Online English Learning Using Internet for English-as-a-Foreign-Language Students.

Learning to communicate in English is an essential tool to access many resources via worldwide networks in the global society. Like students from many other countries, students in Taiwan study English for years, but lack opportunities to practice. For English-as-a-Second-Language students, the World Wide Web provides a learning environment in which language skills can be developed through communication with native speakers of English. A framework, the Online American Culture Learning Center, was created to study cross cultural distance education through the Web. This experiment between Kent State University (Ohio) and the National Taiwan Normal University will create an English learning environment through the discussion of six major topics on the Internet: Thanksgiving, Yellowstone National Park, American Football, Rock ‘n Roll, Shopping Malls, and Garage Sales. Training materials for these topics are being used in a pilot study to assess their efficiency. Preservice teachers from Kent State University will serve as tutors and monitor student progress. Each tutor will have one student, who will correspond via e-mail. The project will explore whether online distance education can enhance learning in a foreign language and whether such exchanges promote multicultural understanding. Evaluation questions will be administered online, and surveys from students and tutors will be used to assess the feasibility of the approach. (SLD)