Reprinted with permission from Virtual Connections.
Please cite as: LeLoup, J. W. & Ponterio, R. (1995). FLTEACH: On-line professional dialogue. In M. Warschauer, Ed. _Virtual Connections: Online Activities & Projects for Networking Language Learners_. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press; 375-392.
The suggestions for and examples of projects using the resources of the Internet in the FL classroom contained in this volume should serve as an inspiration to its readers. While necessarily finite in number, these examples will hopefully segue to more activities stemming from investigation of the Internet. Such an investigation can be quite time-consuming and, for many, too daunting to undertake on one's own. Fortunately, FL teachers have another recourse--connecting with other educators via a foreign language discussion forum designed precisely for collegial sharing of knowledge, expertise, and experience relating to FL education. By participating in such a forum, FL teachers can more easily become apprised of new trends and issues in the field, among which can certainly be counted the use of Internet resources in the FL classroom. This article discusses one such forum, FLTEACH, providing a brief description, history, rationale, modus operandi, and finally offering numerous suggestions for FL educators to benefit from participation in the forum, both personally and professionally in their classroom.
FLTEACH was formed as a result of a dialogue about foreign language education that was motivated by several documents and mandates, among them America 2000: An Educational Strategy or "Goals 2000," SUNY 2000, and the Interim Report of the LOTE (Languages Other Than English) Committee. The essential messages contained therein are that FL education is an essential part of the national educational curriculum and that cooperative arrangements between elementary, secondary and postsecondary institutions are necessary in order to improve language instruction at all levels (American Council on Education; Benitez, et al.). Unfortunately, another message explicit in these documents is that "the foreign language instruction in the United States is woefully inadequate" (SUNY 2000, p. 27) and that communication among FL professionals is needed to ameliorate the situation.
Articulation is a basic premise of these documents and was the motivating factor behind the teleconference "Bridging the Gap," aired in October of 1993 in the State of New York. Foreign language educators from secondary and tertiary level institutions participated, and numerous follow-up meetings have attempted to facilitate this articulation, to the end of realizing the SUNY 2000 goals in FL departments across the state. Closer collaboration among FL professionals was also called for in the keynote speech by Claire Jackson, director of the Articulation and Achievement Project out of Framingham, Massachusetts, at the annual NYSAFLT Spring Colloquium (1994). She spoke of the work toward developing common frameworks for the FL profession that will unify and assist the shared and concerted effort toward improved FL instruction, articulation, assessment, and overall student learning. This work is paralleled by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) with its current project of developing national foreign language standards (ACTFL).
Achievement of the goals of articulation and collaboration, continually mandated by these documents and leaders in the FL profession, should have an impact on every school district, college, and university nationwide that offers a FL curriculum. The implied number of FL practitioners involved is enormous, and the potential for fostering communication that would lead to the desired articulation is vast. The initiation of a dialogue among these educators became a priority, and the question became one of accomplishing these goals in the most efficient, effective, and comprehensive manner. FLTEACH was born out of the desire to unite the profession and help in the attainment of the aforementioned goals. If FL educators could communicate easily and regularly about common topics and issues, certainly the results would be a better understanding of the component parts of the profession, a clearer sense of our mission as educators, improved FL instruction enhanced by input from colleagues, increased collaboration among FL professionals and, consequently, the desired articulation that will provide optimal FL teaching and learning for our students.
An electronic discussion list was chosen as the most logical method of communication for a number of reasons. First, the technological framework was already in place (i.e., the Internet), facilitating the basic structure and operation of the list. Second, because a list disseminates information quickly, it is an expedient way to initiate and foster discussion among FL colleagues. Third, participation in a discussion list is a method of professional development and moral and professional support, such as one derives from conference attendance. Conferences, however, are few and far between, and participation on the list can be a daily regimen. Fourth, access to electronic mail and the Internet is becoming more and more commonplace and will eventually be as necessary as access to telephone and postal service.
