The
Internet TESL Journal
Dave's ESL Cafe on the Web
A Site Review
Dennis Oliver
mailto:idcdo@asuvm.inre.asu.edu?subject=Dave's
Cafe Review 1996
American Language and Culture Program
Arizona State
University
Tempe, AZ, U.S.A.
In an effort to determine why Dave's ESL Cafe on the Web has become one
of the WWW's most frequently-accessed ESL/EFL sites, this review will take a
brief look at the Cafe, then make a few general conclusions on why it has
become so popular.
Overview
In early December, 1995, after two years of netsurfing and
experimenting with html coding and cgi scripting, Dave Sperling, an instructor
in the intensive ESL program at California State University,
Northridge,California, become frustrated. Feeling that many ESL/EFL web sites ".
. . lacked interactivity and seemed to actually separate students and teachers"
(ESL Question Page, May 1995), he decided to create " . . .a cozy place
for people to hang out, talk, learn, and share information" (ESL Question
Page, June 1995).
According to statistical information from Pacificnet.net, the ESL Cafe's
server, the site had well over 50,000 "hits" from November 1 through November
26, 1996--a very respectable showing for any web presence. To try to determine
why the Cafe has become such a frequently-accessed site, this review will first
take a brief look at each Cafe component (listed in order of popularity,
according to the Pacificnet stats), then draw a few conclusions.
ESL Cafe Components
The site opens with
"Dave Sperling Presents.... " followed shortly by "Dave's ESL Cafe on the Web"
(in colorful, informal display fonts on pastel-colored backgrounds--both
randomly selected). Appearing next are the descriptors "Where Learning English
is Fun!" and "For ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World," plus a
randomly-selected cartoon-type graphic divider and a graphic of a neon sign
which says "Open 24 Hours." Also included are a randomly-selected quote (changed
daily), the date, and a direct-link menu for 14 of the site's elements.
Following the main page's link menu is a frequently-updated Announcements
section; it generally includes chatty personal notes from Dave Sperling, updates
on any server problems, and news of soon-to-be-added Cafe items. Also currently
included on the main page are links to the ESL Discussion Center (treated
later) and the ESL Cafe Mailing List, plus a descriptive menu. The ESL
Cafe Mailing List (which has not been very active lately) promises ESL Cafe news
to those who type in their name and e-mail address. The descriptive menu repeats
the items from the direct-link menu, but shows each item in a different display
font and adds a sentence or two to show what will be found at each sub-site.
The overall "look" and "feel" of the Cafe's main page are cozy and
user-friendly rather than slick or glitzy. Sperling has also limited the Cafe's
functions to those which are readily available on the most widely-used browsers;
he has not included Java Applets, Quicktime movies, sound files, Shockwave
files, or other state-of-the-art add-ons.
The ESL Graffiti Wall was the first Cafe element to be
placed online and has remained one of its most popular components; many new
postings--greetings, observations, requests for e-mail, even poems--are added
daily (which can make it difficult to find an individual message). Contributions
to The Graffiti Wall are monitored, but not edited; inappropriate postings are
not allowed, but typos and "creative grammar" are left as is. The Graffiti Wall
provides visitors with a non-threatening way to "publish" on the Web, even if
they don't have an e-mail account or personal webpage. Postings at this site are
the first attempt, for many, at placing any type of information online.
This section--the second Cafe element to go online--welcomes
visitors with the section title, an enigmatic graphic of a portion of a child's
face, and the descriptor "Where your questions will be answered"; the child
turns out to be Dave Sperling's son, Benjamin, whose neverending questions were
the inspiration for the page. Single queries (which generally change daily) from
ESL students, teachers, and others are featured and are answered personally by
Sperling. His responses are generally brief, but include direct links to WWW
sites where more information may be found. Visitors can read the day's question
and answer, ask their own question, or access archived questions and answers
from January through October, 1996.
This section of the Cafe (added in February, 1996) features what
is probably the Web's most extensive collection of links to employment-related
ESL sites. Included are six subsections. These sections appear first in a
direct-links menu; descriptive menus are also provided. Visitors may add links
to any of the subsections.
The ESL Job
Links subsection provides connections to employment information in 23
categories (given with the number of links in parentheses): Africa (4),
Asia--General (7), Canada (1), The Czech Republic (1), China (3), ESL Training
(5), Europe (9--including Central Europe, Poland, Eastern Europe, Finland,
Hungary, Italy, Spain, Turkey), FAQ (1), General ESL (21), Hong Kon g (1),
Indonesia (1), Information (5), Japan (14), K-12 Overseas (3), Korea (11), Latin
America (2), the Middle East (3), Miscellaneous (12), Resumes (2), Singapore
(1), Taiwan (5), Thailand (4), and Volunteer (6). In doing a spot-check on these
sites, I found that there are not many dead links: most links are current and
active, though the servers for some have moved. I also found that the "General
ESL" sites included such frequently-accessed employment resources as the
Agora Language Marketplace Employment Page, The Chronicle of Higher
Education, and Ohio University's Employment Resources for Language
Teachers.
