The methods of learning the English language through the Internet.

Муниципальное общеобразовательное учреждение

«Средняя общеобразовательная школа №128

с углубленным изучением отдельных предметов»

Проектная работа

«Пути изучения английского языка с помощью глобальной сети Интернет»

Выполнила Бабушкина Виктория

Ученица 7 «А» класса

Руководитель – Хавалкина Татьяна Павловна

г. Барнаул

2020

Сontents:

The object of work

This work is about Internet networking pages that can add to the process of learning a foreign language

The goals of work

As the work advances, we will analyze how the Internet resources can help a pupil or a student learn the English language. Moreover, we will conduct a questionnaire survey among the pupils of school №128. With its help we will make conclusions on how pupils use the Internet to help them in their learning process. Finally, we will make some recommendations on the most useful methods of studying that will hopefully be helpful for any learner of a foreign language.

Methods of carrying out the research

Carrying out a survey (questionnaire)

Analysis of networking pages

Analyzing special literature

The topicality

We consider this theme to be urgent for the reason that at some point it becomes important for learners of the English language to add some other resources to their school education. Thus, what we suggest is to learn to use the Internet while studying a foreign language to improve it and to make the learning process various and more interesting.

We hope that this project work will help English learners to learn the language more easily and with pleasure.

Everybody knows that the Internet is a global computer network, which connects millions of users all over the world.

The Internet has already entered our everyday life. It's hard to imagine our lives without Internet nowadays. Since the time of Internet appearance, many other media sources became less popular. One can find the necessary information in several seconds through the Internet. It is very convenient for pupils, students, professionals, experts and all other people.

The Internet is the largest source of information. There are millions of Internet sites which store great amount of useful information about everything: science, history, sports, fashion, music, cooking and many other subjects. Any user can download his or her favourite films and songs, listen to radio channels or play games. Learning or practicing foreign languages is possible with the Internet, too.

Undoubtedly, there is a huge variety of possible resources that can be used by pupils and students in their free time and that can act as additional sources of knowledge.

We’ve analyzed some scientific works of teachers and psychologists to see what kinds of such resources are the most effective for an English learner:

Educational games

Video classes or lectures

Online communication through English chats

Musical audio files in English

English films/series with/without subtitles

Online dictionaries and/or translators

To get a closer look on what resources are most common for pupils, we carried out a research. We offered the pupils of school № 128 (forms 5 to 10) a brief questionnaire. The results of it can be seen in addition 1.

The survey showed that the largest number of pupils – 62.7% use English songs as a learning method, 56.3% use online dictionaries (and, most commonly, translators); 50.0% turned out to use English films/series as a method of learning. Then, 25.4% tend to watch online video classes, 20.6% prefer to communicate in English chats and 13.5% play educational games which help learn and remember the new words.

Further on we will see what attracts pupils in each of the above-mentioned resources and what advantages or drawbacks they have.

On the one hand, the Internet has provided the opportunity to study distantly. Any Internet user gets a chance to sign up for any educational course, daily news, lections and online classes on the subject you like.

Moreover, the Internet saves one’s time and money. People no longer need to spend time getting to a language school and back home. What is more, internet classes and other ways of distant education are usually less expensive than the usual ones.

The Internet provides access to almost any literature. In fact, that can be called an online library where you can read books for free or for a much smaller fee. This saves both time and effort of a student and improves the learning process.

What also important is that one can find videos with some extra information on the subject they study and develop the knowledge in that area. Especially, that is a good option for those who need some more explanations on the school topic to get to understand it.

All these advantages make Internet resources very popular with pupils and students while learning English.

The most popular kind of studying English, according to the results of the survey, is listening to English songs. It is quite easy to see why: teenagers like entertainment and listening to music- that is why so many of them preferred this kind of studying to others. Moreover, something we rarely think about, but what is true and evident for teachers is the fact that listening to foreign songs can improve comprehension skills - one starts to understand the spoken language more easily.

Another suggested type of learning a foreing language is through online dictionaries or translators and here we cannot say whether this method is good or bad. Using online dictionary is helpful, especially for those who does not have the printed ones, but we would not suggest using online translators as these often give the wrong or literal translation, which does not allow a pupil or a student to learn the correct language constructions.

Next, watching films or series was offered and here it is quite the same as with the songs- one starts to understand the foreign speech better, and that is fun, too.

Online video classes are not very popular with the pupils who learn English, most probably because it’s not that entertaining and is usually pricey. Still, we consider it to be the most effective method in terms of education, for it can give a student systematic knowledge. Its only disadvantage is that one could get bored as it is most commonly held as a lesson.

Communication in chats and messengers are good in terms of picking up new phrases of informal English, but you are less likely to learn grammar structures and even tenses using this type of practicing.

The minority of the questioned pupils like educational games as a way of learning English. That seems to be a good way of both entertainment and learning, but still we regard it as less effective in comparison with the other learning methods.

Despite the above-mentioned advantages of using Internet resources in learning English, there are some brawbacks as well.

First of all, one has to double-check the information they get in the Internet as it is not always reliable. It is hard to differentiate whether the given facts are true, or if they are just fiction.

What is more, it is practically impossible for a pupil or a student to form a plan for studying in the Internet that will include all the necessary forms of any learning process and will logically lead him or her to getting systematic knowledge. We consider this drawback to be the main disadvantage of learning through the Internet in case if this is the only one way of studying of a foreign language.

From our point of view, the role of a real, personized teacher, who can arrange the correct process of learning, change it according to the needs of a certain pupil or a student remains great.

Still, we think that if used wisely, the Internet resources are highly beneficial for students of all ages due to the fact that they are within the easy reach for almost anyone and are simple in use.

In conclusion, we think that each method has its advantages and disadvantages, thus, there cannot be one method suitable for each learner of the language- one has to choose by oneself, but at the same time, it is important to remember that one can only learn a language perfectly if one combines various types of learning and practices altogether listening, reading and writing skills as well as grammar and lexis- and thus, the wisest thing to do is to use all of the suggested methods.

Conclusion

As a result of this work we managed to analyze what Internet resources can be used for learning English, and what advantages and disadvantages such methods of studying have.

Nevertheless, these are not the only ways that can be used while learning a foreign language.

Personally, in my family I have a good example of how the Internet helps people learn through it. Firstly, my sister used to take an online course in a school of distant education, where her teacher sent her the materials which she studied and at the end of each unit she had to complete a test and send her answers to the teacher by the online service. After checking the teacher would send her the work back with the mark and the corrected mistakes. This way of learning is free of the above-mentioned drawbacks, as there is a well-build educational plan and any student can choose the necessary speed of studying and can at any time contact the teacher as well.

Another good example of using the Internet in an educational process is communicating with the native speakers through the messengers in social sites. My sister and I use it regularly. It helps to study informal language and to find good friends.

Next, there is an opportunity for those who like to talk rather than to type- these are Skype calls that allow you to get connected with any person from all over the world. Again, there is an example of my sister, who in addition to talking to native speakers has Skype classes of English with her tutor. Finally, my mother is an example of teaching through the Internet- she is a tutor in her free time and has Skype classes with those who need additional help in learning English.

Further on we are planning to develop this research through adding some details about personal experience and see what alternative resources aside from the Internet can be helpful in learning a foreign language.

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