Another major goal of FLTEACH is the increase of technology awareness and access on the part of FL practitioners Clearly, if any articulation and collaboration are to take place, teachers must have access to the dialogue made possible by Internet discussion groups. Once FL educators can connect to and utilize the Internet and its resources useful to FL education, their teaching effectiveness and professional development will expand and improve immensely. Teachers who demonstrate the use of electronic resources in the classroom also provide an excellent model for those students who will go on to be FL teachers themselves. Teacher education research shows that teachers tend to teach in the same ways they were taught (Cruickshank). Consequently, it behooves FL educators and preservice FL teacher instructors to engage in innovative, creative, and effective teaching practices. Teachers who model actual use of electronic resources in their classrooms are planting the seed for those who follow.
FLTEACH is its members and, as such, is not a static entity. Its purposes and uses continually evolve with its changing and increasing membership; this is its strength. In order to tap the wealth of prior exchanges, FLTEACH maintains an archives of postings and materials of special interest to the list members. The contents and search capabilities of the archives will be discussed below (see Gopher and WWW). Suffice to say here that the information discussed in the next section (Uses) is readily available to FLTEACH members, irrespective of when they subscribe.
Networking: For connecting with other FL colleagues, the list is invaluable. All levels of educational institutions are well represented from a widely distributed geographic area. Important to a FL list, the contacts are not limited to domestic institutions: at this writing, FLTEACH has representatives from twenty-four countries around the world. Members can locate other FL educators teaching the same language(s), involved in similar classroom projects, or with parallel research interests. The support potential is obvious and is not just for the singleton teacher or those geographically isolated. Future research initiatives have even been planned and discussed on the list.
Pedagogical questions: Listing all the postings that fall in this category would be space-prohibitive; a representative sample will easily illustrate this potential use. One member was interested in using plays in her classroom. She queried the list for ideas and received many responses with suggestions, explanations, and results from others who had previously incorporated plays in their lessons. The ubiquitous grammar questions also arise, and members are quite willing to offer their perspective as well as their ideas on how they teach these points. A few cases in point concerned teaching the differences between ser and estar, and sensitizing students to the differences between the preterite/passé composé and the imperfect. A recent thread dealt with effective review practices in the classroom, with many members offering and describing in detail their favorite methods of reviewing for tests, semester exams, vocabulary, and so forth.
Materials: Frequently FLTEACHers ask for suggestions and help in locating ancillary teaching materials, such as songs, films, and videos. Teachers are also often in search of others' perspectives on FL textbooks they are considering for adoption. Airing views about textbooks from the FL teacher's perspective is important on FLTEACH as a number of publishers' representatives subscribe and can take note of what FL teachers really want in their textbooks. Another typical query is for software assessment by those who have already used the computer applications in their classrooms.
Professional development: In addition to the ongoing informal professional development FLTEACHers engage in by communicating with their colleagues, formal opportunities are announced. Conference calls for papers, dates and times for teleconferences with FL issues, and workshops with FL-related themes are frequently announced on FLTEACH. In addition, occasional job postings appear for those interested in relocating or changing venue.
Travel: Taking trips with students to TL countries is a topic perhaps peculiar to the FL profession. Questions are posed about preferences for companies, geographic destinations, and itineraries, to name a few. A rather energetic thread debated the merits and drawbacks of planning and executing student trips, and many suggestions were proffered to make such trips an optimal learning experience. Advice was also given to help make these trips as "painless" and enjoyable as possible for the teachers/chaperones.
Daily nuts and bolts: Information necessary to the execution of a FL program in general is also requested and posted. One thread concerned block scheduling and alternative modules for the school day with their ramifications for FL classes. Members have requested curriculum guides to help restructure their own programs, and still others have requested documentation to support their bid to install FLES programs in their district. Requests for assistance in finding penpals is also a common posting. A penpal exchange is clearly not new but it has taken on a new dimension and meaning: now classrooms can have nearly instant contact with partner classrooms around the world in TL countries.
