TASK 1

ESL WEBSITE EVALUATION 

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

This application (http://www.usingenglish.com/) attempts to teach both teachers and students in mastering English language proficiency by providing the notes, examples, and quizzes in which these ESL tools and resources can be such a great help to its users. Besides that, it also provides specific links for teachers and students to access which the links are clearly publicized at the website. So, teachers and students could easily find the suitable online resources for them to use in their learning and teaching process. 

For students, this website gives them an opportunity to learn through online and teaching them to learn by asking question/s to teachers in the ESL Forum who will be there 24 hours per day to answer their questions and clear out the students’ uncertainty about some matters in learning English. I believe students nowadays are too attached with internet and they enjoy more if we, teachers, use this application as one of the teaching tools. 

Meanwhile, for teachers, this application teaches them to make varieties of teaching materials and types of test papers that they could produce in order to make their lessons always look new, fresh and exciting to their students, apart from providing the teachers with training handouts (related with classroom management, language games, etc). This could be said as the lifelong learning process for the teachers since they continue to learn new things and make progress with their teaching style, strategies and materials using the current technology. 

This application, in other words, can give a new learning and teaching experience to both groups – teachers and students – since they get the chance to use technology in improving their education level and do it outside from their normal classroom. In spite of this, it is important to point up that this application is focusing more on writing and reading skills instead of listening and speaking skills.

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

The users are expected to explore every link provided in the http://www.usingenglish.com/ website and use it for good. For example, if students go to the ESL Quizzes link, they are expected to answer the quizzes provided and check their answer. If they answer one question wrong, then they are expected to go back to the question and change the answer before they could get their full marks. Instead of making correction straight away, this application expects its users to learn through ‘try and error’ mechanism. This can be considered as a meaningful learning to the students since the format of questions is quite similar to the format of their examination paper and they could relate the new knowledge to the prior knowledge.

Meanwhile, teachers are expected to read through all lesson plans, notes, and the training handouts provided for them. As the users for this application, they should practice, adapt and carry out the lesson plans and the teaching materials in their everyday classes. Through this way, they can learn the contents in the application by experiencing it and modify the tools to suit with the classroom’s situation and the students.

 

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

The application users are expected to have intermediate computer skills such as know how to connect to the internet, browse the internet webpage/website, use the features of a browser (back, forward, stop, search, refresh, history, home buttons, address bar, loading status) apart from knowing to switch on/off the computer, use the mouse and the computer keyboard to control/operate the computer. Besides that, the users also must know and understand the use of ‘links’ in a webpage, so that they could make full use out of it. In spite of this, both teachers and students do not have to feel afraid to access or assess this application because it is very user-friendly which means it is easy to understand to operate the website.

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?

My answer is absolutely yes! This application, UsingEnglish.com, reminds me of something that I did in my class (with my teachers during my old schooldays and also with my students during my practicum days) and also during self-study. While I am accessing and assessing the application, I noticed that the sections and format of question in the quiz are similar to the current format of English examination paper. 

      Besides that, while I was accessing the application, I noticed that it encourages the users to practice ‘try and error mechanism’ in which to me, I really like it because during my self-study I also did the same thing and I realized that we sometimes learn through mistake and it is not wrong to do a mistake as long as we learn from it and do not repeat it. During my practicum days, I also applied the same thing with my students in which I allowed them to make mistakes as long as they are willing to learn from their mistakes. As the result, most of them were willing to participate in the learning activity and some of them were very excited to write an essay even though they are from the low proficiency class.

 

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

I can pinpoint two (2) theories of language learning and/or teaching underlying the application and they are (i) Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis, and (ii) The Silent Way.

(i)               Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis

This theory is focused on the possible obstacles an individual might encounter while learning a new language which the obstacles include are motivation, anxiety and self-confidence. According to Krashen (1997, in Brown (2001)), “the best acquisition will occur in environments where anxiety is low and defensiveness absent or in contexts where the “affective filter” is low”. This means students will learn best in the atmosphere which they feel more relax, their anxiety low and indirectly their self-confidence will increase.

In the website UsingEnglish.com, I believe the users, especially students, will feel more relax and less anxiety when they answer the quizzes as they know that the correction is done between them and the application only without the other students knowing that they have made a mistake. They know that they will not become a laughing stock when they answer the question wrong so, it will actually motivate them to try to answer the question again. Subconsciously, they will try to apply their knowledge on grammatical rules, etc during the learning process.

