This project aims to help students to improve their writing skill through the use of the internet. EFL teachers will be able to use this project guidelines in order to get the best they can from their students.

1. UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARÁ
CENTRO DE LETRAS E ARTES
DEPARTAMENTO DE LÍNGUA ESTRANGEIRA
CURSO DE ESPECIALIZAÇÃO EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
AUGUSTO CÉSAR PINTO FIGUEIREDO
TEACHING WRITING THROUGH THE INTERNET
BELÉM – PARÁ
2006

2. I. Identification.
Title: Future Jobs.
Author: Augusto César Pinto Figueiredo.
Audience: Upper-intermediate teenagers from a private language institute.
Length: A twelve-hour lesson.
II. Justification.
The following teaching project is about students´ future jobs due to the importance
of this subject matter to students’ future life. It provides students with activities related to the four
abilities in English using the computer and the Internet. Teachers today are aware of the use of
CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) and CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication).
That is why, it is important to know how to develop materials for on line instruction. As a teacher,
I learned some techniques to develop EFL web interactive activities. I was motivated by the
facilities offered by the technology and decided to integrate them into my pedagogical practices.
Actually, Technology and education work together nowadays, so projects involving learning,
teaching and technology are outstanding ways to increase learners´ motivation.
Another relevancy of this teaching project is that students are going to have the
chance to better understand the benefits of technology to their own educational process. Since
computers are widely used by teenagers as, they spend a lot of time in front of the screen. Besides,
it is going to provide an opportunity to supply students´ sense of management, responsibility, and
enhance the idea of autonomy. Another benefit is the environment of collaborative work using
CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning).Hence, collaboration is important because
frontiers have been trespassed by the velocity of knowledge and communication exchanges. One
of the important and advanced tools to face such globalized world is the Internet that provides

3. EFL/ESL learners with authentic and updated language. So a teaching project like this one is
justifiable as a profitable solution for both educators and learners´ curriculum.
My theoretical framework is drawn from the CMC (Computer-Mediated
Communication) and CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning). Warschauer (1996)
developed many of these ideas among others. The activities suggested in this teaching project
follow the Integrative CALL (Computer-Mediated Communication) methodology advocated by
Underwood (1984).
III. Contents
This project is going to be used in an English class of an English institute. It has no
relation whatsoever with other disciplines in a regular school.
IV. The objectives.
General objectives
The main objective of my teaching project is to provide a class of advanced students
with interactive tasks related to future jobs. Students are supposed to integrate the four abilities in
a semi-presential and user-friendly web-based environment.
Specific objectives
To manage student learning activities in a technology-enhanced environment as
follow:
- Introduce Ss to main subject of the project as guidelines for their web-based pair-presentations
- Provide Ss with online interactive listening and reading activities to check their general
understanding of the topic presented by the teacher.

4. - Monitor Ss interaction in the classroom while preparing their PowerPoint presentations in order
to be sent to the school server.
- Help Ss learn how to start an interview and state points of view about future jobs.
- Enable Ss to present their works in the classroom and check their performance
V. Theoretical bases
This teaching project offers an engaging instructional goal to make learners active
constructors of their own knowledge. It is centered on the learner and affords learners the
opportunity for in-depth investigations of worthy topics. A key to a successful teaching project is
to assign subject matters that connect to real-life or topics relevant to learners. Constructivism
(Perkins, 1991; Piaget, 1969; Vygotsky, 1978) explains that individuals construct knowledge
through interactions with their own environment, and each individual's knowledge construction is
different. The learners are more autonomous as they construct personally meaningful artifacts that
are representations of their own learning. As a result, students tend to be more engaged and
motivated as they approach and solve tasks that they can relate to. The concept of a learner-
centered curriculum (Nunan, 1987) predates, and has broader significance, than the Internet
enhanced classroom. However, this concept seems particularly important when considering
network-based teaching. So Future Jobs, as the subject matter of this teaching project, was
thought and chosen in order to be meaningful to awake teenager English learners´ interest and
motivation. Learners typically have more autonomy over what they learn, maintaining interest and
motivation to take more responsibility for their own learning (Tassinari, 1996; Wolk, 1994;
Worthy, 2000). With more autonomy, learners "shape their projects to fit their own interests and
abilities" (Moursund, 1998, p. 4). Especially, because the chosen subject matter gives students a
change to think about their future careers.

