WebQuest

http://questgarden.com/

Purpose:

A WebQuest is an educational tool designed to develop higher learning and linguistic skills in students by having them use Internet resources to accomplish real life tasks. It allows students to engage in both group work and autonomous learning.

Relevance:

I am particularly impressed by the potential this tool has to develop students' higher learning and linguistic skills. Carefully designed WebQuests provide students with the opportunity to give sufficient attention to each linguistic skill: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Well-designed WebQuests also result in students engaging in meaningful lifelong learning since they allow them to analyze, synthesize and evaluate information as they work on real life tasks.

Using this tool could contribute to increased motivation in language learning since students will feel a sense of accomplishment after finishing a task in the target language and will also have created something tangible that can be shared with others.

This tool can also be useful in classroom management in that a well-designed WebQuest ensures that each student must make a meaningful contribution in order to successfully accomplish the task at hand. Engaged students mean a more orderly, productive classroom environment.

Tip:

In designing a WebQuest for your students, in addition to your educational goals, you must also think of your students general interests.

For example, it might be interesting to use comments from an online magazine as the text for a reading comprehension (The What Shall I Wear WebQuest illustrates how this can be done).

Also, an online video recording tool can be embedded into the WebQuest so that students can record themselves conducting an interview (job, sporting event, celebrity, etc) or engaging in a role-play activity.

Limitations:

Designing a WebQuest is extremely time consuming. It involves finding the right resources, constantly checking that your choice of activities suit your objectives and constantly remembering to save all changes that you have made before moving on to another page.

It is not the most user-friendly website, some knowledge of web editing is required.

There are many poor quality WebQuests published on the Internet and therefore you need to be very selective to ensure that the WebQuest you choose fulfils your educational goals.

LyricsTraining

Purpose:
LyricsTraining can be described as the fusion of language learning and karaoke. This website provides a wide selection of free subtitled music videos.

Relevance:
Music has always been incorporated into language learning in some or fashion. This site is excellent because it not only allows the students to challenge his/her pronunciation skills but it is also a fun way to memorize idiomatic expressions.

                                                         

Tip:
This website can really be exploited for listening activities. For example, to develop students’ listening skills, songs can be printed and distributed with missing lyrics. Students can then, either individually or in groups, listen to the song and try to fill in the missing words.

It can also be a creative way to introduce grammar points. You can try choosing a well-known song that contains a particular grammatical structure or tense. That song can be sung at the beginning of the lesson and then students can be asked to identify examples of the particular structure or tense. The grammar lesson can then be continued according to your regular teaching style.

Limitations:
The site is not designed to offer ideas about how you can use songs in your teaching; that depends entirely on your own creativity.

Breaking News English

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

Purpose:
This website provides printable lesson plans on a wide variety of current events, along with its MP3 recording and interactive activities to aid vocabulary learning.

Relevance: 
If you believe that students retain vocabulary better when hearing it and seeing it in context then this site is a definite must.

Tip: 
For every news event there are eight possible vocabulary related activities that you are free to use imaginatively. I particularly like the Flash Card quiz. Toward the end of the lesson, these flashcards can be used in a game of Taboo for a fun, creative review of vocabulary met during the lesson.

Limitations: 
This site has massive potential. The only limitation to it really is the layout. There are many ads on the website which makes it a little difficult to differentiate between actual website content and external links.

LanguageGuide.org

http://www.languageguide.org/

Purpose: 
This interactive website contains a variety of vocabulary items in a number of different languages. It also even offers interactive reading passages and grammar guides in a few select languages.

Relevance: 
Learning vocabulary can sometimes be boring for students. This site makes vocabulary-learning fun and can potentially motivate students to learn topic specific vocabulary outside the language classroom. Students can choose their level and practice their listening and speaking skills on a variety of topics.

Tip: 
Given that each topic contains labelled diagrams, each webpage can serve as a potential printable worksheet. Teachers can say a vocabulary item and have students write down the word in the appropriate space.

As a homework assignment, students can be instructed to review a particular topic on the website and then write a story using all or some of the items featured.

Limitations: 
This site focuses primarily on audio comprehension and repetition activities, it is therefore up to the teacher to incorporate the vocabulary provided in other skill areas. 

Also, the website is a work in progress: some categories, such as the Grammar pages available in French are not available in English.