Internet tools in ELT By Vivian Magalhes www.linguaestrangeira.pro.br vfmagalhaes@via-rs.

net English teachers who have access to the internet are very fortunate. First, because nearly 80% of the sites are in English. And second, because they are teachers, therefore belonging to one of the most sharing professional groups on earth. Put the two things together and you will have an ever growing number of pages where you can find anything, from teaching ideas to ready-to-print worksheets. A lot of times, for free. And if you take the time to separate the wheat from the chaff, there is also plenty of materials you can assign to your students to help them improve their English, such as online games, articles related to language learning, online quizzes and song lyrics. These are my favorite internet tools: 1) Tools to make worksheets www.puzzlemaker.com You can choose from seven different kinds of puzzles and have a custom made worksheet ready in about five minutes. I prefer the crisscross puzzles. http://www.efl4u.com - This site offers a new worksheet in pdf every week with directions for the teacher. Make sure you print the worksheets you like, because hwen a new worksheet is published, the older ones become no longer available. http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com Texts and follow-up exercises based on current news. You can choose from an easier or a harder version, depending on the level of your students. http://www.esl-lounge.com - The layout is a little messy, but if you look carefully you can find free, ready-made worksheets and flashcards organized by level. http://www.crewsnest.vispa.com The website to go to if you are planning activities for special dates, such as Halloween, Easter or Christmas. www.enchantedlearning.com - Ready-made worksheets about dinosaurs, science, parts of the body and hundreds of other topics. The sites target audience is kids, but you can also find interesting materials for older students. http://www.ongoing-tales.com - You can find all sorts of stories to print and share with your students (intermediate level and up), or else to assign them to read at home.

2) Sites for teacher development www.developingteachers.com Very interesting articles and materials. subscribe to receive a weekly newsletter, which is quite good. You can

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk This site is sponsored by the British Council and offers articles on several topics, as well as other features such as a downloadable pronunciation chart and lesson plans. www.sk.com.br The site webmaster, Ricardo Schtz, has several interesting articles covering different aspects of language teaching and learning, but you can also learn a lot by reading the postings in the discussion forum or the section perguntas e respostas. 3) Sites with interesting teaching ideas www.eslcafe.com Lots of teaching ideas shared in the section idea cookbook by teachers from all over the world. Its one of the first and most successful ESL sites in the world. http://www.macmillaneducation.com/resource.htm - Its a resource site both for users of Macmillan textbooks and users of other materials. www.linguaestrangeira.pro.br Thats my own site, and I feel comfortable enough to list it among my favorite sites because it is enriched every week with the contributions and suggestions sent by teachers from all over Brazil. If you are interested mostly in teaching ideas, click on dicas anteriores/atividades. 4) Good sites to suggest to students http://www.languageguide.org/english/br - Students can hear the pronunciation of words listed under several categories (food, clothes, colors, birds, etc.). http://www.manythings.org Hundreds (if not thousands!) of online games and exercises. http://www.englishpage.com - Lots of practice materials and online games for students. It also features a weekly lesson with a different topic every week. http://www.eslmania.com - This site features articles students can read about different aspects of their learning, as well as exercises on different topics. Going Beyond: Webquests: Webquests are inquiry-oriented activities in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet. Learn all about webquests and how to use them as a tool for EFL teaching and learning at

http://www.world-english.org/webquests.htm Making blogs with your students: A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a website where regular entries are made (such as in a journal or diary) and presented in reverse chronological order. Some blogs function as a personal online diary. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. (From: Wikipedia: www.wikipedia.org) You can create a blog for your students to give a purpose for their writing. Learn how to create a blog at http://www.blogger.com/start . Twiki Twiki is a collaborative writing tool which allows you to create a website where where anyone can alter the content of something written previously. It is a great tool for the collaborative writing of texts, theater plays, short stories and all sorts of guides. Learn more about Twiki at http://twiki.softwarelivre.org/ Online courses Teachers must remember at all times that their education is never completed. The internet presents us with excellent opportunities to pursue a continued education, not only through the research we can do by ourselves, but also through distance education courses, both at undergraduate and graduate levels. You do need a lot of selfdiscipline to follow an online course, but if you dedicate enough time and effort to your studies, you learn just as much as you would in a regular course, and usually pay a much lower price. This is probably the main trend in education for the next decade. The aim of this paper was just to provide you with a few tips on how the internet can improve your teaching. It is open-ended, in the sense that no one will ever be able to cover this topic thoroughly. But I hope you have found it useful, see it as a starting point for your own research on the uses of the Web in EFL teaching and learning.