5. This teaching project is also rooted on the idea of the Integrative CALL advocated by
Warschauer (1996) who suggests that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many teachers were moving
away from a cognitive view of communicative teaching to a more social or socio-cognitive view,
which placed greater emphasis on language use in authentic social contexts. Warschauer and Healey
(1998) emphasize the important of the learners´ Integration in authentic environments, and also the
integration of the various skills of language learning. Warschauer and Healey (1998) also mention
the place of computers in the syllabus: In integrative approaches, students learn to use a variety of
technological tools as an ongoing process of language learning and use. It is then possible to
integrate four skills (speaking, listening reading, and writing).
Rowntree (1995) refers to the use of online technology to assist educators in
transcending limitations often associated with traditional face-to-face approaches to education.
Rowntree (ibid) also lists that the main benefits of (CMC) including the convenience of
participating in asynchronous communication activities that can be reviewed at any time, and
communication with a number of actors simultaneously to act as a channel for the sharing of
experience or vocationally based practices.
Another pedagogical aspect that must be raised in connection with the design of this
teaching project is based on Kern (1995) who found that : students had from two- to three-and-a-
half times more turns and produced two to four times more sentences and more words in the
interchange discussion than in the oral discussion. He used several rough measures of language
productivity (length of learner output in terms of number of words, sentences, and turns) that are
difficult to interpret because of the lack of controlled comparisons with face-to-face language
production under equivalent conditions (such as number of participants, plus or minus teacher
participation, etc.).
In light of the fact that the extensive amount of online information and communication
in English provides the possibilities and, in many contexts the imperative, to reconstruct the
English language curriculum to incorporate technology enhanced communication and project

6. work (Warschauer, 2000). Principally, because more than 50% of the world's online content is in
the English language (Cyberspeech, 1997).Warschauer (ibid), until quite recently, computer-
assisted language learning (CALL) was a topic of relevance mostly to those with a special interest
in that area. Recently, though, computers have become so widespread in schools and homes and
their uses have expanded so that the majority of language teachers must now begin to think about
the implications of computers for language learning.
To Sayers (1993), there are many ways that Internet activities can be integrated into
the overall design and goals of a course. The teacher can work with students to create research
questions, which are then, investigated in collaboration. Teachers must learn to structure their
classroom in such a way that different students or groups of students are working on different
aspects of their project at any one time. Second, teachers will not make the sacrifice of time,
effort, and money required for implementation of technology-based instruction only for the goal of
teaching the same English skills better. Rather, they make these sacrifices because they believe
that the mastery of technology, as part of the English curriculum and other curricula, is essential if
their students and society are fully developed. The teacher is no longer the center of attention as
the dispenser of information, but rather plays the role of facilitator, setting project goals and
providing guidelines and resources, moving from student to student or group to group, providing
suggestions and support for student activity. Finally, when students are using technology as a tool
or a support for communicating with others, they are in an active role rather than the passive role
of recipient of information transmitted by a teacher, textbook, or broadcast. The student is actively
making choices about how to generate, obtain, manipulate, or display information. Technology
use allows many more students to be actively thinking about information, making choices, and
executing skills than is typical in lessons. As students work on their technology-supported
products, the teacher moves through the room, looking over shoulders, asking about the reasons
for various design choices, and suggesting resources that might be used. Such changes were
reflected in teachers' reports that technology use increased the amount of collaboration, students'