(ii)              The Silent Way

                        This theory emphasizes the autonomy of the learner which in other words, it promotes students to learn through discovery. The users of this application (UsingEnglish.com) are expected to work on understanding the instruction/contents in the website and figuring out the questions given on their own - individually - since it does not provide manuals on operating the application/website. This means students need to be independent and learn to take responsible for their own learning (Brown, 2001). Thus, it depends on each students how they want to control their learning process, its speed/pace and also their commitment towards enhancing their English proficiency level.

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

According to the website  http://www.quasar.ualberta.ca/techcur/theory/constructivism.htm, constructivism is the theory that humans construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world from their experiences. This theory is applied to the chosen ESL website (http://www.usingenglish.com/) as when the students make mistake in answering the question, they get the chance to try again until they manage to answer the question correctly. Thus, they learn something new from the question and reconcile it with their prior knowledge and experience. It is just like an experimental learning to the students which involves problem-solving strategies using authentic and meaningful materials/information in order to gain new knowledge and relates it with their understanding. In constructivism theory, the learners are expected to ask question, explore and assess in order to know something and this is paralleled with the aim of this application which it hopes the application’s users to explore and assess all contents in it. 

Besides that, constructivism theory also stresses on active learning which is also applied in the UsingEnglish.com website. This application encourages the users to become an active learner and use all the teaching and learning materials wisely. In this application, a forum has been created for students as a centre for them to ask question and get feedback from the 24/7 online teachers. This indirectly related with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in which the students can make a progress to the next level after they get scaffold from the online teachers, understand the subject matter and know how to answer or use the knowledge correctly to complete a task without others helping them.

7)     In 1980s and early 1990s, there was a major debate on ‘whether the computer was “master” of 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?

Based on my evaluation, I choose to say the computer is an “assistant” to the learning process instead of, saying the computer is neither the replacement for teachers nor merely obedient servants. This is because it provides useful information for teachers and students to use in the teaching and learning process. The computer cannot replace a teacher even though how great it has been invented by the people because whether we realize it or not we still need real teachers to guide, scaffold and facilitate our students’ learning progress. 

      The computer can gives advantages and disadvantages to the users and it is up to how they make use out of it. Therefore, parents and teachers nowadays can control the use of computer both at home and in school by blocking some dangerous and inappropriate websites in order to avoid our kids from accessing these kinds of websites. With this reason, we surely can say that the computer is not merely an obedient servant to students.

      In relation to my website evaluation, I can say that this application (UsingEnglish.com) is not a replacement for teacher, or merely an obedient servants to students. This is because it only helps teachers and students to improve their level of English proficiency by reading the handouts and working on the quizzes and test provided which it functions as the extra supplementary teaching and learning materials for them. Furthermore, this application cannot give further explanation to students when they answer the question wrong on the spot. People may say that these students can ask about it in the forum. Well, yes. It is true - but, please bear in mind that to do this, they need to have a computer and internet access 24/7 so that they can online when their online teacher gives feedback. So, for students with low socio-economic status (SES), they might not have this kind of facility at home. POOR THEM!

8)     Would you like to use the application yourself in your future work? Yes or no? Give reasons:

Yes, I would like to use the application (UsingEnglish.com) in my future work. One of my reasons is because the application is user-friendly. To me, it is a user-friendly application because I found out that it is easy to explore the application and obtain the info from it apart from easy to access it since the users will not be charged for browsing the page. Besides that, I will also use this application in my future work because it provides useful teaching materials (eg; notes, worksheet, quizzes, etc), which is suitable for me as I am going to be a teacher within 9 months. However, I will not solely depend on this web. I will burn a midnight oil to make sure I find other useful ESL websites which are greater than this one because it will help me to become a better teacher in future. InsyaALLAH. I hope my future students will feel excited to enter my class and I believe they will feel it when they see me incorporate technology in my teaching (but not in every lesson – please!). This is supported by Brown (2001) who said that language teachers are encouraged to use technology in their classroom as a way to motivate their students in learning. 

Suggestions/Recommendation.

This application should add a section which focuses on language games and make it more colourful. The application, itself, is quite dull since it only has two colours and no animation at all. The creator of this application should add Flash and Java script besides, incorporating the use of animation with attractive colours in order to catch the eyes of its users and attract more students and teachers to explore the website.

References:

1)     Brown H. Douglas. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (Second Edition). NY: Pearson Education.

2)     http://www.quasar.ualberta.ca/techcur/theory/constructivism.htm