"The role of WebQuests in learning a foreign/second language"

 

 

Webquest defined as "an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet. Webquests are designed to focus on using information and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Webquests have many advantages such as, integrating technology into the curriculum, interesting way of learning, and making students more autonomous. Webquest is a good way for focusing on the learners' thinking, and allowing them to explore the information in a meaningful manner.

The teacher's role is to design attractive Webquest which is suitable to the students and to their levels because most of the works depend on the students and how they are thinking. Students will work in groups to accomplish their works on the Webquest , and it is better to divide the works between each of them. It is a good time for the students to learn the important topics, and to show their creativity when they are working together. Webquests are part of project based learning and project based learning is generally done by groups of students working together, so students will keep themselves in group activities , and they accomplish their works in group. Webquests require from the students to use their creativity and critical thinking skills to solve a problem. Webquests increase and develop the critical thinking skill because they will keep thinking about the information in a good way and working on it.The classroom environment is going to be interesting to the students because this generation loves modern technology like Webquest. Webquests can be motivating and authentic tasks because students will feel that they are doing something real and useful.

As a futur English language teacher, I will use the Webquest with my students after I make sure that they are really understanding it. This is because Webquests contribute to increase students' motivation. When students are motivated, they are likely to work in more effort way, and their minds will become more alert. Also, this will help them to be collaborative learners because they will divide the works between them, and will keep working together. In my opinion, Webquest is a new useful teaching method and will attract the students to the course. So, if the students will enjoy on Webquest, I will use it.

 

 

Website Evaluation

 

http://a4esl.org/

This website belongs to an organization, and it is about how to enhance ESL grammar and vocabulary. This website produces various quizzes with many languages and activities to improve your vocabulary and grammar knowledge, and this website considered as a good website.

 For the content and content accuracy categories, this site has a clear purpose and theme that will help students to develop their learning process. This site about grammar and vocabulary, and the content matches the purpose of the website. Moreover, all the instructions are clear for the students, and the ambiguity is not being available in it. Also, the information provided by the organization is accurate.

For the background, layout, navigation, and the links, the design of the website has an attractive and colorful design.  Also, this website has a usable layout, and the links allow the reader to easily move from one page to another one, and user rarely becomes lost. Most of the links open with us, so these links have high quality and clearly label. Also, the learners can discover all the important elements easily.

For the background, color choices and fonts, this website has an attractive background, and it does not reduce from readability. This colorful background can get ESL learners attentions to each sections. Also, the color choice of the background is appropriate with the fonts and does not reduce the importance of the content. In addition, varies size of fonts are appropriately for heading and text. This consistency between the background, colorful choices and fonts will make this site as a useful site for the users.

For the copy right category, this site points to high quality copyright because all the pages of quizzes, puzzles and activities have at the bottom the citation, and this considered one of the strength point of this website. 

Suggestions:

In this website, we have several criticisms:

First, it needs more attractive layout to capture the attention of the learners.

Second, we suggest for this website to put attractive graphics and images to attract the users and to put more attractive background because the use of graphics and images can enhance readers understanding of the questions.

Third, it’s important to have lessons about learning vocabulary and grammar in this website, so the learners can benefit from the explanations of the lessons and solve the activities in more accurate way.

As future English language teachers:

From the knowledge about website evaluation, we learned how to evaluate any website, and how to direct our students to a good website which is appropriate to their levels and will improve their skills.

 

 

 

Interactive Language Learning on the Web

 

Language learners can benefit from online journals, listservs, and newspapers, but teachers can benefit from lesson plans and ideas, exercises and assessment tools. The World Wide Web is a resource for both language teaching and learning. What makes the Web-based language learning attractive to both instructors and learners are that the online language tutorials, exercises and tests because they are available to anyone who has access to the Web. Teachers can create their own interactive language learning activities on the Web, which allows them to put their activities that suit to their own course and students.

 Creating Your Own Web Based Language Learning Activities

  Teachers can create their own Web to put their exercises, lesson, games, and quizzes in many different languages. There are many advantages to creating your own interactive language learning activities for the Web. These advantages include accessibility, renewability, and adaptability.

  -  Accessibility : Teachers put course information and assignments and everything will be available to students.

-  Renewability: When teachers create this Web, materials can be update easily.