7. regulation of their own learning, and students' teaching teachers. The majority of classroom time
may be devoted to independent and collaborative projects.
VI. Methodology
Class 01. (Ss and teacher in the computer laboratory)
1st Step: Ss read the PowerPoint presentation and have an explanation about the project topic,
keywords, and grammar use. (1 hour).
2nd Step: T Asks Ss in pairs to go on line and watch a video, answer a quiz, do a crossword about
the subject presented previously. Moreover, they are going to decide which fieldwork they are
going to do together in order to start their project collaboratively. (15 minutes)
3rd Step: Provide Ss with useful Internet website addresses in order to help their searches (see.
Annex).(5 minutes)
Class 02. (Ss connected at home or in a computer laboratory in pairs).
1st Step: Ss are going to use the previous Internet website addresses given and others available in
popular web directories to start their search for future jobs (3 hours).
2nd Step: Ss are going to collect the main information in each website address to prepare a
PowerPoint presentation (3 hours).
3rd Step: Ask Ss to exchange information about the results of their Internet via e-mail, MSN or any
other Chat engine they are familiar with (1 hour). (c.f anexos)
Class 03. (Ss and teacher in a computer laboratory in pairs total 2h) (c.f anexo)
1st Step: Ss are going to decide together which pieces of information, video, music, picture and
layout are more relevant to be included in their PowerPoint presentation (30 minutes).

8. 2nd Step: Ss prepare their final PowerPoint version and a handout to be presented to the whole
class based on the teacher’s PowerPoint presentation. (1 hour).
3rd Step: Ss decide and practice their presentation as well as exchange presentations with the rest
of the group and teacher via e-mail (30 minutes).
4th Step: T will provide Ss with a set of comprehension questions in order to check their listening
and understanding the use of any new vocabulary or expression.
Class 04. (Ss and teacher in class for 2 hours)
1st Step: Ss are going to start their presentations. Each pair of students has 15-20 minutes to
present.
2nd Step: Ss start interviews about each others’ jobs
3rd Step: T and Ss shall discuss each presentation by the end of each one for at most 5 minutes.
4th Step: Students´ work is going to be corrected and T will upload them to the schools’ server to
be visited by other group of Ss (1hour and 30 minutes).
VII. Teaching resources
1st Computer Laboratory connected to the Internet.
2nd A PowerPoint projector.
3rd Enough photocopies from the Attachments listed previously in this project.
VIII. Assessment.
Assessments must be created to tie into the teaching project and to classroom
practice, so teachers can make judgments as to how students are doing and provide them with

9. meaningful feedback on their performance. Therefore, this teaching project is going to consider
the following table in order to assess students´ performance.
Total Grade 100%
Attendance 15%
Contribution and participation during the whole project 25%
Presentation 25%
Teacher’s feedback to final version 25%
Self-Reflection 10%
a) Attendance is important to get students engaged and give the project truly appropriated
contribution for each step, by allowing each student to create either personal or
collaborative meaning.
b) Contribution and participation during the whole project offers equally opportunities for
learners to represent their understanding. Throughout this teaching project, Learners can
discuss, write, collect data, count, and measure, calculate, predict, construct models,
draw diagrams, make graphs, record observations, read for information and for pleasure,
and many other things. They can show their understanding from the beginning to the end
of the project, and as they look back on the most memorable aspects of the work
completed. That is why a checklist assessment is going to be given to each student to
evaluate his or her partner’s performance during the whole project (See attachment page
2).
c) Presentation helps students to understand the development of their own communicative
competence. It is easy for them to see how they progress in their speaking ability to use
language. Therefore, another checklist is going to be given to the whole class as a mean
of assessment. (See attachment page 2).

10. d) Teacher’s feedback to final version is another important aspect that students are going to
receive about their final version. Feedback, which is going to be a single grade telling
students whether or not they met objectives set by the teacher (See attachment page 2).
e) Self-Reflection can offer a good chance for learners to evaluate their own work the idea
of self-assessment system (should) provide a basis for developing an awareness of what are
important characteristics of good and bad aspect of their own production. Self- assessment
checklists must be filled and graded by each student. (See attachment page 2).

