Weaving the web into an EAP reading program

As we enter the new millennium, there are two realities that few people would contest. The first is that English is an essential world language today. The second is that the Internet is here to stay. As university teachers of academic English, we decided to explore the possibilities of combining these two realities. This article describes the steps we have taken toward that goal. English for Academic Purposes (EAP), as taught at Bar Ilan University in Israel, emphasizes reading academic texts. This focus on reading has not allowed for a holistic approach in our curriculum, so the courses tend to lack variety. Even with carefully chosen materials, we often encounter low interest and motivation among both students and teachers when an entire course is based on teaching the skills needed for the comprehension of academic texts. (The advanced level course is 108 hours long—4 hours weekly for 27 weeks). Some of us teaching at the advanced level at Bar Ilan began to discuss ways to better motivate and challenge the students as well as ourselves. We knew that certain conditions had to be satisfied. First, we wanted the material to be authentic and up-to-date. Second, we wanted the students to have more choice and greater autonomy in their reading. Furthermore, we had to make sure that the students were reading with a purpose and that their reading had meaning for them. No less important, we hoped that the reading would be enjoyable. The computer, or more specifically the Internet, seemed to be the tool to meet these needs; and as we began exploring this possibility, we found that the professional literature supported our intuitions (Cummins and Sayers 1990, 1995). According to Vygotsky (1978), purposeful human learning is connected to activity and language is a crucial tool for learning. So, we decided to use the Internet to combine purposeful activity with language learning. Vygotsky (1962, 1978) also sees the classroom as a sociocultural environment in which collaboration and cooperative learning are made possible. The computer laboratory can develop into just such a collaborative environment, since teachers and students interact to explore various topics and exchange ideas about them. These concepts formed the rationale for our university Internet project.