ELTWeekly Issue#17, Research paper: In Pursuit of Alternatives in ELT Methodology: WebQuests

By Tarun Patel

In Pursuit of Alternatives in ELT Methodology: WebQuests

Descriptors

Questionnaires; Internet; English (Second Language); College Students; Computer Uses in Education; Computer Literacy; Web Based Instruction; Critical Thinking; Thinking Skills; Foreign Countries

Abstract

Although the Internet has opened up a vast new source of information for university students to use and explore, many students lack the skills to find, critically evaluate and intelligently exploit web-based resources. This problem is accentuated in English-medium universities where students learn and use English as a foreign language.

In these cases, the task of finding and extracting relevant and useful information is daunting for students. Also, they spend too much time looking for information and become demotivated or end up copying and pasting without enough time to think critically about the issues. In response to the challenges faced by students in effectively exploiting web-based resources, the School of Foreign Languages, Eastern Mediterranean University, has recently begun using a new approach developed in the late nineties in America known as WebQuests.

The Modern Languages Division of the SFL provides service English courses for students studying in various departments, and one of its aims is to link English language with concepts used in the departments by benefiting from the resources on the Internet. The underlying principles inherent in the design and implementation of WebQuests provide a reason and motivation for students to use and produce English with real tasks relevant to their departments while exploiting the richness of the Internet.

It can be further surmised that the use of WebQuests has broader implications in helping students develop better digital literacy, even when English is not their native language. This study introduces the idea of WebQuests and the adaptation of this approach using sample tasks which were developed and piloted at the Modern Languages Division, SFL, EMU. In this article the details in the preparation, design, implementation of WebQuests and the results obtained from teacher and student questionnaires are presented.

(The following are appended:

(1) Teacher Notes for WebQuest 1;

(2) Teacher Notes for WebQuest2;

(3) Summary of Questionnaire Results; and (4) Summary of Written Comments. Contains 2 footnotes.)

To access the full paper, please visit: http://www.eric.ed.gov

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ELTWeekly Issue#17 commento

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April 25th, 2009

About... Tarun Patel

This author published 569 posts in this site.
Tarun Patel (http://tarunpatel.net/blog/) is an ELT and Communication skills teacher, working with Charotar University of Science & Technology (CHARUSAT - http://charusat.ac.in/). He has been dealing with the Language learning processes for last seven years. 'Technology in Teaching English' is his favorite domain and he has presented several research papers in national and international conferences on the same theme. He is the founder editor of ELTWeekly (http://eltweekly.com/), India's first weekly ELT eNewsletter which reaches in more than forty countries and benefits more than 1600d teachers of English and Communication Skills. Have a look at his personal blog http://tarunpatel.net/blog/.