Tell @ ELI

Technology Enhanced Language Learning at the English Language Institute

Searching for Answers

Barbara Smith-Palinkas

Whether a student is seeking statistics to include in a class presentation or a faculty member is looking for a scoring rubric, effective searching techniques are key to success in finding useful and useable information. At the English Language Institute (ELI), students and instructors alike need command of effective searching techniques to meet course goals and objectives.

Searching for Answers

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Students who enroll at the ELI are typically very comfortable using the Internet. In their native language, they are able to access web browsers or databases, type in key words, scan the results, and critically evaluate a piece of information quickly and easily. Following the same process in their second language, English, however, generally takes students longer. They are at times overwhelmed by the complexities of navigating the web in English and become frustrated when trying to sort the useful information from the useless. For them, using the Internet as a research tool in English requires instruction and practice.

The ELI addresses both in its Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) curriculum, an integrated component of the Institute’s core curriculum. Students in Level IV Writing Lab, for example, in the course of learning how to write an argumentative essay, may complete exercises requiring them to search the Internet for statistics which support both sides of an argument. They might also read a series of Internet articles and then determine which are based on fact and which on opinion. They may also identify words and expressions in articles which indicate an author’s tone or bias. It is through this kind of instruction and practice that students acquire the tools they will need to succeed as members of an academic community at a US university.

ELI instructors play a vital role in the success of the ELI CALL curriculum. At the beginning of each semester, instructors are provided with the goals and objectives for the classes they will teach. Instructors whose classes include a CALL component receive a list of CALL goals and objectives as well, along with suggested activities for integrating the two sets of goals and objectives. The instructors take on the responsibility of designing the CALL lessons which will provide students sufficient instruction and practice in each of the objectives in order to meet the overall CALL course goals.

In order to effectively integrate the two, ELI instructors themselves must be comfortable with and proficient in Internet search techniques. They must be able to locate Internet material both applicable to the skills and course topic they are teaching and appropriate to the students’ level of English. Instructors must also be familiar with the myriad databases and electronic resources available through the USF library in order to design activities which will develop students’ skills and meet course objectives. No small task in itself, instructors must also find topics which will appeal to the interests of the students and motivate them to complete assignments.

In summary, without requisite Internet searching techniques, ELI students will be ill-equipped to meet the future expectations of their university professors. Without those same skills, ELI instructors are ill-equipped to prepare their students t meet those future expectations.