Web Vocabulary & Questions

The internet will only continue to be used more and more in the future. If you plan on having a career in tourism, or any career at all, it is not only important to be able to speak some English, but to familiarize yourself with the language used when discussing websites and web marketing. This lesson aims to help you discuss websites better. All vocabulary you are expected to know is in green.

BASICS

Web Browser – (navigateur) There are four common browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, & Apple Safari.

The Web Browser is a software with a window composed of a Title Bar, Address Bar (Lien), Search Bar (Recherer), Favorites (Favoris), Tool Bars (bar des utils), a Scroll Bar (défilement de dialogue) and RSS Feeds (flux). Can you locate these in your browser? There is also, the Back (retour) and Forward (suivant) buttons, Refresh/ Reload (actualiser), Stop (arrêter), and Home (acceuil) buttons. Click that arrow and a menu will drop down, this is a drop-down menu, which there are many kinds. Hit the stop button to stop the process of loading a web page.

The link provided here is an in-depth look at the parts and pieces of a browser. It is a good reference for more English regarding surfing the web.

WEB LANGUAGES

Before building a website, you have to have content that you want to publish to the internet. What you read, look at, or watch on the site is known as the main content. It is the subject matter of the website. You can have some websites that are concerned with a variety of content, and it is usually separated and organized within the navigation or menus.

There is usually a Main Header – or usually the top of the site, that has the name of the website inside it. For example, Google has one of the most famous headers which doubles as its logo (even if it is freauently changing on certain days). Also, even though it appears as though it is floating, it is still a header. After that you will sometimes have a search bar, like with Google or Youtube, but with other sites you will have a Main Navigation, Menu or Links, and sometimes Secondary Navigation, Menu or Links. At the bottom of most pages you will also find a footer, which acts as an index and another set of navigational links for the site.

When in the process of designing a cite, there are four main things that are considered. General Layout, Colors, Text Hierarchy (how big is each title, or the text you read, or the text of links and buttons), and Imagery – background images, moving or static, photographs or drawings.

Websites are like houses. You can build them out of different Web Languages, for example: HTML, XHTML, CSS, Java, Flash, XML, jQuery, PHP, Sql, and some others. Each language works differently to achieve different things. All websites use the basic HTML language. Once you have the basic building materials, you can construct many different parts of the website, and not every website has exactly the same things.

MORE...

After the basic and standard website, there are many things you can add to a website for advertising purposes. A basic type of advertising is banner ads, which can appear horizontally or vertically anywhere in the site. Another type is known as rich media. It is advertising such as videos or moving parts which react to the user’s cursor or mouse movements.

Multimedia campaigns or cross-media campaigns are when advertising firms decide to use more than one area of the web for the campaign, or choose to incoporate printed ads, like in magazines. This includes launching a website, with a Youtube video, and a corresponding Facebook page, and even Twitter pages. Frequently, firms will release one of the pieces of the campaign in advance of the others in order to build hype, or excitement leading up to the launch of the full (finished, complete) campaign.

QUESTIONS

What do you use the internet for mostly aside from e-mail, social networking, and media (such as music, movies, and television)?

How many hours a day do you honestly use the internet, including listening to music, watching streaming or downloaded videos, and using the internet from your phone?

How many hours per day/week do you spend on the internet?

Could any of you live without the internet and would you want to?

Do you think we spend too much time on the internet? Why?

What is the best/worst thing about the internet,? Be specific, ex. favorite site or pop-ups;

Is the internet dangerous? Why?

Do you ever meet people from the internet? Is this dangerous?

What sites do you use to plan trips or vacations?

What parts of your vacation do you use the internet to plan? Do you plan just the flights, or accomodations as well?

How do you plan your trips meals? Do you search for stores online, on your phone, or do you wander around?

Do you plan restaurants online? Do you often look for the menu to a place online?

LINKS -
There are many free sites for creating blogs, which could be useful for your presentations, including:
blogspot.com
wordpress.org
tumbler

Sites regarding tourism:
For transportation and/or places to stay-
hostelbookers.com
booking.com
lastminute.com
covoiturage.fr
couchsurfing.org

For organizing things to do on your trip:
lonelyplanet.com - general site for travel planning
atlasobsura.org - Strange and urious travel desitinations
nft.com - Not For Tourists, a website providing reviews to many frequently visitied cities.
yelp.com - an American site that allows users to review restaurants, bars, and more and give ratings, similar to la fute & routard