Marlén Rátiva Velandia^*
Andrés Leonardo Pedreros Torres^**
Mónica Núñez Alí^***
El Libertador School, Colombia
^*maraveya1975@yahoo.com
^**andresupn2002@yahoo.com
^***nuezali@yahoo.com

This article was received on January 13, 2012, and accepted on June 19, 2012.

It is considered valuable to take advantage of web activities to improve and qualify the English teaching and learning processes, especially in the promotion of reading comprehension. In this article we share the process and results of a study that focused on some activities based on web materials that were designed and used with 10^th grade students, with the purpose of promoting reading. Data was gathered through the use of questionnaires, surveys and web activities. The results showed that most of the students agree on the fact that reading more information concerning a specific topic or about different subjects makes them work with enthusiasm; they also had new possibilities to access knowledge in a different way and to improve reading comprehension.

Key words: Reading comprehension in English, teaching teenagers, web-based activities.

Se considera valioso tomar ventaja de las actividades basadas en materiales web para mejorar y cualificar los procesos de la enseñanza y aprendizaje del idioma inglés, especialmente en la promoción de la comprensión lectora. En este artículo compartimos los procesos y resultados de un estudio que se centró en algunas actividades basadas en materiales web que fueron diseñadas y empleadas por estudiantes de décimo grado con el propósito de promover la lectura. La información se recogió mediante cuestionarios, encuestas y materiales web. Los resultados mostraron que la mayoría de los estudiantes están de acuerdo con que leer información concerniente a un tema específico o de diferentes materias los puede motivar a trabajar con entusiasmo y que también tienen nuevas posibilidades para acceder al conocimiento de una manera diferente y mejorar su comprensión lectora.

Palabras clave: actividades en la red, comprensión lectora en inglés, enseñanza a adolescentes.

The new technologies of information and communication have become an important tool that can develop new interests and abilities among people. Nowadays students need to be inquisitive and use their imagination to explore subjects. They not only need to get knowledge but also to understand how and why things work.

It is undeniable that the internet has transformed our society. It has broken communication barriers and facilitated a new way of information exchange. Also, it has given access to wider knowledge. Thus, we can find some web materials that have become a great support for the developing of learning processes in different disciplines. The use of some web information for classroom activities not only gets students closer to their reality but also gives both teachers and students the opportunity to exchange knowledge.

Web-based activities constitute an easy-to-use way for learning management and they make the internet a useful tool for education. Our tenth grade students were very interested in the use of technology in some aspects of their lives. Also, El Libertador School -where the study was conducted- has placed emphasis on technology as part of its curriculum. So, we decided to involve students in the implementation of an English project that focused on technology and helped them in the development of reading comprehension skills. This decision was based on the opinion of some teachers who expressed that their students were not used to reading very often and when they had to, their interaction with reading materials was not very positive. Through this experience we wanted to explore how the perspective of the teaching learning process in a foreign language could change our practices in the classroom, as well as get students to realize the advantages of using the internet for some educative purposes.

This project was carried out at El Libertador School. It is a public institution located in Bogotá (Colombia), zone 18 Rafael Uribe Uribe, with a pedagogical emphasis on technology. Since 2007 it has been associated with SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje - National Apprenticeship Service). They offer students four vocational options to select from: analysis, design, electronic technologies and business management. The main purpose of the school PEI (Proyecto Educativo Institucional - Institutional Educative Project) is to develop in the students the tools to face the new requirements of the technological societies with real and practical knowledge.

We chose 21 students from 10^th grade, who were part of 3 different groups. It is important to note that one of the researchers of this project had been working with those students for 3 years; so he had enough information about their characteristics and the way they fared in English classes. Therefore, he noticed their needs concerning reading comprehension; so this was the main reason why we decided to take this group as the research study subject.

On the basis of the School's main goal, the students' needs and our interest in working on the use of technology to foster reading comprehension among the students, we established the main research question of our study as follows:

• What can be observed regarding students' interest towards reading when using web-based reading activities?

• To explore the impact of using web-based activities as a classroom resource to promote reading in the context of 10^th graders at El Libertador public school in Bogotá.

• To analyze how web-based activities promote reading among students.

In this article we describe the implementation of the project, the characteristics of the tenth grade participants, the main question and objectives, the implementation of the project in a real context, how the theoretical framework was conceived and the results obtained during the process. In the last section of the article we present the conclusions and the pedagogical implications.