The ESL Teacher
Profile Page offers those looking for ESL/EFL jobs the opportunity to post
online background summaries. A few of the postings include URLs for home pages
and/or resumes (which may also be posted in the section of the same name).
The ESL FAQ Page
features Meg Gam's comprehensive TESL/FL Resource Guide (from
Kristina Pfaff-Harris' Linguistic Funland T.E.S.L.
Page).
ESL
Jobs: Discussion offers visitors the chance to ask questions about
employment in specific locations and/or to post responses to same. ESL Jobs:
Offered is used by schools to list anticipated job openings. ESL Jobs:
Wanted is used by job seekers to post questions about ESL employment in
general or about positions in specific locations and/or institutions.
This section was not added until May, 1996, but is, nonetheless,
one of the Cafe's most frequently-accessed components (over 29,000 "hits" from
11/01 through 11/26, 1996). It contains 160 entries; because each idiom is
randomly selected, it can take a very long time to view the entire collection.
Each entry features a single idiom with a brief definition and an example of
usage; new items are accessed by clicking a button.
This section (added in March, 1996) contains a large number of
randomly-selected items. Included are proverbs from around the world,
witticisms, and notable "one-liners" by public figures ranging from Mae West and
Lili Tomlin to George Bernard Shaw and Benjamin Disraeli. The Quote Page is
surprisingly popular: from November 1st through November 26th, 1996, it received
over 11,000 "hits," according to Pacificnet stats.
The ESL Help Center (added in February, 1996)
gives visitors an opportunity to ask ESL-related questions--for which an
international team of teachers volunteer time to post responses. Help Center
questions (which are generally answered on the same day they're submitted) often
have a grammar or vocabulary focus, but may be on any topic. (One recent posting
asked, for example, about the relationship of second-language acquisition to
chaos theory.)
Although, on the average, 8 to 10 questions are submitted to the Help Center
daily, the number of "hits" for this section is far greater than the number of
questions and responses. This strongly suggests that visitors to the Cafe read
this section more often than they participate in it.
This component (added 2/96) features nearly 50 multiple-choice
quizzes in a variety of content areas: Current News, Geography, Grammar,
History, Idioms, Slang, Words, People, Reading Comprehension, Science,
Vocabulary, World Culture, and Writing. As students go through each quiz, they
indicate their answer choice by clicking on a button. After answering all
questions, students submit their work for checking and get online feedback on
correct and incorrect choices, plus a percentage score for questions answered
correctly. A link to the Internet
TESL Journal's extensive self-study quiz
collection is also included.
This component (which, like the ESL Help Center, receives many
more "hits" than postings) features subsections for both students
(topics: "Current Events," "Food," "Holidays," "Learning English," "Movies,"
"Music") and teachers (topics: "Activities and Games," "Computer-Assisted
Language Learning," "English for Specific Purposes," "K-12," "Learning/Teaching
Material," "Teaching Tips"). Anyone may start a thread on a Discussion Center
topic or add comments to those already posted. Although numerous postings have
been received at both the student and teacher areas, the student area currently
displays more back-and-forth dialogue.
Dave's ESL Idea Page includes a quote from Sperling: "My ESL
Idea Page is a special place here on the Internet where all of us from around
the world can share ideas about learning and teaching English as a
Second/Foreign Language." At this part of the Cafe, ESL/EFL practicioners share
"recipes" for favorite classroom activities. Although one of the most popular
topics is learning-oriented games, ideas for warm-ups and ice-breakers,
recommended texts, use of e-mail, use of video and movies, and activities
focusing on writing, grammar, pronunciation, and listening-speaking are also
included.
The Cafe's Student Links page has 17 categories:
Grammar, E-mail, Listening, Pronunciation, Home Pages, News, Vocabulary,
Magazines, Games, Dictionaries, Poetry, Schools, Music, Links, Fun, Products,
and Searches. Most categories have around 10 links, though some--e.g.,
Pronunciation (2 links)--have notably fewer and others--e.g., Homepages (53) and
Schools (73)--have many more. The number of links currently listed is 310;
visitors may submit others.
