Design Principles of a Website That Uses Songs for Language Learning

This paper describes how a music website was designed and incorporated into conversational English courses as a much needed homework component.Reasons for using songs in this way are discussed,and the influences that tenets commonly associated with extensive reading have had on aspects of the site such as song selection and task flexibility are explained.After reviewing how both the visual elements of the website and the task itself have been designed to keep the site as low-maintenance and self-explanatory as possible,the paper concludes with a description of how students who use the website are assessed

Internet English, Electronic Literacy, and the EIL Reading Course

English is undergoing changes due to the fact that it is increasingly being written and read via electronic media. This article explores surface-level changes taking place in English found on the Worldwide Web, as well as developments occurring at deeper levels of organization. The relatively unregulated nature of the Web has democratized electronic publishing and led to less typographical standardization, yet some important trends appear to be emerging. Meanwhile, the widespread practice of juxtaposing text with images and other visual elements on the Web suggests that we need to revise traditional notions of literacy by including a greater emphasis on non-textual features. Techniques for teachers to address these changes in all English reading courses, not only ones held in computer classrooms, are proposed

A study of the effects of digital interactivity on L2 vocabulary acquisition

After presenting an overview of problems involved in the shifting usage of the popular term interactive, this paper reports results from an experiment designed to investigate whether or not digitizing second language vocabulary leaning exercises leads to improvements in acquisition. Specifically, the study looked at whether the type of interactivity inherent in digital exercises created with Hot Potatoes software yielded better results than similar exercises provided in print format. Results indicate that the digital exercises did not facilitate greater acquisition than their print-based counterparts. Possible implications of this finding, as well as a discussion of some of the intriguing issues that emerged from the study, are offered

Institutions and Economic Growth: The Successful Experience of Switzerland (1870-1950)

economic growth, institutions, Switzerland, small countries