According to Murray, Yang and Allen (2002), the overall adoption of educational technology within academic environments is driving literacy instruction beyond the traditional oral and print-based medium toward online, electronic, and multimedia texts. The inclusion of computers within learning processes is dramatically creating new opportunities for students to embrace writing and collaboration as a means for self-expression. By changing the way that information is presented and processed, technology is influencing how students read, write, and communicate.

As Perakovic, Remenar and Jovovic (2012) said, the development of technology has brought additional improvement in the quality of education by using the e-learning technology. The World Wide Web has impacted the educational model in a fundamental way and forced educators to think of ways that this technology can be used to improve teaching effectiveness. Thus, it is important to consider methodology in terms of the CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) methodology. CALL is reaching an utmost position in the pedagogical field of English as a second or foreign language. Its powerful presence has fostered learner autonomy and a wide range of opportunities for authentic interaction in the target language (English) in computer-based conditions (Quesada, 2005, p. 6)

Web-based learning is becoming an even more powerful interactive source that increases learners' knowledge and that guarantees quantity and quality of language input and output. Added to this, the changing role of the teacher is more responsive to students' self-directed learning. It has also been found that the implementation of different web activities develops student's skills in the use of language. Web activities may increase learner motivation so the resulting effects could be beneficial to both teaching-learning processes; additionally, they offer opportunities for teachers to explore content resources on the net in order to integrate them in classroom instruction at a low cost. Teachers with few skills in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can make use of web-based activities cognitive brainstorming, identify real world activities, examine resources, define the task available on the web or adapt existing ones to their purposes.

Web materials have a pedagogical value in the sense that they foster opportunities for richer interdisciplinary content learning and allow the development of skills to deal appropriately with information. For instance, web tasks help students to think, analyze, and use information and resources to solve problems through collaborative work (Angrill, 2002).

Gass, Mackey and Pica (1998) claimed that interaction plays a significant role in second language acquisition. It is through interaction with others as well as the learning materials that learners receive the input in order to acquire the target language. In the same line of thought, Simina and Hamel (2005) say that principles of constructivism also support the use of computers in second language learning classrooms. Web-based learning can provide a context for collaboration and social interaction in which learners will construct the knowledge of the target language by being engaged in meaningful activities such as the reading of different kinds of material. Web activities, therefore, provide an ideal context for second language learning because they provide multiple representations of the natural complexity of the real world, representing authentic tasks and enabling context and content dependent knowledge construction (Simina & Hamel, 2005). In fact, computer-based activities enable interpersonal interaction with the learning materials in the target language.

Our study was based on the use of ICT as a tool to develop reading abilities. We consider that reading is an important competence in a knowledge-based society; it involves decoding strings of letters or being able to enjoy or understand a text. In fact, literacy is the ability to read, write and think critically and coherently. It is probably a better word for the crucial competences in knowledge-based societies.

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is.

Reading pages on the web is very different from reading information in a book because on the web you need to know how to navigate from page to page and up and down a page, using both your browser's navigation buttons and the website's features. You also need to know how to skim and scan to find the information you need. Using these skills makes reading on the web easier and more rewarding (Pearson Education Development Group, n.d.). They also say that skimming and scanning help students find the information they need, without reading everything on a web page. If you had to read every word on every page you came across, you would never have the time to finish your research.

When students develop reading skills through web materials they do the following:

• Understand how reading information on the web is different from reading information in a book.

• Understand how to use a browser's navigation tools and a website's features.

• Understand the importance of skimming and scanning on the web.

• Apply what they have learned to find and read information on the web. (TeacherVision, n.d.)

There are different styles of reading for different situations. The technique you choose will depend on the purpose for reading. For example, some people might be reading for enjoyment, information, or to complete a task.

That is the flexibility learners have when they access the WWW, thus becoming autonomous learners. Students can also be exposed to extensive reading and writing through conceptualized practice. That is, learners can exchange messages and discuss readings or they can read web-based stories with both audio and video text exposure, and write comments to other on-line reading peers about relevant details. (Egbert, 2005, as cited by Quesada, 2005, p. 15)

There are several ways in which technology can be used to improve reading ability. Most simple Wreading texts are also very primary in content. Older children may consider themselves too old to be reading such primary content books. Computers, however, can increase the interest level for older students while keeping the text simple and easy to read. Another benefit of using computers for reading instruction is that the computers offer immediate feedback on performance. They also provide added practice when necessary. According to Case and Truscott (1999), students have been able to improve their sight word vocabulary, fluency and comprehension as a result of the interaction with this kind of resources. Hence, they can increase their interest in reading, independence to approach new texts, the acquisition of knowledge and awareness of the importance to take this activity over as an essential part of their lives.

