Two websites for chatting, one of them must fit you!

Boring? Lonely? Find someone to chat with while practicing English. There are two choices for you:
     • If you are too shy to chat with a stranger, go to MyBot
     • If you have no confidence in your English, go to MyBot
     • If you are ready to communicate in English in real world, go to Omegle
     • If you want to meet a foreign friend, go to Omegle

Artificial chat: MyBot

What is MyBot?

        MyBot is your personal virtual companion, capable of learning from you. It’s very intelligent and can chat with you as if it is a real person. Just type with it conversation. It will give you reasonable and intelligent responses, from with you can learn a lot through a normal English conversation.

To start now, click:
http://mybot.a-i.com/mybot.aspx?id=T%2FC8BBXAxr%2Flw4YyQ7plTg%3D%3D








 How is it used?

•  for chatting to kill time
• for language praciticing through coversation (the software can be set in many languages) 
• To learn some facts about the world, and even about MyBot itself.

How should English teacher use them?

• let students try to use their knowlege to make conversation and overcome the fear of speaking English with others
• help advanced students majoring in Linguistics to study on Adjacency Pairs 
• help students to make dialogue practice on a certain given topic

Limitations:

• Artificial intelligence is not flexible as real person
• No setting choices on the language level. So the language could sometimes too difficult for beginners.
• sometimes the conversation could be trapped due to the setting of the programme. eg. Bybot keeps asking your Email if you don’t input some words which doesn’t look like a Email address. 

Reallife chatting: Omegle

What is it?

       If you want to chat with another from the world, Omegle is a great way of meeting new friends. Click here, and you will be arranged with another user at random for youo to have a one-on-one chat with each other.  

 http://www.omegle.com/

In daily life:

• use it to meet new friend. You can know very different countries and their culture
•  use it to have some fun. If you want to talk to someone which can make you feel better, don't hesitate.

In English language teaching:

• Know english-speaking friends and practice speaking English
• Good for linguist majors to study on how a conversation is carried on since “It might take a few attempts to get a conversation going.”(Peachey), and sometimes two persons just cannot find the right way to communicate and keep the conversation moving forward.
• Making advertisement for your blog to spead knowledge about ICT in English language teaching!!! Just like what I did! I talked with a indian and asked him to have a look at my blog. It worked! He liked it!! 

Limitations:

• a dangerous access of revealing personal information
• possibility of meeting all kinds of person (eg. the not well-educated, the filthy ones...) and might get hurt psychologically
• superfacial conversational topic and personal relationship

Nik Peachey's few tips for on line chatting:

• Never tell someone online your address and telephone number
• You may be asked at the beginning "asl?" which means age, sex (Are you male or female?), and location.
• "If at any time you feel uncomfortable with the person you are chatting with or if they ask questions you don't like, simply click on 'Disconnect' and you can start a new conversation with someone else".

Resources:
http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/2009/04/chat-to-strangers.html   in
Nik's Daily English Activities