information about three famous people. You will need three computers. Choose three students to sit at the computers. Form the rest of the class into groups of three and give each student in these groups a copy of a questionnaire with questions about Madonna, Elvis and Beyoncé. The example here has only three questions for each person, but 8–10 questions is about right. Give the students sitting at the computers the web address shown above, and ask one to type in Madonna, another Elvis and the third Beyoncé. They should put up little signs to say which page they have open. The idea is that the students with the questionnaires go to the students with the computers and ask them questions. Establish the rule that at any one time there can only be two people asking questions to the same person. However, to make it more interesting, tell the students that when you call out ‘Change!’ they have to move to another computer and ask questions. Only give them enough time to get about three questions completed before moving them on. After about five minutes, tell them to stop and re-group to compare and share answers. This generates a lot of discussion. You can also get the three students who were working on the computers to sit as a group and give them the questionnaire to fill in too. After a while, mix the groups up so that students from different groups can share information.
Comments
I have done this activity with groups of five plus five students at the computers. I realised that the students with the questionnaires had to wait around while the students with the computers got onto the internet and found the page. So the next time, I told the groups to decide on two more questions to add to the questionnaire; this helped to occupy them while their classmates were getting online. The students all tended to start by asking the questions from the top. Encourage some of them to start from the bottom. Not giving them time to get all the answers before having to move on to another famous person meant I could add in a groupwork stage where they shared and compared. I hadn’t anticipated what to do with the students who were sitting behind the computers when the groups were sharing. It occurred to me during the class simply to put them together and see if they could do the questionnaire as well. At first, each student began just writing in the answers they knew but then they began to talk and share answers and so this worked well too. Again this activity is nothing you couldn’t do by just using paper, but you can choose from a whole array of biographies and it takes very little preparation.
Questionnaire
Madonna
Elvis
Beyoncé
Russell Stannard is a senior lecturer in ICT and course leader for MSc Multimedia at the University of Westminster, UK. He has an extensive publishing background in ELT and is currently working with BBC Worldwide on various CD-ROMs, and with Macmillan Hong Kong on a primary course. He also teaches English and Spanish at Sutton Adult Education College, UK.
This article first appeared in English Teaching Professional, Issue 34, 2004