The implementation of web activities which was developed with tenth graders from El Libertador public school is considered basic in the educative process and an innovative tool to help the target group to focus on their way of thinking about reading and the importance of having a critical point of view. For that reason, we decided to engage in an action research project, since it is conducted in naturally occurring settings, primarily using methods common to qualitative research (Nunan, 1992) such as observing and recording events and behaviors. In action research, analytic or theoretical understanding has a subordinate relation to the development of a synthetic or holistic appreciation of the situation as a whole (Elliot, 1991).

We consider that action research is a viable way to use data collection methods based on "triangulation", which involves gathering data from a number of different sources so that the research findings or insights can be tested out against each other. This increases the reliability and validity of the research. Additionally, since collaborative action research encompasses the different perspectives of several participants and researchers, as well as a variety of data collection tools and methods, the findings of collaborative researchers are likely to be more valid and reliable and, therefore, potentially more generalized to similar teaching contexts than the findings in individual action research (Burns, 1999). As a research team, we distributed the tasks according to our experience, time and knowledge about the group. So, some of us took notes and organized the data, others applied the activities. The processes of data analysis, material design and report writing were conducted collaboratively. As a way to understand our participants' needs, we used a questionnaire in our study. It was useful to get an accurate profile of their needs and to design appropriate reading workshops.

In the first stage we applied two instruments -one for students and another one for teachers. This was done in order to get more information from our students in relation to the way they use web sites, and teachers' points of view about the use of the internet during the teaching process. The students' questionnaire goal was to identify interests, tastes, level of interaction with web resources and their previous experiences with reading. The teachers' questionnaire was answered by 5 secondary education teachers from the areas of Spanish, Informatics, Social Sciences and English. It was also designed to determine if they had used the internet in their classes and the advantages and disadvantages that, from their points of view, this practice may involve. At the end, we applied another questionnaire to learn the students' opinion about the activities. We also commented what was observed during the implementation of the reading workshops.

We analyzed the data according to the information requested in the questions identified categories and selected information that, according to the research group, could provide information regarding students' views about web activities and reading. Taking into account the findings of the first stage, we designed some materials linked to students' interests and likes.

As a team, we designed three activities, the first was "The history of computers", the second was about "The history of rock music" and the third was "The 2010 World Soccer Cup" playoff. Those activities let students navigate on some web pages that offered a variety of information; in other cases, the web pages provided new vocabulary and learning about grammar structure (see web-based activity sample in Appendix C).

The activities were exposed in the blog http://literatureandknowledge.blogspot.com. It gave students links about readings in order to be explored and provided opportunities for them to do exercises like answering questions, completing sentences, doing crosswords or word search. Another important aspect was that activities had games, karaoke, simulations and listening exercises.

The material design and the subsequent analysis were carried out by the research-team while the activities were applied and monitored by the teacher who was in charge of the group.

It should be noted that although the school has four computer labs, English teachers do not have any access to them, so it was a problem when we decided to implement our project. To overcome that limitation, students worked at home, developed online activities and presented their results in two ways: through an e-mail with an attached document and a printed copy of the same file. In some classes students and the teacher discussed the topics and activities with the purpose of sharing the information obtained in the readings and obtaining the proper feedback.

Base-Line Study

We followed the phases proposed by Burns (1999). In the exploring phase we identified a general idea or issue of interest. It was done with the implementation of two questionnaires, one for teachers and another one for students because we considered it to be relevant to know how they used web sites in teaching and learning processes. In the identifying stage, we documented reading problems and this helped us clarify the nature of the situation and suggest further action.

Other phases were intervening and observing. Hence, one of the researchers managed his classes in relation to the use of web materials and gave some instructions in order to develop activities. At the same time he observed the effectiveness of the procedures.

