Technology and Language learning
3. The Internet Basics and Web Resources
By: Wedyan Alssadi
1 Essential Vocabulary for the Internet:
• Anti-virus Software: Software that attempts to block malicious programs/code/software
(called viruses or malware) from harming your computer.
• Blog/Blogging (short for weblog): A diary or personal journal kept on a website. Blogs are
usually updated frequently and sometimes entries are grouped by specific subjects, such
as politics, news, pop culture, or computers. Readers often post comments in response to
blog entries.
• Bookmark: A saved link to a website that has been added to a list of saved links or favorite
sites (i.e., “Favorites”) that you can click on directly, rather than having to retype the address
when revisiting the site.
• Browser: A program that lets you find, see, and hear material on web pages. Popular
browsers include safari, Microsoft internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google chrome.
• Cookie: A piece of information about your visit to a website that some websites record
automatically on your computer. By using a cookie, a website operator can determine a
lot of information about you and your computer.
• Download: To copy a file from one computer system to another via the Internet (usually
your computer or mobile device).
• History: A tracking feature of Internet browsers that shows all the recent websites
visited.
• Homepage: The site that is the starting point on the web for a particular group or
organization.
• Instant message/messaging (IM): Private, real-time text conversation between two users.
• Internet Service Provider (ISP): A generic term for any company that can connect you
directly to the Internet.
• Post: To upload information to the Web.
• Real-time: “Live” time; the actual time during which something takes place.
• Virus: A self-replicating software program that typically arrives through e-mail
attachments and which multiplies on the hard drive, quickly exhausting the computer’s
memory.
• World Wide Web (www or web): A hypertext-based navigation system on the Internet
that lets you browse through a variety of linked resources, using typed commands or
clicking on hot links.
• URL- Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) are the web browser addresses of internet
pages and files. With a URL, you can locate and bookmark specific pages and files in a
web browser.
• A domain: ,a domain name is the address that you'll type in the address bar to access a
website.
Examples:
• IP Address: Your computer and every device that connects to the internet uses an
Internet Protocol (IP) address for identification. In most cases, IP addresses are assigned
automatically.
• Spam is the jargon name of unwanted and unsolicited email.
2 Finding Materials on the Web:
2.1 Search Engines
Search engines are the means by which most people search the Web. Common examples are:
2.2. Online Dictionaries:
- Answers.com
- Language Tools
- TheFreeDictionary.com
- OneLook Dictionary Search
- Dictionary.com
As a web surfer, you can download a free online dictionary to your computer and use it at any
time to help you find the meaning of unfamiliar words on the web.
For example, you can download
- MSN Encarta Right-Click Dictionary
- TheFreeDictionary right-click add-on Dictionary
- CleverKeys for Windows (provides instant access to definitions at Dictionary.com, synonyms
at Thesaurus.com)
- 1-Click AnswersTM for Windows
2.3. Online Concordancers
1. Definition:
• A concordance is an alphabetical listing/index of the words in a text, given together
with the contexts in which they appear.
• A concordancer is a computer program that allows users to search a collection of
authentic texts (i.e. a corpus) for multiple examples of selected words or phrases.
• A corpus is a collection of either written or spoken texts (The plural is corpora). In fact,
the World Wide Web itself is a huge corpus that we can take advantage of to find
sufficient occurrences of language elements.
2. Uses of concordancers for language learning and teaching:
• Users can use a concordancer to find examples of authentic usage to demonstrate word
collocations, word usage, or even the structure of a text.
• Teachers can generate exercises (e.g., cloze tests) based
on authentic, interesting examples drawn from a variety of corpora rather than made-
up traditional grammar examples.
• Students can work out rules of grammar or usage and lexical features for themselves
by searching for key words in context. This helps them to raise their language awareness,
particularly in word collocations.
3. Explore the following online concordancers.
• WebCorp: This concordancer works right across the Web as its corpus, riding on the
back of different search engines. It is slow but produces good, rich results. Operated and
maintained by the Research and Development Unit for English Studies (RDUES) at the
University of Liverpook, UK. (English only).
