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АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ СОЦИАЛЬНО-ГУМАНИТАРНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 73
access to the Internet grew 20 percent. Although
English remains the Internet's global lingua franca,
the online content of ths medium is growing more
multilingual. Despite the decline, these are still
encouraging figures for teachers who use the
Internet in the ESL/EFL classroom.
When a website is accessed, the user will
typically see portions of text that are highlighted or
underlined; these are known as hyperlinks, or links,
and they contain coded text that transfers the user
to other websites or to different parts of the same
website. These links can also perform an operation,
such as printing a document or displaying a picture.
All communication activities on the Internet
can be categorized as receptive or interactive [1,
26]. In the context of aural/oral skills, receptive
activities are those done by single users, and
involve listening. In receptive communication,
students receive information from the Web in the
form of text, images, audio, and video. Alexander
and Tate classify websites into five types: (1)
advocacy/opinion websites, such as http://www.
Tolerance, org/; (2) business/marketing websites,
such as http:// www.south-beach-diet.biz/; (3) news
websites, such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/; (4)
informational websites, such as http://dictiona-
ry.refer ence.com/; and (5) personal websites which
are set up and maintained by an individual [2, 36-
38].
To practice the listening skill, students can
access websites that contain stored audio or video
files, or that transmit live broadcasts. In order to
listen to and/or watch the material, they must
download files by clicking a link or button, which is
typically labeledListen, Audio, Watch, Video, or Live.
The links that perform these operations are often
designated by an icon, which may be an image of
headsets to listen, or of a video cane» to watch.
In order for the sound and pictures to play,
the user's computer must contain special hardware
and software that supports audio and video. The
hardware necessary play sound and images
includes audio cards, video cards, and speakers.
Although headsets are not always necessary, they
are strongly recommended to prevent cacophony of
individual voices in the classroom or lab. In addition
to a web brows computers must have audio and
video software. The most common programs,
available as free downloads, are Real One Player
(http://www.real.com/),
Wind
Media
Player
(http://www.microsoft.com/win
dows/windowsme-
dia/), and Quick Time (http://www.apple.com/quickti-
me/).
For
receptive
communication
activities,
teachers can either create their activities or have
students access websites that include prepared
exercises. While free websites are available; some
require a fee for access. Randall's ESL Cyber Lis
Lab (http:// www.esl-lab.com!) is a free website
containing hundreds of audio and video files
organized by level of difficulty and covering an array
of life skill topics. Each file s accompanied by self-
scoring multiple-choice questions and gap-fill
exercises.
CNN's
San
Francisco
Bureau
(http://www.literacynet.org/cnnsfl) has a free online
literacy website that contains an archive of stories in
several categories that comes with audio, video, and
a corresponding written text as well as several
listening comprehension exercises. Many other
websites contain exercises in minimal pairs, tongue
twisters, diphthongs, and the phonetic alphabet, and
they are available for free to provide students with
listening and pronunciation practice. A listing of
these websites is available from the U.S.
Department of State's Office of English Language
Programs (http://exchanges.state.gov aiucation/eng-
teaching/eal- res.htm).
For listening comprehension practice, the
Web offers students access to radio and television
programs, news reports, songs, speeches, inter-
views, biographies, advertisements, and movie trai-
lers, as well as readings of stories, essays, and
poetry. Files range in size from short sound bites to
full-length programs and continuous broadcasts.
Language teachers can use these web-based audio
and video resources to develop thrown listening
comprehension exercises, just as they would with
other media such as CDs and audiocassettes.
Lafford and Lafford provide some useful
suggestions for creating level-specific web-based
audio and video listening activities. For beginning-
level activities, they suggest an exercise where
students listen to a sound file together and then
answer a choice or gist question [3, 215].
There are several benefits to using receptive
communications on the Internet with language
learners. Theoretically, these materials are available
at any time and from anywhere, so long as a
computer with Internet access is available. This
access provides a virtually endless and free supply
of current and authentic materials [3, 225].
Audio and video technologies on the Internet
also have some limitations. In order to successfully
utilize these media, an Internet connection must be
stable and constant. While these features can be
used with dial-up connections, they flow more
smoothly on high-speed broadband connections.
Extensive download times of audio and video, or
any other technical difficulties such as downed
servers, may discourage both students andteachers.
Furthermore, these programs work best on high-end
computers with updated software. These factors,
individually or collectively, have the potential to
exclude students and schools with insufficient
budgets [3, 264].
Interactive communication activities on the
Internet can be synchronous or asynchronous.
Asynchronous activities involve two or more
individuals, do not occur in real-time, and include
composing and answering messages on email and
discussion boards. Given their lack of immediacy-an
element essential to dialogic mimicry asynchronous