The "I" in Internet

The objective

To discuss and survey trends in Internet use today

The language

Question forms: How many sites do you visit?

Present simple (to be): Many people visit social-networking sites./E-mail is the most popular tool.

Reporting language: We have found.../We believe that.../The result was...

Comparatives and Superlatives: Gmail is better than Hotmail/The best website is...

The set-up

None needed.

The low-down

Ask students to create a survey in pairs about use of the internet. They should write at least 5 questions. Possible questions:

• websites they visit
• frequency of use
• hours spent on internet
• most interesting website used
• most useful website used
• do they control children´s use?
• do they download illegal films, music or TV shows?
• do they use it for English?

Format of questions can be open question form or multiple choice (put example on board of each). When they´re done, put pairs together and give them 5 minutes to exchange questions and answers before changing pairs. Make sure they understand that answers should be written down and that they´ll be using the information to form general conclusions. When all pairs have had a chance to interview each other, ask students to analyze the results and write a general summary statement based on each question (5 statements). For example, "We found that people generally visit the same sites each day--generally less than five". Or "The most popular websites are e-mail, news and social-networking sites".

Now what?

Ask students to report their results and the rest of the class to comment on something surprising or not surprising about each pair´s results. Ask the class to make one more general statement based on the entire class´s results. Again ask each pair to share and invite students to agree or disagree with back-up reasons.

Time to teach

This is good practice of question forms but also of how to summarize. Look out for how well students do this and if their production could be improved in any way.

More talk-time

Can you recommend any good news/social-networking/celebrity gossip/ESL webpages?

What do you think the future of the internet is?

Do you think the internet will make television, newspapers or CD´s obsolete?

Do you think governments should regulate the internet more, or less?

Do you think the internet is generally a waste of time?

Do you think people interact with each other more, or less than they did before?