The first students' questionnaire was applied to 21 students and the sample was taken at random. This questionnaire let us get information about students' needs, the frequency of the use of the internet, kind of web sites they used to visit, and other aspects. From the base-line study we drew relevant information for further decision-making. See complete information in Appendix A. In Table 1, we summarize the results according to the categories that the team identified and then analyzed as aspects of interest.

Students' Needs

According to the results, students showed a great tendency to work on web sites in order to fulfill requirements like looking for information and doing homework. As can be seen in Appendix A, a high percentage of the students go for activities in which they get some entertainment like playing games or chatting and a low percentage mentioned activities like downloading software and taking online courses. It was a positive point that students used the internet for academic purposes instead of just playing computer games.

Frequency

Most of the students expressed that they "usually" have the possibility to use the internet for academic purposes. A low percentage expressed that they rarely use the internet. This may also mean that they frequently use the internet just for academic purposes more than any other kind of activity.

Top Ranked Websites

Students are used to visiting the most popular websites (Wikipedia, Rincón del Vago, Google). As we know, there they do not have to follow instructions from the teacher or can just look for information in an easy way.

Time Spent on the Internet

Most of the students (52%) say that they spend from 2 to 4 hours surfing the net. It is not much time, but could be enough when they try to do activities like search information, complete homework, organize presentations, read specific texts or get ideas to be presented in class.

Usefulness

A high percentage (95.2%) of the students find the internet useful for academic purposes. This was an advantage for the development of our project. By contrast, only a few of them (4.7%) did not consider the usefulness that web sites could offer in terms of improvement of academic learning.

Interest in Engaging in Learning Activities

More than a half of the percentage of students was quite interested (52.3%) while 33.3% was really interested. This showed that we had a great challenge to involve our students in interactive activities that engaged them in the project and changed a little bit their idea of using web sites not only for fun but for both learning and having fun.

Students' Difficulties in Reading

In response to our question, the students reported that they had more difficulties in understanding secondary ideas and explaining main ideas than when dealing specific or detailed information from the reading of texts. This caused us to reflect on the kind of materials we should design to engage them in the web-based reading activities. It was important to take it into account because readings have to be suitable for them to develop this specific skill.

Students' Reading Preferences

It was interesting to find that music and technology have the highest percentage in terms of likes for students. This aspect constituted an important point of departure when implementing some readings that contained certain topics related to music or technology.

On the other hand, the teachers' questionnaire provided information about the use of the Internet in their classes, its advantages and disadvantages and how they used reading in their classes (see Appendix B). Five teachers from El Libertador School answered the questionnaire. The results are summarized in Figure 1.

The Use of Technology

Teachers showed a huge interest towards using new technologies and tools to engage students in a dynamic way in the development of classes involving extra activities. Most of them pursued their interest to get a better pedagogical environment in the classroom. Also, two of them admitted they had had some kind of training to improve their classes.

Moreover, teachers affirmed that the use of web-materials helps students to gain self-confidence, autonomy, entertainment and practice of the English language as a complementary task of classroom activities. They also expressed that one can monitor students' progress and their willingness to develop the assigned task. However, internet access could be difficult because most of the students are not able to interact frequently and they do not know how to select proper information.

Reading Process

Reading has become a problem for students because they think it is a punishment. Moreover, some chosen topics are not pleasant for them so they prefer doing other activities. Besides, they do not know how to use the dictionary to find meanings according to the context, and they have some problems identifying main and secondary ideas in a text.

The teachers mentioned that they applied strategies to engage students when developing reading activities like pre-reading, inference and deduction, reading images, maps and schemes and association of new words to get meaning. However, it is important to mention that most of the time these are not enough to catch their attention because their results have not been good enough. Finally, music, movies, extreme sports, true stories, tales and fables, social problems, personal successes, action, comedy and video games are topics that teachers considered interesting or motivating for students for they can foster their interest to read.

Students' Interest Towards Reading in Web-Based Activities

In this section we provide information about the implementation of the three web-based activities that the research team designed and analyzed and the last questionnaire applied to students in which they expressed their opinions of the activities. The results are organized into three categories: students' interest in the reading processes, the role the web-based activities played in students' involvement, and the difficulties they faced.

Students' Interest in the Reading Processes

Most of the students agree on the fact that searching for more information concerning a specific topic or different subjects engage them in working with enthusiasm by using new technologies. On the other hand, this activity gave them new possibilities to have access to knowledge in a different way.

