THE INTERNET: BREAKING THE RULE OF TEACHING GRAMMAR Antonius Suratnol Abstract III this paper the writer reports the use of the Ifllernet as part of strategy in teaching grammar of English. In such a case, students managed to both experience the wealth of computer technology through the Internet abundant facilities for learnillg language and the success in grasping bener ideas of the language rules. Through this activity, students functioned as "active explorer" of the rule of the language and as such were motivated to invest time and energy into their unusually interesting alld challellging . structure class. Studellts were put into groups with which they wellt exploring the Internet to find out the predetermined topic of exercises and practiced it together in groups, printed it out and then accoullled for it in front of the class. They had to be able to defend their answer infront of the class and to be ready 10 explain their answer. Based on Ihe observation made during the running of the class, the writer found that this teaching method allows students to more experience structure of English. Then, from their comments they admitted that they learned structure better as they feel they were challenged to experience more than the ordinary book-based class. Key words: Internet-based exerrises, rule active explorer. accounting for, real structure experience. INTRODUCTION Teachers and students are now living in such a different learning environment that we are hardly possible to compare with the mid twentieth Drs. Antonius Suratno, MA is a full-time lecturer of lbe Faculty of leiters. Soegijapranata Calbolic University. Semarang. 22 Celt. Volumc7.Number I.July2007: 15-23 '! Overview ofstudents' performance. CONCLUSION Despite some limitations in integrating the Internet into the teaching of structure, such as the students' computer surfing skills and the uniformity of the students' learning pace which is different from one student to others _ and from one group to the other, involving Internet resources in the structure teaching and learning- process, one way of breaking the traditional rules of teaching English grammar, is of a highly motivating and encouraging learning experience. This method truly drove the snldents to be actively 90ing the exercise and searching for relevant information. Through this way, the learning process can be turned from merely passive recipient of knowledge to an actively self-searching as well as building up responsibility to account for the grammatical point so that they experience a more memorable process of structure learning. Eventually, all that can be done to overcome the problem of surfing skills and comprehensiveness of the grammatical explanation is giving them more exposure to usage principles as well as frequent experience of surfing. BIBLIOGRAPHY Brandl, Klaus. "Integrating Internet-based Reading Materials Into the Foreign Language Curriculum: From Teacher- to Student-centered Approach". In Language Learning Technology, Vol. 6, No.3. September 2002: 87-107. Brown. Douglas. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New York: Edison Wesley Longman. Inc .• 2001. Brown. James Dean. "Computers in Language Testing: Present Research and Some Future Direction". In Language Learning and Technology. Vol. 1. No.1. July 1997. A. Sura/no, Internet: Breakting the Rule of Teaching Grammar 23 Kratjka, Jarek. "Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction". In The IllIcmet TESL Joumaf, Vol: 6, No. II, November 2000. Singhal, Meena. "The Internet and Foreign Language Education: Benefits and Challenges", 1999. In The /f,umet TESL JOllmaf Vol 6, No.3, September 2002. Sperling, Dave. Dave Sperling's Imemel GlIide, 2nd cd. New York: Prentice Hall Regents, 1998. Teeler, Dede and Gray, Peta. How to Use the Internet in ELT. Edinburg: Pearson Education Limited. 2000. Warschauer, M. and D. Healey. "Computers and language learning: An overview". In Language Teaching, Vol. 31. 1998: 57-71. logo: