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Wandering the Web: Dave's ESL Cafe (TESOL Matters 8.1)
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TESOL Matters Vol. 8 No. 1 (February/March 1998)
by Christine Meloni
Dave's ESL Cafe (http://www.eslcafe.com/) is one of the most popular ESL sites (possibly the most popular ESL site) on the World Wide Web. Its creator, Dave Sperling, is an outstanding example of an ESL professional who is using the Web in imaginative ways to enhance English language instruction for teachers and students.
Dave began his teaching career in Tokyo, Japan, where he taught for 5 years before going on to Chiangmai, Thailand, for 4 more years of teaching. Since 1993, he has been teaching in the intensive English program at California State University, where he began publishing his students' writings and posting their photos on the Web. He was amazed at how motivated and excited they became. "They became a completely different class," he writes. "I then realized the powerful potential of using the 'Net in class."
But Dave felt that there was not enough interactivity on the Web for his students, so he began to create his own interactive Web pages in December 1995. The ESL Graffiti Wall, where students can add their writing to a virtual graffiti wall, was the first. The ESL Question Page, where he personally posts his answers to all questions submitted, soon followed. As he created more pages, he realized that he needed a central place to house them all, and the idea of Dave's ESL Cafe was born.
This wonderful name came to him when he was sitting in Starbuck's one day. He was reading his newspaper and drinking a cup of espresso when a friend stopped by to chat. After his friend left, he went back to his reading and drinking. He felt that "a cafe was the perfect metaphor for the type of enjoyable, dynamic, and interactive environment I wanted to create for ESL/EFL students and teachers throughout the world."
His cafe has expanded considerably over the past 2 years, and it is still growing. It is currently divided into three sections: on-line learning/teaching, global communication, and resources and information.
The on-line learning/teaching section includes the Help Center, where students can consult an international team of ESL/EFL teachers; the Quiz Center, offering many on-line quizzes that are immediately checked; the Quote Page, which contains quotations, proverbs, and humor; and the Idiom Page, the Phrasal Verb Page, and the Slang Page, which offer definitions and sample sentences for idioms, phrasal verbs, and slang expressions, respectively.
The global communication section includes the E-Mail Connection Pages, where students and teachers can meet; the Message Exchange, for both students and teachers; the Discussion Center, which contains a series of forums on such topics as current events, food, and movies; the ESL Address Book, which includes the addresses of students, teachers, schools, and publishers; and Chat Central, where students and teachers can engage in "live," Web-based chats.
The resources and information section consists of the Idea Page, where, as Dave says, "global brainstorming at its best takes place;" the Search Page, where one can search the Cafe and use most major search engines; and the Job Center, which includes the Job Links Page, the Job Discussion Forum, the Job Wanted Forum, the Job Offered Forum, and ESL Job Chat.
Dave maintains the Cafe by himself, and one would think that the multipage site would already be more than enough for one person. But Dave is planning to expand his site to include six new features: the ESL Web Guide, "my very own Yahoo-style ESL search engine"; the ESL Tip-of-the-Day Page, where students can learn something new every day; the ESL Game Center, to consist of interactive games, including grammar games and word puzzles; ESL Sound Central, which will contain sound files for all of the English consonants, vowels, and allophones; Grammar FAQ, the answers to the 100 most frequently asked questions about English grammar; and ESL Chat Central 2, a password-protected chat room exclusively for ESL/EFL classes.
Dave has also found the time to write a book: The Internet Guide for English Language Teachers (Prentice Hall Regents, 1997). This book is chock-full of valuable information for both new and experienced Internet users on finding resources, communicating on the 'Net, creating Web pages, locating the best Web sites, and finding a job. The book is selling like hotcakes, and the second edition, with hundreds of new Web sites added, will be available at TESOL '98.
As hard as it is to believe, Dave does have a life apart from the Web. He is married and has two children, Benjamin (6 years old) and Shannon (1). His primary interests outside of teaching and the Cafe are fun with his family, long walks on the beach, photography, reading, meditation, cooking, music, and the cinema. (Dave must have discovered how to squeeze more than 24 hours into his days.)
To catch a glimpse of Dave, visit his family photo gallery at http://www.eslcafe.com/gallery/. If you attend the TESOL convention in Seattle, you might even have the opportunity to see him in person. Check the program and try to track him down. He's very personable, as you would guess from the warm atmosphere he has succeeded in creating in his Cafe.
At press time Dave's ESL Cafe was still located at http://www.eslcafe.com/, and it is hoped that it will be there for a long time to come.
You can go to all of the pages from the Cafe's main page, or you can go directly to the individual pages using the URLs listed below.
The Graffiti Wall: http://www.pacificnet.net/~sperling/wall.html
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