Internet resources: As more and more FL teachers gain access to the Internet, more discoveries are made daily concerning TL sites. Teachers can find direct links to TL news sources, texts, current events, historical finds, geographic and cultural information, to name just a few. As previously stated, for one person to locate all these resources, the task would be prohibitive in time and energy. In the true collaborative spirit, TL resources are being collected and shared by various means such as Gopher sites and WWW pages. These resources will be discussed below in detail.
The FLTEACH list sends out text messages and it can even collect these messages in a searchable archive, but the LISTSERV command syntax for consulting the archive has a steep learning curve for the casual user. A simpler way to search the list for past messages about a specific topic was needed. In addition, although information about other electronic resources for FL teaching available on the network can be and often is shared via list postings, it makes sense to provide a permanent on-line listing of these resources and their Internet addresses. Such a collection can be located and maintained at a single site, alleviating the burden for each FL teacher of keeping a personal up-to-date listing of these resources. The FLTEACH Gopher can be found by using a Gopher browser to go to the Gopher address:
gopher.cortland.edu 71
This server was created to help solve these specific problems.
Gopher items of many types are presented in a menu listing. These types can include but are not limited to texts, images, sounds, videos, other menus, even other Gopher sites. Telnet sessions that allow the user to log-on to another computer system, interactive phone books, various kinds of computer programs that can be downloaded to the user's computer, and interactive forms that allow the user to request the Gopher to perform some function such a searching a data base extend this list of types, and still more exist that are not mentioned here. An examination of the menu items in the FLTEACH Gopher will demonstrate its uses.
The next item, "3. Foreign Language Electronic Resources (collected at FLTEACH)/," leads to a menu of other Gopher-based resources that will be examined below. Items 4 and 5 are links to the biographical statements of FLTEACH subscribers. "5. FLTEACH Subscriber Biographical Information" is a text file containing all of the statements, including contact information, institution, languages, special interests, and projects. "4. Search FLTEACH Subscriber Biographies <?>" is a search engine. When the user selects item 4, Gopher asks for a search string. All of the biographical statements are indexed by keyword so that a search string such as "Spanish FLES" will create a menu of all biographical statements containing those two words. This is intended to help identify other teachers with similar interests.
The "Foreign Language Methods Syllabi (collected at FLTEACH)/" leads to a menu in which faculty responsible for FL teaching methods courses in teacher training programs may share syllabi. This is an important element in our goal to work together to improve the pre-service training of FL teachers. This project was begun subsequent to an FLTEACH discussion in which teachers complained of the inadequacy of some teacher training programs. While no pre-service training program can prepare someone for everything they might encounter as a teacher, it is hoped that we can all learn from the syllabi collected here.
Item 7 leads to the FLTEACH World Wide Web page. The level of integration of these various Internet applications is demonstrated by the fact that just as the Gopher has an item pointing to the WWW page, the Web page has a link to the Gopher.
The section of the Gopher under the heading "Articles" includes publications by FLTEACH subscribers that have been made available electronically to help FL teachers learn to use the network as a professional tool. The "Foreign Language related E-Lists collected by David Bedell" is an important resource that describes hundreds of other discussion lists of interest to FL teachers (Bedell). Adi Hofmann made his article describing an electronic penpal project available in response to a need expressed by many teachers who wished to undertake such a project but were not sure where to begin.
The FLTEACH archive section allows users to get copies of monthly logs containing all FLTEACH discussion list postings but, more importantly, it provides tools for searching or browsing the messages. Searching the entire archive is useful for quickly finding a particular message or threads on a particular topic. For example, knowing that there was a discussion of ways of introducing the "pretérito," a search for the word "pretérito" will display a listing of all of those messages. The same might be done for a discussion of the pros and cons of "tracking" or of "block scheduling." Partial words may be included in the search by including the wildcard *. The string "schedul*" will find "schedule," "schedules," "scheduling," "scheduled," etc.
