A Beginner's Guide to the Internet in the Foreign Language Classroom with a Focus on the World Wide Web

ABSTRACT The Internet is “a global communications network, comprised of millions of people using computers in every industrialized nation in the world“… “a treasure chest of information waiting to be discovered”… “huge and overwhelming and difficult to mentally grasp.“ 1 By explaining the Internet in simple terms and offering suggestions for its use, this paper will attempt to provide the language teacher with the impetus to get online and to integrate the tremendous resources available on the Internet into the classroom. The language teacher who wants to utilize the Internet in the classroom faces four challenges. The first is to come to a working knowledge of the history, language, and worldview – the culture–of cyberspace. The second challenge is to establish an actual hardware link to the Internet. The third is to become aware of the breadth, depth, and limitations of the resources available on the Internet. The final challenge is to integrate the diverse and variable quality of information, resources, and opportunities available through the Internet into the language classroom. Our understanding of and interaction with the borderless and dynamic medium of cyberspace can aid us in the teaching of language and culture.