It is important to analyze two facts found along the development of the activities: First, we noticed the students' motivation to complete other kinds of activities (different from the ones they were accustomed to). Second, some of them seemed to be confused when they did not understand meanings or instructions and asked if they could use online dictionaries or translators. The use of these tools helped them to organize ideas, understand main ideas, check their translation and acquire new vocabulary.

Because of their ages and likes, our students preferred readings of different topics that caught their attention; for instance, music technology and games. Virtual resources, images, sounds and games facilitated and promoted students' cooperative attitude and helped them commit themselves to the ongoing work.

The Role the Web-Based Activities Played in Students' Involvement

We can deduce that activities like these are interesting for students; they motivate them to learn English. This proves that we have better results when the students' interests are taken into account.

Students were interested and committed in the development of the activities; therefore, they spent their free time working on them and some of them went to internet cafés to overcome the lack of access to technology at home or at school. This attitude on the part of the students shows that it is possible to engage them in their own learning processes.

The students expressed that the activities in general were interesting because they let them identify what they know about computers. It should be noted that Hangman (a guessing game) and the crossword puzzle were the most attractive in the evaluation of computer knowledge. In regard to this, a student wrote: "It was so interesting that the clues were in English". It means that when students work on motivational activities they do not have difficulties in solving problems in spite of dealing with another language.

On the other hand, 90% of the students who worked on the activities said that the most interesting and motivating reading was the history of rock music because of the following:

Moreover, some students suggested additional topics like music, war and weapons, culture, sports and paranormal phenomena, fantastic readings. By contrast, history was proposed only by one student.

Difficulties Faced by Students

Some students experienced difficulties; three of them expressed that the crossword puzzle demanded more time and the most difficult part was the comprehension of the clues. Finding some exact words was also difficult for students who were not accustomed to do it. However there was no reason to give the activities up. On the other hand, a student expressed that the most difficult part was the summary and two of them said that they did not have any problem with the activities. We can observe a summary of students' reflections about the use of web-based activities in Table 2.

The promotion of reading has been considered a challenge for teachers of any discipline. During the last years schools have been implementing institutional projects to help students improve and develop reading. With the purpose of engaging students it is necessary to pay attention to their interests and problems, so schools have to develop diagnostic procedures that let them select readings that fulfill students' needs.

The implementation of web activities in the promotion of reading constitutes a new opportunity for learners to strengthen their abilities in acquiring the competence in the target language. Likewise, they provide teachers the opportunity to improve their teaching methodology.

According to the results observed in our project, we can conclude that if teachers want to promote reading through web activities, it is necessary, first, to put into practice the ones that prioritize playful and interactive aspects as a way to engage learners and challenge them to read. Second, the selection of topics must be based on students' real context, interests and likes.

Web activities helped students to find another way to enrich their learning process. Since they were accustomed to using computers mainly for the leisure activities, they found that during the implementation of the project the proposed academic activities were interesting, motivating and challenging because they implied an innovative way to learn.

The interactive activities were more motivating than those in which students had to handle with the printed readings because they could explore different web sites at the same time, use dictionaries online or listen to music. Some students, though, considered that the printed reading activities were easier to develop because of the way they could handle time, underline and revise ideas, and write meaning of new vocabulary.

To sum up, we consider that this kind of project could be put into action in schools in order to generate a new atmosphere for the learning process not only for EFL students, but for many others as well. It can also be part of interdisciplinary projects due to the fact that reading and the access to ICT could be a transversal axis to knowledge and the teachers' practices together.

Along the implementation of this project an interesting aspect caught our attention: It is undeniable that web-based activities have given new opportunities for both teachers and students in the teaching-learning process by developing authentic tasks. Nonetheless, it is important not to forget the traditional way to develop reading activities (the printed one). Although technology has provided new and playful strategies for learning processes, it is not enough in terms of the integration of methodologies in EFL or in any other teaching discipline. Printed reading activities help students to develop reading competence because they can underline main ideas, go back to revise them and get a physical reference at any time.

^* This paper reports on a study conducted by the authors while participating in the PROFILE Teacher Development Program at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 2009-2010. The Program was sponsored by Secretaría de Educación de Bogotá, D.C. Code number: 1576, August 24, 2009.

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About the Authors

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C: Web-Based Activity Sample