The other selections under the "FLTEACH Archives" rubric assist searching for recent messages. This is specially designed for those who find it difficult to subscribe to the list via e-mail. For some, the size of the disk allocation is inadequate for the amount of traffic on the list. They find that messages are often rejected because their mailbox is full. For others, it is logistically too difficult to check their mail periodically. Some teachers have no easy access to a computer that will connect them to their e-mail. It might not always be possible to find a free computer in the library or lab after school or there might simply not be time in a busy day to check the mail. They might find it easier to scan a menu of posting subjects for interesting messages. E-mail systems have undergone significant improvement in recent years but some of the older systems that are still in place are so awkward or slow that some teachers feel they are spending too much time simply waiting for the computer to display the requested information. In such situations, if messages cannot be downloaded and read off-line, Gopher can at least provide a simple and fast interface while removing the burden of deleting a large number of messages each day. For example, searching only FLTEACH messages sent this month for the word "FLTEACH" will yield a directory of all of this month's messages in chronological order listed by subject line.
The "Foreign Language Electronic Resources (collected at FLTEACH)/" is an extensive listing in itself. The object of providing this menu, as stated above, is to give teachers a place to find the FL related resources that others have already discovered by "surfing the net." By sharing useful addresses in this way, FL teachers can avoid having to reinvent the wheel at every turn. The most difficult challenge for many novice Internet travelers is knowing where to begin looking for resources that could be used in class. This collection, which is by no means static, represents a first step and a pointer to other sources.
Foreign Language Electronic Resources (collected at FLTEACH)
Access to current news in the target language provides a rich source of authentic materials for classroom use. The immediacy of these materials, generally available on a daily basis, can make them exciting for students who find them more real than texts that cannot help but be dated. This might not make on-line texts better, but it does help demonstrate that the target culture represents a real and vibrant society rather than an abstract academic pursuit. Careful selection of excerpts and structuring of tasks can yield activities appropriate to the language and maturity level of a group of students.
Other language specific resources abound on the net. A good place to start in each language is the listings of Gophers by geographical region. By looking through the Gophers constructed where the TL is spoken, new resources can be discovered all the time. Organizations such as the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French) have developed specialized Gophers to serve the needs of the teachers who make up their membership. A number of university-based projects have also developed resource collections for specific academic topics. The "Gopher Littératures de U de Montréal" and the "Univ. of Texas - Latin American Network Information Center" are both excellent examples. The first seeks to support those doing research by offering access to Gopher collections related to French literature. The second includes a wide variety of connections of particular note to anyone interested in the countries of Latin America.
Many Gopher sites do not provide materials for a particular language but offer support for a broad spectrum of language teachers. The "Agora Language Marketplace" is a commercial enterprise that combines free announcements of all kinds with advertising by the larger distributors of FL materials and by the authors of materials with too small a distribution base to be of interest to these large companies. By offering a low cost marketing approach to self-publishing authors, Agora expands the language teacher's access to information about new products developed by other teachers.
The "Intercultural-Email-Classroom-Connections" (IECC) Gopher at St. Olaf's College assists teachers in planning and running projects in which their students use e-mail to communicate in the TL with students from other geographical locations. Finding partner classes for such projects can be a formidable undertaking for a teacher who does not already have a personal relationship with a colleague in another country. In addition to helping interested teachers find interested collaborators, IECC lets them share descriptions of successful projects and offers advice and caveats about how to run such projects.
The "International Association of Learning Labs" has a Gopher site located at Dartmouth College. This is the best place to look for help with any kind of technology needs for language labs. At this site you can also find the archives of the "Language Learning Technology International" (LLTI) electronic discussion list. This is an excellent list for asking questions about technology needs but by looking in the list archives, it is possible to see if someone else might have already asked the same question.
