Collie and Slater (1987)in their book Literature in the Language Classroom, state very many good reasons for integrating literature in the ESL curriculum. For example, in literary works, vocabulary and syntax are presented in a way that can be much more memorable-a contextualized body of text. The notion of creativity is also emphasized:

Traditional language textbooks often present the same sorts of discourse, such as instructing or informing. Literature can encourage the creativity needed by learners to achieve such essential elements of language as humour, metaphor, irony, and narration. As Widdowson (1984) aptly put, "The use of language and the acquisition of language are essentially creative processes" (pp.169-70).

There are certainly some aspects of literature teaching that are still best served with a book, pen, and paper. There are no pedagogical benefits, for example, to reading a literary work on a screen rather than on a printed page. However, there are some possibilities that only the Internet can offer to enhance the learning process. I have distilled these advantages into three main categories:

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The computer provides an opportunity for students to help one another (Vockell and LaReau 73) .The Internet, more specifically, represents world-wide opportunities for information-sharing and discussion in the target language. This is especially important for students who live in areas of the world that do not have access to a native-speaking teacher or a class with collaborative partners. On the ESL literature web sites I visited, I reported that "collaborative possibilities" were utilised if I found the opportunity for email with other students or with a teacher, chat rooms, student discussion groups, or bulletin boards.

Evidence has shown (see Davis 1997 ) that the computer is capable of providing much more extensive glossing than would be possible in print format, and that this glossing is less interruptive of the reading process than the use of print references such as dictionaries, etc. "Hyper-text references," such as on-line dictionaries, have the advantage of being invisible until a reader needs them. Therefore, they are only used if they are needed, and are instantly accessed.

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To begin my ESL literature search, I started with the reading links page of the The Internet TESL Journal [http://www.aitech.ac.jp/%7Eiteslj/links/]. There were 69 pages listed, and I checked all the sites that could possibly have included literature. From there, I checked all the other reading links that were included on these sites. I also checked all the links provided by these secondary sites. So my research was in three stages with three concentric circles of links. After exhausting all these sites I felt I had done a very comprehensive search because after the third round all the linked sites I found were repetitions of previous ones. In total, I looked at about 100 different ESL Internet sites, and found 12 sites that made use of literature to teach ESL students. Literature, for the purposes of this exercise, includes any fiction story, novel, or excerpt by any author! written at any time.

The answers to all these questions, as well as links to all the sites, are presented in the raw notes of the appendix, but here I will concentrate on responding to three main questions, which echo the three categories of benefits in Internet literature teaching as discussed earlier:

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1. Only half of the web sites, a total of 6 out of 12, made use of the numerous co-operative possibilities of the Internet in its literature teaching (see the Appendix for further details). Sites 3 and 6 had the option to email the creator of the web site, and four others (2, 7, and 9) have student discussion groups. On site 8, the learner can send responses to an English teacher for free comments. This site also has a student message board. Site 11 has an email option called "ask a teacher," on its main ESL site but not connected in any way to the reading section. This was a! missed opportunity.

2. In terms of instant access to references and support materials, only 3 of the 12 sites made use of interactive glossing. Site 4 had a back-end dictionary so the learner could look up any word he or she didn't know. This was a good use of information "borrowing" which is so well suited to the Internet. Sites 2 and 5 had pop-up dictionaries for selected words in the texts. One other site had a glossary listed at the end of the text, but this was not linked to the words in the text as they could so easily have been. This therefore was no different than what could have been presented on the written page. Site 8, which had a lesson on the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, had links to learning guides, an author biography, and other resources, but h! ad one drawback--They were not connected to the text in any way because the text itself was not on the web site! The novel had to be bought separately by the student. This difficulty could have been avoided if a novel was used that was no longer restricted by copyright laws. The rest of the texts included NO hyper references or interactive support materials.

Of the 12 sites, 7 of them had some sort of exercises accompanying the reading (For a complete list of the types of exercises offered, see the appendix ). Of these 7, only 2 ( sites 4 and 8 ) had feedback that was based on the student's individual answer. Site 4's Hot Potato exercises had comments to help the students, such as "No, we need the past tense here." Site 8 actually had the option to send responses to an English teacher via email, which was a great idea. Other sites only had pop-up boxes that flashed "right!" and "wrong!" ( site 12 ) or "yes" and "no" ( sites 10 and 11 ). Site 5 only stated the number of correct answers at the end of the exercise, without! identifying which ones they were!

Site 1 had a list of texts to choose from, based on the level of the learner. Three web sites, sites 2, 3 and 6, offered the simplified versions of literary works, and the rest were original versions. NONE of the sites offered the choice of one version or another. It would have been very easy to do: For example, site 6 (see appendix ), which offered a simplified version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, could have been linked to an original version of the play. Conversely, site 11 contains the complete works of William Shakespeare, but has no simplified versions available.

Site 10 offers many different types of exercises, with both open-ended and closed-ended questions, and the students have the freedom to choose which exercises to do, but this is a rare option. There is one excellent site, however, that lets students adjust the delivery of the story to their own learning style. Site 2 has simplified Aesop's fables which can be read as text, and offer a Realplayer animated movie as an option while reading.

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The benefits of computer-based literature learning, and Internet literature learning more specifically, are not being used to full advantage on the ESL sites currently available. An illustration is the lack of communication options among Internet users. Although in the classroom study of literature more and more emphasis is being placed on co-operative activities, one would think that this kind of group collaboration, being so easy on the Internet, would be more highly utilised there. Half of the sites found did not use the opportunity they had to provide access for learners to enhance the reading experience through world-wide co-operation with others.

On a brighter note, the literature ESL site offered by, site 2, ESL House , is a good example of a lesson that can only be possible with the Internet: It offers a video/audio delivery option for its stories, a hyper dictionary, and the opportunity for students to share their impressions with students and teachers in a discussion forum. This demonstrates that it is possible to combine the benefits of literature teaching with the unique capacities of the medium of Internet. This is the future direction of literature Internet sites as language teachers become more able to recognise these capacities, and use them to their full extent.

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