11. IX. Bibliography.
BATES, E., & GOODMAN, J. (1998). On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon:
Evidence from acquisition, aphasia, and real-time processing. Language and Cognitive
Processes, 12, 507–586.
BLOOM, P. (2001) Thinking through language. Mind and Language16:351–67.
BRUNER, J. S. (1983) Child’s talk: Learning to use language. Oxford University Press.
CRYSTAL, D. (2004). The bilingual child. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Press.
DE GRÉVE, M; PASSEL, F.V (1975).Linguistica e ensino de línguas estrangeiras. São Paulo:
Pioneira.
DE HOUVER, A (1997). A aquisição bilíngüe da linguagem. In: FLETCHER, P.; McWHINNEY,
B. Compêndio da linguagem da criança. Porto Alegre: Artmed.
DEKEYSER, R. (2000). The robustness of critical period effects in second language
acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 499–534.
FLEGE, J. E., YENI-KOMSHIAN, G. H., & LIU, S. (1999). Age constraints on second-
language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 78–104.
JOHNSON, J., & NEWPORT, E. (1989). Critical period effects in second language
learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second
language. Cognitive Psychology,21, 60–99.
KENZER, R. (2003). The robustness of critical period effects in second language
acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 499–534.
LONGO, M. (1990). Maturational constraints on language development. Studies in
Second Language Acquisition,12, 251–285.
MARASCA, C. Aquisição dos róticos em um grupo de crianças bilíngües alemão-português:
interferência ou distúrbio? Dissertação de Mestrado em Distúrbios da Comunicação da
Universidade Tuiti do Paraná, Curitiba, 2003.
MINISTÉRIO DA EDUCAÇÃO E CULTURA, Parâmentros Curriculares Nacionais.Ensino
Médio. Brasília: 1999.
O’GRADI, W.; YAMASHITA, Y. Partial agreement in second-language acqsition. Linguistics
40-5,1011-1019,2002.

12. PAVAN, M . (2003). Você apenas fala ou se comunica em inglês? In: Catho. 204ª Edição
PELLEGRINI, D (1999). Inglês, passaporte para o mundo. Nova Escola. Ed. Agosto,
PÉRRISÉ, P. (2004) Crianças pequenas aprendem quantos idiomas simultâneos o ambiente lhes
proporcionar. In: O bilingüismo na escola favorece ou prejudica apredizagem? Pátio. Ano
VIII, 31 ago/out.
PIAGET, J. (1971) The science of education and the psychology of the child.
Longman.
ROMAINE, S. (1995). Bilingualism. Cambridge,MA: Blackwell.
SANTOS, A.L.P. A realidade do ensino da língua inglesa nas escolas de ensino médio com base
nos novos PCNs: uma visão crítica comparativa. Trabalho de conclusão de curso. Universidade da
Amazônia (UNAMA). Belém/PA, 2001.
STEVENS, G. (1999). Age at immigration and second language proficiencyamong
foreign-born adults. Language in Society, 28, 555–578.
SPELKE, E. S. (1994). Initial knowledge: six suggestions. Cognition 50, 431±45.
Wellman, H. M. & Gelman, S. A. (1998). Knowledge acquisition in foundational domains.
In D. Kuhn & R. S. Siegler (eds.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol.. Cognition,
perception and language development (5th ed). New York: Wiley.
SCOVEL, W. J. (1988) The effects of inbreeding on Japanese children. Harper & Row.
TESTILLANO, C.O. Bilingüismo y desarrolo cognitivo. Tese de Doutorado em Pisicoliguistica,
Institut de Ciències de lÉducación. Universidad de lês llles Baleares, Palma, 1988.
TRACY, P.M .( 2002) Is another language important ? Education magazine.
TOSI, M. (2002). A chegada da língua inglesa no Brasil. Estudo da historia do Brasil,
30, 449–472.
UPTON, T. A. (2001). First and second language use in reading comprehension strategies
of Japanese ESL students. TESL-EJ, 3 (A-3), 1–27.
VYGOTSKY, L. S. (1962) Thought and language. MIT Press. (1978) Mind and society:
The development of higher psychological processes.Harvard University Press.

14. ATTACHMENTS