Several other organizations maintain significant language resources. The Office of Telecommunications Policy Analysis and Development, at the New York State Education Department in Albany, NY, has a "Languages Other than English" area on its Gopher. Louis Janus, at the University of Minnesota, lists institutions that teach specific "Less Commonly Taught Languages" (LCTL) on the Gopher there. The "Centre for Language Teaching and Research" (CLTR) is part of the "National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia," and is located at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Queensland, AUSTRALIA. "Satellite Communications for Learning" (SCOLA) provides on-line information about its satellite-based foreign television services. "Voice of America" places news broadcasts in many languages on-line as sound files that can be listened to after downloading.
Many other resources in addition to these can be found by gophering. The FLTEACH collection provides a starting point to any FL educator in search of useful professional support on the network. Gopher has finally brought the old guard of Internet tools, Telnet, FTP, Archie, within the grasp of the casual user by simplifying the command structure and presenting meaningful options rather than displaying a blank screen and expecting the user to know what to do. By associating these resources with the FLTEACH discussion list, FL professionals can share their electronic discoveries with each other, allowing each new arrival to stand on the shoulders of those who came before.
http://web.cortland.edu/flteach/flteach.html
This page exists to provide Web-based support for FLTEACH list subscribers and also to assist FL teachers in locating Web resources for their professional use.
Why the Web? Gopher transports information from Gopher servers to your computer in the form of menu items and files of many specific data types: text, sound, image, executable software, links to other data, etc., but Gopher transports files one at a time. These items can then be viewed individually through a browser designed to display that specific type of information on your own computer. Yet, it can be advantageous to display information that simultaneously uses several of these formats in an integrated presentation. For example, a photograph or motion video might appear within a paragraph while a voice explains something about what the viewer is observing. Like Gopher, the Web connects the user to other Internet accessible resources available at many other locations, but the WWW goes beyond this to provide a format that allows different types of media to be mixed. Because hypertext is a format in which a text can contain within itself links to many other texts of various types, a WWW link can point to nearly anything, even a Gopher, allowing the FLTEACH page to include the Gopher within itself. Beyond these basics, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that is used to format Web documents is a vastly superior tool for text formatting than the rather styleless format that is possible in most Gopher text files.
A WWW page is not fixed in form like a book or article. It can be dynamic, changing as needed to fulfill its function. Its creation is more a process of maintenance than the production of a product. Many of the links on the FLTEACH page point to WWW resources that have been prepared by other FL professionals. Unlike the Gopher, the WWW page does not attempt to make an extensive collection of FL related sites. In many schools, teachers have been "surfing" the net and developing their own lists of the useful resources that they and their students have found worthwhile. Because of the nature of hypertext, links to these collections can become a part of the FLTEACH page where FL teachers can see what sites their colleagues at other institutions have been using. Thus the work of all these professionals contributes to the value of one page, not in itself but as a part of a network. Using hypertext, the WWW page can place this information in a meaningful context. Whereas the Gopher shows a menu of titles that can be accessed, the WWW page displays a narrative that explains what such titles are all about.
Before examining the use of these collections, we will take a look at the overall structure of the page. The FLTEACH WWW page is divided into two main sections, each containing a number of sub-sections. The first part provides various kinds of information about the FLTEACH project while the second section contains aids for finding other FL electronic resources on the net. The "Contents" listing provides links to each subsection of the page. Selecting a topic moves the viewer through the page, positioning it to that topic.
In the article, a portion of the frontispiece for the FLTEACH Homepage is featured here. In this virtual reprint, we thought it made more sense to refer to "the real thing." Please be advised that the page has been revised and updated several times since the article was written and published.
The introductory area identifies the function of the page and its relation to the FLTEACH discussion list. This includes information about how to subscribe and to use the list, as well as how to contact the moderators. A data entry form on the page itself allows anyone to submit questions or comments via e-mail directly to the list moderators without even leaving the page. Graphical information about the growth in the number of FLTEACH subscribers appears as a chart in image format. The Gopher section goes beyond a presentation of information by including a link to the Gopher itself. By selecting this link, the user can access the Gopher and all of its functions from within the WWW page. All of the files that are stored in the FLTEACH FILELIST can also be viewed directly from this page. This includes the archive of list postings, articles, and other information provided to subscribers. (See Gopher description above.)