- Adaptability:  The activities in this Web can easily be modified to support students.

Challenges

   The greatest change in creating Web-based language learning is that teachers do not have the technical skill and knowledge to do so. Also, they do not have any time to devote to gaining the required skills. Another difficulty is that the variability of students' access to computers and browsers. Also, there is another important issue which is the need to design Web pages that are suitable for individuals with disabilities.

Teaching on the Web

   Many languages skills can be enhanced with the use of Web-based activities. For examples, vocabulary practice, grammar lessons, comprehension exercises, reading and writing task and pronunciation exercises.

  - For teaching reading and writing skills there are two ways. The first one is the online discussion boards are a good way to hold class discussion and create reading and writing activities for students. Dave's ESL Cafe provides many examples of this kind of activity. With discussion boards, teacher can post a question or subject to start discussion and every response is displayed on the board. The second way is to create online writing assignments or discussions through a Weblog. Students can use their blog as an online journal, to create a portfolio, or to have an online discussion.

 - For teaching vocabulary and grammar exercises, Fucaloro and Kenosian were created many exercises with JavaScript. JavaScript is an information collecting and feedback tool that is  used to make Web pages interactive. Liliane Fucaloro was created a vocabulary activity by matching words or phrases with definition. Also, Kenosian created a vocabulary matching exercise and a cloze exercise on the simple past that allows students to type in their answers and submit them for feedback. JavaScript is much more complicated than HTML, and most teachers don't have the time to learn to write script. Many online tutorials exist to teach people how to use written JavaScript.

 - For listening comprehension and pronunciation, audio clips can be put into Web pages to provide exercises for listening comprehension, pronunciation practice, and vocabulary development.

 - For online assessment, John's ESL/EFL resources provides a good example of the type of assessment tool on the Web. Students take an ESL word form quiz and submit their answers to the Web site, and the answers go via email to the instructor, who can correct the work and send feedback directly to the students. This type of online assessment can be done through the use of HTML forms and CGI script. CGI collects the information from the submitted form and sends it, via email, to whoever is collecting that information.

  In Saudi context, our teachers don't use an interactive language learning on the Web. They usually depend on the class work and the homework that is written in our notes. As a teacher, I will make my own website and I give my students a chance to work together. So, for reading skill , I put in my website column for reading skill and I put some questions to make sure that they understood when they answer, their answers will go to my email and I will give them a feedback. For writing skill, I will ask them to use a weblog to write what comes to their mind and to use it to enhance their writing skill. For vocabulary and grammar,  I will use with them online program that helps them to learn quickly and to make them feel interesting when they try to solve the questions. I will put for them an attractive pictures with words, so they will enjoy learning these words. For listening comprehension and pronunciation, I put for them audio clips and I give them some questions related to it, so they will answer and I will correct their answers. But for speaking skill and pronunciation, I will ask them to record their voice and put it online in my web.

 

Wordle

“How can blogs, wikis and delicious be used in the Saudi EFL context?”

  Teachers and learners can use the technology in powerful and effective way.  Technology can be  beneficial tool for communication among the students.

The blogs, wikis, and delicious will help the teacher and the students when they work for educational and other purposes. Also, these websites facilitate learning these days.

      In Saudi Arabia, we can use these websites in education fields. When I become a teacher, I will use the blogs to let the students to feel free when they want to write anything , and at the same time to improve their writing skills and the typing on computers. I can choose certain topic and ask the students to start writing about it and then we read the blogs of each other, comment and sharing the information. Also, I can put a reading paragraph and ask the students to read it and answer about certain questions and this also improve their reading skills.

 

     Wiki is used as a way to introduce the students' works, assignments and give them a chance to collaborate with each other to make their final projects. For example, I will let them to divide themselves into groups and I give them topics, so they can choose one and start working on it, and post it in their group wiki and discuss it with other students. This will teach them how to work in groups and how to be collaborative students. Wiki is a web site that allows students to add and update content on the site. This is made by Wiki software that runs on the web server.  Wiki is created by a collaborative effort of the site visitors.

 

     Delicious is a social bookmarking tool that we can use it to store and share the bookmarks with each other. We can teach the students how to have a new account and to bookmark any website or link which is useful for our classes and our courses and how to get benefit from these bookmarks.

