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

According to Bernie "an inquiry oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing."

Godwin Jones writes about the methods pioneered particularly by ESL professionals such as Webquests, MOOs, and chatter bots. He mentions the role of active participants and the teacher is a facilitator.

The webquest have many advantages for both students and teacher. For teacher, it helps for make new way of learning. They can create a weques and use their lessons and recourses. It should be well organize and use to interact learns uses. For students, it is a new learning literacy by using internet. Students will engaged in constructivist activities resulting in shared learning experiences and new knowledge based on enquiry-oriented language use and Web research skills.

As an EFL teacher in KSA, I will use Webquests because it engage my students in learning and thinking in different way. 

Using digital tools to produce speaking/listening

 The interactive nature of digital tools makes it a textually social environment and integrates ESL speaking and listening with real life situations.  Digital tools offer opportunities for real communication and practice where students can think, reflect, create language for a real audience, and motivates language learning. However, the ability to design the material with the digital tools, the lesson time and the opportunity for all students to practice, and the availably of the resources in the class are the major challenges that must be considered in this connection.

As a teacher I will use http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ for listing. It is free software that can download on PC. The good advantage of this program not need for internet .Students will recording and save the files on PC to development their listening skills and learning.

For speaking I will ask students to search for wild animals images and describe it. Students will be confident on speaking and active .

  

Evaluating Websites

Name of the student: Rawan , Manar

Software/Website Title: personelt

Website URL: http://www.pearsonelt.com/

       This website belongs to commercial and it is about ELT which contains different resources that help teacher in find subject or material for English class to improve their teaching.

The currency of updating information does not provide a publication date, therefore it is impossible to tell whether the information it provides is out of date. It has cleared them and purposes that teacher will improve their teaching. The links is up to date.

 The design of the homepage has a colorful and graphic picture. The font   style and size are good and easy to read and appropriately for heading and text. Also, the links are easy to open and not take long time to open. There is no advertisement.

  In our opinion, pearsonelt website is useful for both teachers and students because it supports them through materials of the highest quality. But, unfortunately it cannot be used as a resource in teaching process because it is outdate and teachers and students don't know who was published this website.   

Creating web-based language activities in Saudi Arabia

     The development of web-based language activities/quizzes/materials by the teachers themselves have significant implications for syllabus design and implementation. Such materials consider the social and economic dimensions in the said location. Also, the materials develop by teachers consider the students' levels, culture, and mentality. Furthermore, such materials suit the scholastic capabilities and supplies and then are expected to be within the level of application and implementation. Although, the commercial activities are valuable in delivering meaningful practice, but the materials develop by teachers are mostly based local beliefs, values, and ideologies. Since the material is locally designed within these limits, the implementation is likely to be effective and fully accomplished. Locally developed materials have no exaggerations of time, supplies, scientific content that  go beyond the existing capabilities

     Also, the materials develop by teachers have valuable implications for the role of the teacher. Teachers are the implementers of the curriculum and being excluded from the development of the curriculum will make them reluctant to implement the curriculum in the most effective way. 

     Furthermore, the materials develop by teachers are likely to reflect teachers' perceptions of their course, their students, and their school. The teacher is the most knowledgeable factor in the educational process of the students' needs and their developmental level. Therefore, the teacher is nicely placed to design the materials, exams, and webs that meet the students' needs and consider their individual differences. Teachers are more aware of their students and what they can do. So, they can design the webs that suit their linguistic needs, their local environment, and their thinking level. This is likely to help students achieve the goals of the intended course.

How podcasting, delicious, twitter, blogs and wikis can be used with my future Saudi EFL students

     Computer-based communication, particularly internet, has always been a reliable source of authentic language learning. With internet-based applications, students can practice writing whether synchronously (e.g. chatting, instant messaging, and, live discussion boards) or asynchronously (e.g. emails and blogs). The emergence of internet gave writers the chance to release their feelings and voice in many different ways – blogging (blogs or weblogs) is one of these ways. Weblogs are facilities which allow learners to easily maintain content and add new entries and comments, with the advantage of placing videos, graphics, and audio.

     Saudi learners like all EFL learners can benefit greatly from social networks such as twitter and from the blogs and other internet tools. For example, the interactive nature of blogging makes it a textually social environment and integrates EFL writing with real life. Blogging offers opportunities for real communication and practice where students can think, reflect, create language for a real audience, and motivates language learning.

    The function and nature of EFL writing have much to do with blogging. In pedagogical environments, using blogs effectively helps in sharing knowledge beyond the classroom setting. This in turn enhances the individual accountability in learning. Also, blogging has the feature of archiving that makes it easy to keep the learning experiences recorded.

Also, students can be put in online discussions about a topic assigned by the teacher. In a tutor blog, the teacher posts a topic for discussion and each student through his blog can write about this topic and get an immediate feedback from his teacher and his peers. Such interactive issues increases the cultural wealth of the students and expand their vision of the world.

    Also, I can use the text messaging facility to enhance the students’ vocabulary capacity.  In a model task, I can design an activity based on sending messages to students and asking students what the underlined words mean based on their reading of the message. Students in this way get extra words from a contextual experience and their lexical knowledge gets more and more developed.

ESL

This website for both teacher and students . It have free materials for ESL teacher and student .
http://www.englishbus.net/