The "Other WWW Foreign Language Resources" area is subdivided into a number of sections. These include Collections, German, Chinese, French, Japanese, Latin, Russian, Spanish, Other. The first, "Collections," is certainly the most important because it derives from the basic philosophy of FLTEACH, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and articulation among professionals at different institutions. Here, a teacher using the Web for the first time or updating a locally produced menu of selections can see what colleagues at other schools have found. Creating and maintaining an all encompassing listing of resources is far too big a job, not only because of the number of sites but also because addresses on the network tend to change, leaving links that no longer point anywhere. The effects of this instability can be transient or permanent, so discovering and tracking down problems can be very time-consuming. If many people are using a listing, the chances of identifying and fixing problems becomes much greater. As a result, the collection becomes more valuable through a collaboration between those who are maintaining it and those who are using it. An important advantage of using hypertext for such a listing is that descriptive information about a page can be much more informative than a simple listing of the names of links. Thus some kind of displayed evaluation of the usefulness of a particular site can assist a teacher in quickly identifying potentially interesting resources to be suggested for consultation by students doing class projects or simply browsing on their own.
The ability to access a number of alternative resource collections prepared by many professionals working in various types of institutions in distant geographical areas has several distinct advantages over a system with a single large collection. It is valuable to have multiple sources for times when some element in the network is not functioning properly. This certainly happens on occasion, and it seems to occur most frequently at the worst possible time. We all know that when using technology in a classroom, it is essential to have at least one "plan B" to avoid the frustration of a presentation that flops for technical reasons. Multiple access points can sometimes help get around certain network problems and possibly recover from a near disaster.
Varied points of view also add value to such collections. A page that might seem to be of little interest to a French major in a university might be the basis of a great lesson for a middle school program. For this reason, it is important that teachers at all levels participate in identifying useful resources. Yet, ideas also need to cross levels. That middle school WWW activity might also turn out to work at the college level once the teacher understands the ideas that make it successful. Articulation is valuable because it allows us to share ideas, not just information. Our diverse backgrounds make this exchange of ideas among institutional levels even richer than might otherwise be the case.
The listing of FL WWW collections can change at any time, but the current listing will provide an idea of the variety. Some are major projects with institutional support, others are the results of the efforts of single individuals working in their spare time. While some attempt to be extensive, others seek to address a specific need.
Collections of WWW FL Resources
* The Dartmouth Language Resource Center is an excellent WWW language resource and the place to go for information about the Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum List (LLTI).
* The Human Language Resource Page, located at Willamette, has an extensive collection of resources including many for Less Commonly Taught Languages (including Klingon).
* The WWW Resources for the Humanities at Berkeley is also quite good.
* The Resources for Foreign Languages and Literatures collection at Skidmore College has pointers to resources in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish thanks to Cindy Evans.
* The Ohio University Call Language Page contains a useful collection.
* The Foreign Language Department at the University of Toledo has a very well developed Home Page.
* Andreas Lixl-Purcell has collected German Resources and Russian Resources at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
* For ESL try the English as a Second Language Home Page and the DEIL LinguaCenter at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
* TenneseeBob Peckham at the University of Tennessee at Martin has an excellent collection called: Tennessee Bob's Famous French Links!
* Sean S. Davis created Language Links, a gateway to a great collection of resources for languages taught at Bethel High School, Hampton, VA where Sean teaches Spanish.
* Take a look at the VCU Trail Guide to International Sites and Language Resources by Robert Godwin-Jones.
* Thanks to Janice Paulsen and Pete Yang, CVanet and the University of Richmond are proud to announce their joint project to bring the Global Village to Central Virginia and vice versa.
