A New ELT Network, Website.  A new web experience for you.

Winnie Fong is a 29 year old secondary teacher. She works in a governmental school in the New Territories of Hong Kong. She teaches English to Forms 4 and 5. Despite being an English teacher, and despite scoring well on her recent benchmarking exam, she still feels uncomfortable explaining some grammar points and teaching some pronunciation and knows that she could always improve her English.

She sometimes gets frustrated, feeling that she has not got enough time to fully prepare for her classes as well as she would like. She often has to make her own flashcards for teaching vocabulary, which she finds time-consuming and demotivating.

She likes experimenting with technology in the classroom and is happy that she has access to a projector and computer with internet access in her classroom. Although she has used some websites with her classes and streamed audio from the ELT Network site to use in the classroom, she knows there are many more applications that she has not explored.

After her last class, she always spends an hour on MSN.  She has met a couple of like- minded people on there including a teacher from Shenzhen in a similar situation to her and they have swapped ideas.

What Winnie would really like to do is expand her use of the web to meet even more people, to gather and share resources that she could use in her classroom, to find out about learning opportunities and to actively practise her English with others in a non- threatening environment.

Well, Winnie is in for a treat because from September 2007 the ELT Network in Hong Kong will be expanding, offering you far greater functionality and resources.

From September 2007, we will be launching English Online, a brand new website developed by the British Council.  Here are some of the features of English Online:

• Details and sign up for the ELT Network’s latest workshops;
• Articles about learning and teaching in ELT;
• Lesson ideas from British Council and other Hong Kong schools;
• Podcasts – audio files you can subscribe to with topics of interest to teachers;
• Pronunciation resources for you to use in the classroom;
• Lesson plans and ideas for using English literature in the classroom;

Sound familiar? Well that’s exactly the same content as you can currently find on ELT Network every month.

So why the change? Well, the web has evolved quickly in the last couple of years and we are responding to this change to offer you everything you already get and a lot more:-

• Flashcard makers – make flashcards for your class;
• A copyright free photo library for you to download photos for your own use;
• Teaching videos – watch your peers in the classroom and listen to experts talk about various teaching methodologies;
• English language exercises you can use with your students;
• Information and practice materials for exams such as BULATS and IELTS;
• Games you can download to your mobile phone to practise your English on the go;

Sound good?  Well, we haven’t mentioned the best bit yet. English Online is going to be a true community allowing you to network with peers across Hong Kong and China.

English online will enable you to:

• Create your own profile so content on the website will be personalised and relevant to you;
• Contribute content in order to practise your English through blogs and wikis; (don’t worry if you don’t know what these are – we’ll talk about them next month);
• Discuss things of importance to you with teachers from Hong Kong and China on our discussion boards;
• Personalise your space;
• Share materials and ideas;
• Collaborate;
• Learn from others;
• Help you develop.

The web has changed.  It is not just a place to get information, but a community of people, where we can meet others, learn from each other and develop professionally without having to worry about geographical distance or without fear of making the occasional error.

We are changing too.

English Online is going to be the first cross-China community platform for English teachers and English Learners.

Over the next few editions of ELT Network, we’ll look at some of the features of English Online starting next month with articles and lesson plans for using wikis and blogs in the classroom.

Wikis and blogs, if you're unsure, are collaborative writing tools where you, the user, can create the content.  A great way to practise your English and learn from other like-minded people.

We'll also have an interview with the people behind English Online telling us about their vision and the benefits to you.

We think Winnie will like it, we hope you do to.  Watch this space!!