TASK 2 - ESL Website Evaluation

URL: http://esl.about.com

The website picked to be evaluated for this task is About.Com. This website is actually accessible for various fields such as economics and many more. And one of the areas is education, including ESL teaching and learning.

1) What does the application attempt to “teach”?

Well, basically English. To be more specific, this web contains explanations and activities about areas to be learned or acquire in the language, which is English. The activities also include all four skills that are needed to be acquired or practiced by students or learners of English as a second language, which are listening, speaking, reading and also writing. The website is suitable for users / students / learners from age as early as seven or eight years old because it has included activities for beginners.

Like other ESL websites, this website also includes some learning activities and lesson plans for teachers of ESL to help and improve the teaching and learning process. It also has explanations on some grammatical rules.

Apart from that, this website also includes some test for students to evaluate their development, or for teachers to diagnose and evaluate his or her students.

2) What sorts of things is the application user expected to do with regards to learning the content?

Well actually, the web does not focus on ESL as its main priority. But it has quite good content of ESL teaching and learning activities for both, teachers and students to benefit. First, after entering About.Com, users have to click on the English as 2nd language before they can look and access the content.

This website doesn’t require the users to sign-up on anything, and of course it is free. The users can just choose and click on any activities or explanations that they want to do/learn. The instructions given are quite simple and understandable, even for beginners.

3) What sorts of computer skills is the application users expected to have in order to operate/access/use the application?

This website doesn’t require the users to have any specific computer skills. Users only need to have the basic skills on handling computer hardwares such as mouse, keyboard and speakers. There is also no specific software needed for users to be able to access the content of the website. Only the basic internet explorer software. For beginner students, supervision and guidance from teachers is very important.

4) While you are “playing”/”accessing”/”assessing” the application, does it remind you of anything you do in a classroom, or with a teacher, or with a fellow classmate, or in self-study?

The website contains a lot of activities and exercises that can be use in an ESL classroom. As it is a tool for ESL teaching and learning, the activities are applicable to be used in classroom. It also designed according to Bloom’s taxonomy evaluating pyramid. When students have performed better, or developed more skills, the level of difficulties of the activities increase.

The application is a little bit boring as it does not have much pictures or graphics to help making it more interesting. Just like in a classroom, teachers need to make the lessons and activities interesting. A boring lesson and activity will only makes students becoming less and less motivated to learn.

For example, too much drilling exercises will be tiring and lead students to sleep in classroom, and not finishing homework.

5) Can you pinpoint some theories of language learning and/or teaching underlying the application?

For adult learners, the content of this website might be accessible, because it has explanations and exercises. As adults usually are more independent and self-directed in learning, they need more logical explanations on rules, or how a system works.

The application also included exercises and quizzes. This is for users, or teachers, or even parents, to monitor the users/students development and improvement. Evaluation is very important in learning because learners as well as teachers must have information on the students’ aptitude and improvement, so that they will know which area to be focus, or whether the application or the lesson is effective towards to users/learners. And due to this, Bloom’s taxonomy is applied in designing the activities, quizzes and tests.

6) How well is the constructivist theory of learning applied to the chosen website(s)?

The application that is to be used requires supervisions and guidance of a teacher/group leader, or a person that is able to help user. Therefore, their interaction may in a way help users to acquire and gain more knowledge and skills, thus, having more background knowledge or schemata for them to be able to learn more.

Apart from that, some activities are also associated with songs and texts. Users can use these to be discussed in a form of group work or presentation, but of course with the supervision of a teacher/supervisor.

The constructivist theory is not actually being applied but teachers can manipulate the activities to make it more interactive and also interesting.

7) In 1980s and early 1990s, there was a major debate on ‘whether the computer was “master” or “slave” to the learning process (Higgins and Johns, 1984). In relation to your evaluation – was the computer a replacement for teachers, or merely an obedient servant to students?

No, obviously not. Computers and such can never replace teachers and their roles in teaching and delivering knowledge/content. Without teachers, students’ progress is hard to monitor, even if there is a software that can tell what areas the students need to focus, it can never be same as teachers’ eyes and instinct.

8) Would you like to use the application yourself in your future work? Yes/No? (give reasons)

Yes, as an aid in teaching. I believe that computers can be very helpful nowadays as it can be manipulated. There are some limitations on using computers in an ESL classroom but that can be solved. There are a lot of useful activities and exercises in this website that can be used in ESL classroom.

With a few adjustments, it is applicable in Malaysian ESL classroom. Plus, there are also many lesson plans, which can tell teachers objectives to be delivered.

9) Suggestions/Recommendation.

The website maybe mainly concentrating on the four skills of language, which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. But due to the ‘limited interaction’ between users and the application (for example if user accessing it individually/independently), some skills such as writing and also speaking might be lacking (feedbacks, reviews).

To make the application more beneficial and effective, teachers/learners must not solely depending on this application as it is. It needs to be manipulated and modulated, creatively, so that learners, as well as teachers, may benefit from it.

This type of application is very useful to teachers as it provides many ideas on teaching ESL. It is better if we can have such application in our (Malaysian) context, but more realistic and authentic. Linguists and software designers need to sit together and develop such application/website so that teaching and learning of ESL can be more interactive and fun.

But, teachers cannot be too dependent towards such applications, because these applications are just tools to help the learning process. Teachers still carry the most important roles in making a lesson effective. Therefore, teachers must have various skills and knowledge, on computers for example, to conduct better lesson and making it more effective.