ORTESOL Newsletter
Spring 2002

In case you haven't already heard of this fun and fast-growing website, one of Oregon's own, No New Wheels would like to introduce you to English, baby! Founded 2 year ago, this website is designed to help students seeking to practice their English by giving them exposure to authentic language - free of charge. Through the medium of American pop culture, ESL learners can listen to real examples of spoken English and can practice what they know by chatting with native and other speakers. Many of us know how difficult it can be to find pen pals for ourselves or our students and then keep the correspondence from fizzling out. The Pals' page at English, baby! is an interactive platform that allows learners to choose from a list of Americans and correspond via email with guaranteed response. The English, baby! message board allows learners to send in the questions they have about English and get qualified answers. Unlike other language websites, this site operates from the learners' perspective. The staff have all learned second languages and know what it is like to want to learn natural language and be able to do so only through the sometimes removed medium of school. And, understanding how unreliable books can sometimes be when it comes to learning colloquial expressions, English, baby! hunts for idioms as they are used by well-known celebrities. Thus when Brad Pitt says, "I got held up in traffic," learners know that this is an idiom they can count on to be viable.

In addition to the Pals' page and the message board, the most valuable feature of the site for me as an ESL teacher is the Lessons page. Every day, five days a week, English, baby! produces a new language lesson in current Americana. This last week's lessons included conversations on the new "Planet of the Apes" flick, a trip to Las Vegas, and shopping at The Gap. These lessons largely consist of authentic conversations that are taped, transcribed, and made available on the site with explanations of new vocabulary. The topics are always up-to-date and are chosen to appeal to English learners all over the world.

And just how many visitors are there to the site? Co-Founder John Hayden told me that there are 45,000 visits to the site every month. Its members live all over the world and included volunteers hosting chatrooms in 70 countries.

And how is the site financed? The website does not do any marketing, but relies on a number of services it offers to schools and other language programs. Thus, English, baby! will help with your website development or integrate its own content with your site under your school's logo. In similar fashion, it will also allow you to tap into its message board. These services are currently used by a wide range of institutions including private colleges, private language schools, community colleges, and state schools, and can help increase enrollment and function as a supplemental learning tool. Currently, there are no high schools signed on, although it seems that the topics and format would appeal to learners of that age.

Challenges the website faces include finding ways to scale down the lessons so that they can be used for beginners and also finding a means to make the site work better for teachers. In order to meet these challenges, English baby! has designated an advisory board of ESL professionals to develop a system that would gear the lessons to different proficiency levels. In addition, plans are underway to make the current archives of 500 to 600 lessons searchable through the assignment of key words. Currently, the archived lessons are not available to visitors and are removed from the site after seven days.

John Hayden and Miguel McKelvey and the staff at English, baby! are strong believers in collaboration and welcome your feedback and ideas. Their enthusiasm and commitment to serving ESL learners shines through strong in this easy-to-use and attractive website. Check it out at www.englishbaby.com.