Avatar Languages Blog

Jane Petring of Collège Édouard-Montpetit (Longueuil, Québec) asks this very question in an article and forthcoming discussion at TESOL 2009. She notes that “materials writers need to take an honest look at how Web 2.0 is changing the way people interact and learn if we want to remain relevant in the 21st century”. Petering is not alone – the future of the course book is also being discussed on the IATEFL Cardiff Online forum.

The web 2.0 is clearly changing how we work, communicate and learn. So, if the textbook is to keep up with these developments, what should it look like?

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At Avatar Languages we are using many web 2.0 tools in online language lessons. This “teaching 2.0” approach leads to very different kinds of lessons from normal textbook based ones. When looking for some guidance on how to use the internet in place of a textbook, the Dogme ELT movement has been a real inspiration. But perhaps using 2.0 applications can take the Dogme ELT principles further than technology free teaching does.

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Google Maps must surely be changing the way we use maps – especially now that it offers “Street View” for several countries. Street View allows you to see what the streets actually look like, thanks to a Google car driving around lots of cities and photographing almost every street at intervals of every few yards. It also offers language learning new immersive opportunities.

A Street View of Madrid is embedded below, so you can click on it and drag the image around to take a look.

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In today’s lesson with a student from Madrid, he showed me around parts of the city using this Street View function. Ruben gave me directions to guide me and then described the locations.

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