 Teachers can use these websites with students to make an interesting activities and lessons.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants By Marc Prensky

    Now, the students have changed and they are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.

-Who are Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students as categorized by the author?

 The most useful designation Marc Prensky has found the new students is Digital Natives students, and these students are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.
 Digital Native students have spent their lives by and using computers, videogames, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age.
Digital Immigrants are not born into the digital world but at some later point in their lives became fascinated by and adopted many aspects of the new technology. Immigrant teachers learn like all immigrants, some better than other and they were socialized differently from their kids, and they are new in process of learning a new language.

-  List down 3 differences between Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students?
 
Digital Native students are used to receiving information really fast, and they like to parallel process and multi-task. Also, they prefer their graphics before their text, and they prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked, and they prefer games to serious work. But Digital Immigrants are different in some points. They choose to teach- slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously. Digital Immigrants don't believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music because the immigrants can't. Also, they think learning can't be fun.

-What is meant by Digital immigrant accent? List down three examples of “digital immigrant accents.”
 It is a language that used in Digital Immigrants' lives in the past.
The "Digital Immigrants accent" can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than the first, or in reading the manual for program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it. There are hundreds of examples of the digital immigrants accent. They include printing out your email (or having your secretary print it out for you- an even "thicker" accent); needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it(rather than just editing on the screen); and bringing people physically into your office to see an interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). 

-According to the author, what is the biggest serious problem facing education today?

The biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language. This is obvious to the Digital Natives – school often feels pretty much as if we've brought in  a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them.

 

-     “Should the Digital Natives learn the old way, or should their Digital Immigrants learn the new?”

Unfortunately, no matter how much the Immigrants may wish it, it is highly unlikely the Digital Natives will go backwards. In the first place, it may be impossible – their brains may already be different.  It also flies in the face of everything we know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new culture learn the new language easily, and forcefully resist using the old.  Smart adult immigrants accept that they don't know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate. Not-so-smart (or not-so-flexible) immigrants spend most of their time grousing about how good things were in the “old country.”

- What should the Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives?

If Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their
students – they will have to change.  It's high time for them to stop their grousing, and as the Nike motto of the Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!”  They will succeed in the long run – and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators support them. Today's teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other things.  Educators might ask “But how do we teach logic in this fashion?”  While it's not immediately clear, we do need to figure it out. We need to be thinking about how to teach both Legacy and Future content in the language of the Digital Natives. The first involves a major translation and change of methodology; the second involves all that PLUS new content and thinking.

 

    

Welcome my friends

I'm lamees and  I hope by the time I'll enjoy in this site and we all benefit from it . I put my first post in my page of the personal information from 11 Feb ,but now i know from Hiba that i should post it here so Welcome everyone.    :) 

"The Possibilty of Reaching Bax's Normalisation in our Saudi context"

   Stephan Bax discussed the development of the CALL through the past, present and future. He also discussed the phases of CALL which were divided by Mark Warschauer into three phases: Behavioristic , Communicative and Integrative. Bax explained the goal of CALL through the concept of normalization which is the stage when a technology is invisible, hardly even recognized as a technology, taken for granted in everyday life.

     Bax suggested that we can achieve normalization when we use it every day and when we take it as a normal thing in our lives and as integral part as he said. Also, we should change our thinking and attitudes towards computers and get rid of all fears of it. We must see it from all sides not only from the negative side. We can integrate successfully by some factors, such as software, technology, teacher and learners attitudes to change the idea that computers alone are sufficient.

    In Saudi school, it is possible from the ministry of education to provide these technologies. In the school of Saudi Arabia, we don't use computers a lot and as I see  the books are too much to carry especially for the elementary students, so I see it is important the presence of technology in educational side.

     Normalization can be reached and applied to the education in Saudi Arabia in the future by the following possible things: Computers and all devices must be available for all students and must taking it seriously and check them from time to time to fix any problem. The school should provide enough teachers who are able to deal with these computers. Also, the school should provide big classes which are suitable for this situation, and teacher should be facilitator, manager and encouraging the students to use these devices in useful way and to be more creative. Also, teaching the students how to use these devices during the lessons and for doing the tasks and home works. I think it is more comfortable to give the students these devices which have small sizes  as the IPAD . Students must use these devices only in the field of education not taking in only as entertainment tool.