This page currently contains 330 teacher-oriented links in 19
categories: Journals, Magazines, Articles, Associations, Linguistics, Home
Pages, Phonetics, Schools, CALL, Jobs, Publishers, Projects, Links, Resources,
Bookstores, Search, Lists, Newsgroups, Products. The largest collections are
Home Pages (58 links), Schools (63), Jobs (28), Publishers (17), and Resources
(45). Additional links may be submitted.
The ESL Message Exchange is a kind of "online
leave-a-note service." The messages posted here usually ask for some kind of
help--in finding a person or text, in handling a particular kind of classroom
challenge, and so on. Some postings are responded to, others aren't.
This Cafe component provides a way for
ESL/EFL teachers (and potential teachers) to network electronically. Those who
post leave their e-address and, usually, a brief message about themselves and
what they do. Between October 29th and November 24th, 1996, there were
approximately 200 postings.
Here, ESL/EFL students have a chance for
electronic networking. Between November 10th and November 24th,1996, there were
approximately 250 postings.
This component (which does not really have an ESL focus, but
is still very useful) enables visitors to look for specific information at
Dave's ESL Cafe and/or on the Net-at-large. Input forms for the Shareware.com,
SavvySearch, MetaCrawler, Yahoo, Open Text, Lycos, WebCrawler, Alta Vista,
Galaxy, and Deja News (Usenet) search engines are provided.
Conclusions
With an average of about 2,000 "hits" per day, Dave's Cafe
is obviously doing something right. Following are my thoughts on what that might
be.
In my view, the most important factors contributing to the continuing success
of Dave's ESL Cafe on the Web are its user-friendliness, its steady updating and
addition of new components, its inclusion of high-interest areas for both
students and teachers, and its emphasis on participatory elements.
The Cafe's user-friendly atmosphere is both created and enhanced, in my
opinion, by its consistent use of simple, brightly-colored graphics, casual
display fonts, and pastel-colored page backgrounds. These elements are not
unified throughout the Cafe, but they still manage to produce a cozy,
non-threatening "home-made" look and atmosphere. This is, I'm sure, intended to
foster the feeling that both newcomers to the Net and those who are more
experienced are welcome. The fact that the Cafe has not encumbered its pages
with the latest technical bells and whistles (Java Applets, Shockwave files,
etc.) is also, I'm sure, intentional. Keeping the Cafe's functions within the
scope of the most widely-available browser capabilities makes the site available
to the widest audience--not just to those who have the most powerful computers
or the most state-of-the-art add-ons.
Another reason for the success of Dave's ESL Cafe is its steady updating and
addition of new elements; this is particularly important, it seems to me, since
most ESOL sites regularly update their links, but don't add different kinds of
components. It's amazing that the Cafe's initial offering, the ESL Graffiti
Wall, has been supplemented with 17 additional sections in less than a year--and
that these additions constitute a potpourri rather than variations on a common
theme.
Sperling has also demonstrated a keen awareness of high-interest areas for
both teachers and students and has addressed these "hot topics" in Cafe
components. Particularly noteworthy, in this respect, are the ESL Job Center,
the ESL Help Center, the ESL Graffiti Wall, and the ESL Question Page. These
areas provide welcome services to netsurfers because they address a variety of
real-life needs: finding a job and/or getting more information about one that's
being considered, getting an out-of-class answer for a bothersome question,
being able to make one's presence known on the Web even when one doesn't have
e-mail or a home page, and receiving personal guidance on how to go about
finding net resources.
The Cafe's emphasis on participatory elements is, I feel, one of the major
reasons for its uniqueness and success. Most other ESOL sites, no matter how
well done, are primarily (if not entirely) "read-only" repositories of
information: one is limited to accessing the resources put online by a site's
creator. Dave's Cafe is also information-rich, but it provides visitors with
something extra: the chance to become part of the Cafe themselves through asking
their own questions, responding to messages posted by others, joining in a
discussion thread, posting an online resume or background summary, and so on.
Other ESOL sites have some of these elements, but the activities of most are
limited to clicking and reading.
I also believe that the ESL Cafe on the Web is successful because Dave
Sperling has a heavy personal commitment to the site: amazingly, he does all the
site management himself--in his spare time and without financial support from
any outside sponsor. While some aspects of the Cafe's operation would probably
be smoother (and while Sperling's life would no doubt be much easier) if he had
some help, it's also likely that such an arrangement would, given the nature of
group dynamics, result in a very different focus and, possibly, a slowdown of
operations.
I wish Dave Sperling all success and hope Dave's ESL Cafe on the Web will continue to
provide its unique combination of services to the global ESL/EFL community for a
long, long time to come.
The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. II, No. 12, December
1996
http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/