* The Foreign Language and Culture hotlist from Douglas Brick's Hotlists at the Univ. of Washington is quite extensive.
* The Language Learning Resource Center is located at Carnegie Mellon University.
* Ricardo Chavez at Santa Barbara City College has information about Spanish language links.
* The French Page - La Page française was prepared by the French Dept. at Appalachian State University.
Getting to know some of these collections can also help a teacher generate ideas for a locally maintained listing intended to support the teaching of language classes at his or her own institution.
Such collections also provide an excellent starting point for students with an interest in exploring authentic FL materials on their own. With implicit direction from the developers of these sites, students can become explorers, bringing information and their own observations back to their teachers and thus getting involved in the process themselves. In courses on the development of technology-based FL materials, these resources provide a ready source of sample materials that can be critiqued by students as they assimilate the criteria for evaluating the quality of such resources in preparation for developing new materials themselves. Bringing such materials within the reach of students empowers them to define their own interests and be more active in determining the direction of their own education.
In addition to a short list of the personal FL favorites of the FLTEACH moderators, organized by language, this WWW page also includes links to other useful resources that might not be language specific. Many of these are service sites run by various projects, associations or government agencies.
Other Resources
* The Agora Language Marketplace is distributor of non-traditional, low-volume teaching materials and a source of information about materials for FL teaching. Agora Language Marketplace is run by Carolyn Fidelman and is seeking interested authors.
* LCEN, the Listening Comprehension Exercise Network, produces "instant" exercises based on news broadcast over SCOLA and Univision in five languages: French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
* The National Registration Center for Study Abroad (NRCSA) helps students looking for "Intercultural and Foreign Language Immersion Programs Around the World."
* Take a look at the I'M Europe Information Marketplace by ECHO, the European Community Host Organization information service. This is an excellent source for information about the European Community.
* OneEurope Magazine is an on-line magazine by ÆGEE, a European students' association.
* Welcome to Eurogopher.
* Some of the sites you can access through The Virtual Tourist - World are quite good.
* The Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides will help you find academic resources on the internet.
* The Project Muse at Johns Hopkins University will show you a sample of on-line academic journals. Of note to language teachers is Modern Language Notes.
As better descriptions of these services are incorporated into the presentation of the listing, the WWW page becomes an easier tool to use, saving time and thus encouraging the use of the resource by busy teachers who simply cannot afford to reinvent the wheel at every turn. By providing this service, the FLTEACH project seeks to help teachers support each other in their efforts to explore new methods for use in their classes by facilitating the exchange of ideas with colleagues.
American Council on Education. (1989). "What We Can't Say Can Hurt Us. A Call for Foreign Language Competence by the Year 2000." Washington, DC. ERIC Document 318 228.
Bedell, D. (1993). Review of electronic lists for language learning. _Athelstan_, 5: 13-15.
Benitez, R., Bloom, M., Champagne-Myers, M., Crooker, J., Diaz, J., Evangelista, A., Hancock, C., Hooper-Rasberry, G., Jeffries, S., & Lambert, R. D. (March, 1993). _Communication Skills for a Changing World. Interim Report of the Curriculum and Assessment Committee for Languages Other Than English_. Albany: New York State Education Department.
Cruickshank, D. R. (1990). _Research that informs teachers and teacher educators_. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa.
Jackson, C. (1994). Keynote address. NYSAFLT Annual Colloquium, Syracuse, NY. April 30, 1994.
LeLoup, J. W. and Ponterio, R. (1995). 'Networking' with Foreign Language Colleagues: Professional Development on the Internet. _Northeast Conference Newsletter_, 37, 6-10.
New York State. (October, 1992). _SUNY 2000. College Expectations: The Report of the SUNY Task Force on College Entry-Level Knowledge and Skills_.
United States. Department of Education. (April, 1991). _America 2000: An Educational Strategy_. Washington, DC. ERIC Document 327 009.