The role of WeQuests in learning a foreign/second language?

 

 

 A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. The model was developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University in February, 1995 with early input from SDSU/Pacific Bell Fellow Tom March, the Educational Technology staff at San Diego Unified School District, and waves of participants each summer at the Teach the Teachers Consortium.

 Web Quests help students meet standards focused on critical-thinking and analysis skills, and may be particularly useful for social studies and science.Students using web quest in the classroom will be an interactive class. Students will work on groups, asking each other, helping each other, searching, finding information with each other. It will be a group class which is full of energy and eager to learn. Webquests foster cooperative learning through guided discovery, they do not generally provide a means for the individual practice of communication skills.It can be used to develop critical thinking skills among students to learn foreign language. Also, It can promote critical thinking because it requires each member of the group to carry out a specific, meaningful role, and then pool their respective research findings to formulate a response to a complex, open-ended problem. It can be multiple solutions to the problem in a Webquest.

A good Webquest focuses on an issue that has multiple viewpoints, such as social, political, environmental, or health-related. It also requires more than information gathering; students must process the information in order to form their opinions. It help students to develop higher cognitive thinking by requiring students to sift through extensive information from the Web until they can construct an understanding that not only connects to their schema, but also builds new knowledge .

Finally, as a teacher I will use webquest in my classroom to my students. Using this website will teach them a lot of thing. They will learn how to work on a group work, how to communicate with their friends even if they did not a close friend, how to deal with others. It will give them a chance to work on different web site and choose the topics they prefer. They also can express their opinion and information. It will give them a confidence to develop their own personality.

 

Evaluating Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab Website

Evaluating Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab  Website

          Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab http://www.esl-lab.com/ is an online, multimedia listening website that is designed to assist Second Language (L2) students around the world to practice and enhance their English listening and comprehension skills. This website has been created by Randall Davis who graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, with an undergraduate degree in Spanish education and a master's degree in TESL. However, Every Site Has a Reason for Being There and Randall Davis site there to enhance listening comprehension, as well as improving the teachers and students  communication skills with natural and interesting themes.

            On the other hand, the design of the website presents the information on easy way to find and use, it has been organized according to the different levels with supplementary links such as, vocabulary exercise. Also, there is a developed quizzes to test the audience knowledge  based on their levels .Moreover, The page on the websites  load in a reasonable amount of time and it is consistently available and load without problems, but the main problem with the site is its background colors as well as the smallest size of the font; it may cause problem to people who has vision problems.

           The content on the website easy to read and understand by the students and teacher also, it has enough information to make visiting the site worthwhile. Moreover, The title of a site has appropriate to its purpose. The voice in audio records very clear and each lesson have activates pre-listening, listening exercise, vocabulary and post- listening. Also, in each lesson clarify the learners’ level, topic, and type of audio record, speakers, and length. Also, readers can easily download the audio record and it found in website as written form also. There are a lot of links in a website as Randall’s other site. It clear and easy for learner to move from one website to another.

             The information on the site not as good as a book on the same topic. Because it has so many additional features,we can not found them in the book. Such as, worksheets with quizzes on everyday conversations for all levels, short listening exercises and long conversations ,students can submit their answers to correct them and they can see the correct answers. and students can see the script of the conversation and can listen to it as they read it.

              The site grade level is appropriate as an extra activity for the students, and  different students are able to choose listening texts according to their difficulty,  needs and interests. Although the site is not that much interactive and engaging for the student, because the website design does not attract students,it is very formal, but the content attracts students and topics for the real life situation.