The Language Teacher
October 2000
An E-commerce Webpage Project
Anthony P. Crooks
>Sendai Board of Education
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Key Words: Internet, Writing, Webpage Design, E-commerce
Learner English Level: Lower Intermediate to Advanced
Learner Maturity Level: Adults, College and up
Preparation Time: Varies according to teacher' s and students' familiarity with webpage design
Activity Time: Ten hours (five two-hour classes), plus student research/interviews outside of class
Introduction
When teachers conduct webpage construction exercises for ESL/EFL students, the resulting sites usually concentrate on class members' personal details and interests. However, for ESP Business students, preparing rudimentary e-commerce websites can be an engaging and valuable alternative to the more common "My Webpage" product. This article outlines a successful project in which students created commercial websites for businesses in their neighbourhood. Even though the students involved were studying in a Business English course at an Intensive English Program (IEP) in Melbourne, Australia, this project could be adapted to Japanese ESP contexts.
Students and Class
The class comprised 15 Asian students who were preparing to enter business programs at Australian universities. They were in their final ten weeks of study in the IEP, and had upper-intermediate level English skills. They had prior experience with the Windows operating system and had also prepared a webpage in an earlier class at the same IEP. The class met once a week for two hours over a five-week period.
Procedure
In the first session, I directed the students to examine and analyse a number of commercial Internet sites: look at webpages from a commercial viewpoint, identify what services or products were on offer, and discover how people accessing the pages could also contact the providers of the service or obtain the advertised product. I spent some time revising the students' understanding of basic webpage design techniques. Most of the class had created a webpage earlier, but due to the constant intake of students at the IEP, a basic overview of the software (HotDog Express) had to be made for newcomers.
Towards the end of the first session, I gave the class members their primary assignment: By Week 5 they had to advertise a local business with a website comprising three linked webpages and featuring some of the characteristics found in the pages they examined earlier. In groups of four, students brainstormed and compiled a list of relevant interview questions for business proprietors in the community close to the IEP centre. These questions needed to gather enough information to provide some background of the business and its services and/or products. The responses would, in turn, be classified and finally included on their website. For the following week, I asked the students to find a compliant business in the local area and collect basic information about this commercial enterprise.
By Week 2, most students had identified a business and obtained some data. They had also arranged a time to meet proprietors to interview them about their respective businesses. During this second class, we narrowed, refined and built on the questions generated in Week 1. I made it clear that the questions they posed had to be relevant to the business and not intrusive. This session also offered some further time to revise basic webpage design skills.
Between the second and third classes, students were expected to meet with the businesses and gather information. Most students borrowed a disposable camera to take photos of the business, products, and proprietor. I later printed these photos then scanned and saved them to disk.
With the majority of students having collected information from the businesses, Weeks 3 and 4 allowed for the compiling of websites. In terms of design, some students imitated pages we had examined in Week 1 as templates for their projects. Others simply arranged the information into short, detailed paragraphs, and with these individuals I provided design tips to move them away from the mundane appearance of some of their creations.
In our final session, Week 5, the students were given an hour to tweak their pages before they were critiqued by other class members. In the critiquing process, the students had to assess the pages based on a set of criteria that I had established. As was expected, the students were relatively fair with their assessment of their work, but some individuals offered some insightful critiques for the others. In feedback I received, the students were satisfied with their exercises in basic e-commerce websites, and even though the sites were not uploaded to a host, the project itself was a success.
Discussion
The exercise worked well in that the students were engaged in a wide range of language acts -- students had to read (webpages, business brochures), speak and listen (to each other, to business proprietors), and write (their own webpages). They worked collaboratively in English towards products of which they were genuinely proud.
Conducting this project in Japan would reduce the demand on the students to speak English, especially in communication with business proprietors. Therefore, for the benefit of language practice, a greater emphasis would need to be placed on the students' interaction in English in class, on the preliminary tasks and discussions (e.g. webpage examination) and the presentation of the final page in English. To a lesser extent, students could seek out foreign businesses based in Japan and request their assistance in this assignment.
I would also make a few other practical suggestions concerning the course. Firstly, students would be better served working in pairs rather than groups of four. This would allow far more intensive and economical computer usage in class. Secondly, assessing the students' technical proficiency is crucial. The individuals involved in my project were already confident computer users, but less technically adept students should be given a longer course (perhaps ten weeks of classes, two hours a week) to be introduced to the Internet, to be shown commercial webpages and critique them, to have enough time to locate willing businesses for website profiles, and to develop familiarity with a basic webpage designer. Finally, I would recommend utilizing freeware webpage designers such as CoffeeCup Free HTML or Arachnophilia (available at <www.tucows.com>) rather than investing in a commercial package.
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