The Internet has hugely changed the way we gather information (obviously really) but it has also significantly changed the way students at UIC study English – both in class and outside the class. If you go back 15 years every language school in the UK would have had a library – or study centre where students would have been expected to go after classes and do homework or practise their English. Rooms full of cassette recorders for listening to different accents and for practising other skills. The reality now is completely different. As we reported in a previous blog about the computer room at UIC, we found that students simply didn’t want to go to the study centre and study – what they wanted to do was to be able to access study materials whenever they wanted – and to be honest wherever they wanted. So, we have a new vision of an independent learner in London. It is no longer someone who comes to class, then goes to the study centre and reads worksheets and listens to cassette tapes. Instead it is someone who (still) comes to class, then uses different places in the city to practise their English. Apart form the usual websites which are out there and which can be wonderful tools – like the BBC for example, where you can not only read, but also listen to English ….. at UIC we realised we had to invest in some specialised software which would give the students access to the kinds of materials that would help their learning and also a structure for them to be better able to manage their experience.
The materials we are now delighted to be able to provide are developed by our partners and are available to all our students for the duration of their stay with us. So, the typical student now sits on the bus doing listening practise, sits in McDonalds or Starbucks (with free wifi!) doing speaking practice or grammar exercises, and even better could sit in the middle of one of London’s beautiful parks doing some reading practise with a phone which connects to the internet. We have made a significant investment in this technology and are starting to see students really enjoying using it and being able to see the benefits.
We are also aware that students want to use facebook and other social media sites and we are now working on bringing all this together – after all if you are prctising English on facebook it’s still practise!
If you still want to find some good internet sites then have a look at these:
and here is a link to 20 other sites!
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