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The ETT Virtual Classroom: A Different Flavor
Jean Vermel
EFL Department, Informatics Department
Beit Berl Teachers’ College
jean@beitberl.beitberl.ac.il
The project run by ETT (English as a Foreign Language Teacher Trainers)
(http://mofet.macam98.ac.il/~ett/vchome/vchome.htm) connects three teacher training colleges in Israel in a
joint venture, through collaborative learning, in creating a “virtual classroom” for the teaching of English as a
foreign language using the Internet.
Our main aim was to use the Internet as a tool to locate resources, references, materials, and on-line sites that
would be useful to a future EFL teacher. The Internet was used as the medium to fulfill the assignment given.
The participants in the project were students training to become English teachers (about 15 students from each
college). These trainees worked in groups of six, two from each college, on one particular topic, for example
• using current affairs in the EFL classroom
• using extensive reading in the EFL classroom
• using music in the EFL classroom
The trainees collaborated via the Internet in order to create a portfolio of ideas and suggestions for their own
personal use, and for their use as future teachers.
This final assignment consisted of three different parts:
• an individual section, which was made up of reflective questions dealing with the use of the Internet as a
tool and working with “invisible partners”
• a pair assignment, done with their in-class partner(s), which required them to analyze one particular site
in depth and show how the information in this site could be useful in their teaching
• a group assignment, carried out with all the members of the group from the three different institutions,
which dealt with choosing eight sites they felt were beneficial to them as future EFL teachers, coming to
an agreement about those eight sites, and writing short explanations of how those sites could be helpful.
While our journey on the Internet dealt with mainly sites related to EFL, our “hidden agenda” was to teach the
teacher trainees the different programs used on the Internet. We worked with our respective trainees in a
regular classroom lesson environment, and taught them use of electronic mail, “surfing and searching” on the
Internet, discussion groups, IRC etc. This added a different flavor to our project as the trainees needed to
participate in our lessons in order to learn the tools which would then allow them to complete their assignment
using the ETT virtual classroom.
The project had its problems, of course, and they manifested themselves mainly in the technical area:
• mail not working properly and getting lost
• server down during class time
• the computer room not being open during the week so that the trainees could “practice,” etc.
We also discovered that it was most important for us, the teacher trainers, to take a forward role in moderating
our respective listservs. The teacher trainees, being unaccustomed to communicating in writing, were initially
quite hesitant about sending short messages to their groups about any subject and there was a lack of true
“communication” among the participants.
We believe that now that the trainees have experienced being part of a virtual classroom, they will not only use
this media for themselves as teachers but will involve their future pupils in similar projects.