A high-level project - Global warming

This project aims to provide learners with the opportunity of examining a serious issue in depth. You may want to work beforehand on some of the language areas useful for the activity, for example giving opinions, agreeing and disagreeing. However, this will depend on the level of your learners. It is ideal for groups at an upper-intermediate level and above.

While the lower-level proj ect we have just looked at is an ideal opportunity for developing specific communication skills, this project goes deeper into a topic and encourages more complex thinking and reasoning processes. With higher-level projects like this one there is plenty of opportunity for cross-curricular applications, working with teachers in other departments where possible, and for covering other areas of the overall syllabus above and beyond the teaching of English. For this project you will need:

• three lesson periods of at least 45 minutes each.

• access to the Internet for the first and possibly second of the three suggested lessons.

optionally, access to video recording equipment for the third lesson.

Internet-based simulations

Internet-based simulations bring real-life contexts to the classroom, helping our learners to deal with situations that they may come across during foreign travel or in encounters with other speakers of English. The more traditional approach has teachers cutting up prepared role-cards in order to simulate these contexts. The Internet largely does away with this approach, giving learners access to authentic websites that provide stimulating and relevant content that enables them to carry out these simulations. Simulations like these work particularly well in the field of business English, where the language learning is very task- or goal-oriented, but they also work well with general English learners who may have less clearly defined reasons for using English, as we will see below.

A business English simulation

This sample simulation looks at the case of a personal assistant having to organise their manager's business trip to the United Kingdom. The benefit of this kind of simulation is that it uses real websites, and a potentially real situation, to further the learner's reading, information processing, planning and communication skills. As an additional benefit, it also addresses technology skills that are useful in this professional context.

Of course, a busy teacher is not going to prepare complex simulations such as this on a daily basis, but for occasional activities they really can bring home not only how useful the Internet is for busy professional people, but can also be an important confidence booster for learners. Working through carefully guided but complex tasks such as these - tasks which have a direct relation to what they do in their work - can reinforce the value of their language classes and keep motivation high.

In this particular simulation, we take the case of a learner who communicates primarily in the written form, using letters, faxes and emails. It is this factor that influences the nature of the tasks in the simulation (see opposite).

A general English simulation

As observed above, simulations need to address potential real-life situations in order to appeal to the learner. The business-oriented example above is a clear case of this approach, but how can this kind of activity be prepared for learners of general English?

The activity above could easily be adapted for a more general context by turning it into a holiday being planned by a group of friends, or even a school trip. In this context, small groups would plan an itinerary around the United Kingdom, researching travel options, accommodation and things to do in each place visited. This might be presented as an award given to the students, with a limited budget, making the actual logistics more challenging, but more real. Shorter simulations are also possible, as in this example.

Situation

As chairperson of the student committee you have been nominated to present the student awards this year. Your job is to propose the prizes to be given, and to arrange for them to be bought and delivered. There are three prizes:

• Best student - Ђ300 prize money

winner: Francine Dumas, 17 - interests: computers, science.

• Best volunteer - Ђ250 prize money

winner: Pawel Krajka, 15 - interests: the environment, hiking, travel.

• Best sporting achievement - Ђ200 prize money

winner: Pablo Castro, 16 - interests: extreme sports, climbing, camping.

Your committee has decided to buy the prizes online. Visit the following online shopping sites and find three possible prizes for each person.

• http://www.amazon.co.uk

• http://www.pcworld.co.uk

• http://www.dell.co.uk

• http://www.expedia.co.uk

• http://www.opodo.co.uk

• http://www.extremepie.com

• http://www.simplyhike.co.uk

• http://www.blacks.co.uk

• http://www.gear-zone.co.uk

• http://www.ecoshop.com.au

Complete this chart. Remember to include a picture of each potential prize, as well as the site it is available from and the price.

Now write a short report for the committee, explaining the three possible choices for each person and making a personal recommendation about which one you feel should be bought. Include your chart.

Webquests

Webquests are mini-projects in which a large percentage of the input and material is supplied from the Internet. Webquests can be teacher-made or learner-made, depending on the learning activity the teacher decides on. What makes webquests different from projects or simulations is the fairly rigid structure they have evolved over the years, and it is this structure - and the process of implementing webquests in the classroom - that we will be exploring here.

Bernie Dodge, a Professor of Educational Technology at San Diego State University, was one of the first people to attempt to define and structure this kind of learning activity. According to him, a webquest is 'an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet'. He goes on to identify two types of webquest:

• Short-term webquests

At the end of a short-term webquest, a learner will have grappled with a significant amount of new information and made sense of it. A short-term webquest may spread over a period of a couple of classes or so, and will involve learners in visiting a selection of sites to find information, and using that information in class to achieve a set of learning aims.

• Longer-term webquests

After completing a longer-term webquest, a learner will have analysed a body of knowledge deeply, transforming it in some way. They will have demonstrated an understanding of the material by creating something that others can respond to, online or offline. This is the big difference between the longer-term and short-term webquests - learners have to transform the information they acquire, turning it into a new product: a report, a presentation, an interview or a survey. Longer-term webquests might last a few weeks, or even a term or semester.

Webquests have now been around long enough for them to have a clearly-defined structure. However, this structure, while being unofficially recognised as the definitive schema for these activities, should only really be taken as a basic guideline and you should design your webquests to suit the needs and learning styles of your group. In the example, we will be examining an ELT webquest about responsible consumerism. It is designed for intermediate-level learners. There are usually four main sections to a webquest:

Step 1 - Introduction

This stage is normally used to introduce the overall theme of the webquest. It involves giving background information on the topic and, in the language learning context, often introduces key vocabulary and concepts which learners will need to understand in order to complete the tasks involved.

In the example opposite, learners are introduced to the idea of responsible consumerism by considering various scenarios relevant to their own circumstances.

Step 2 - Task

The task section of the webquest explains clearly and precisely what the learners will have to do as they work their way through the webquest. The task should obviously be highly motivating and intrinsically interesting for the learners, and should be firmly anchored in a real-life situation. This often involves the learners in a certain amount of role-play within a given scenario, as in the example, 'You are a team of in Step 3 - Process

The process stage of a webquest guides the learners through a set of activities and research

tasks, using a set of predefined resources.

These resources are predominantly Internet-based, and are usually presented in clickable form, that is, as a set of active links to websites within the task document. It's important to bear in mind that it's much easier to click on a link than to type it in with any degree of accuracy.

vestigative reporters'. In the case of a language-based webquest, as opposed to a purely content-based one, the process stage of the webquest may introduce or recycle lexical areas or grammatical points which are essential to the task. The process stage of the webquest will usually have one or sometimes several 'products' which the learners are expected to present at the end. These 'products' will often form the basis of the evaluation stage.

Step 4 - Evaluation

The evaluation stage can involve learners in self-evaluation, comparing and contrasting what they have produced with other learners, and giving feedback on what they feel they have learnt and achieved.

It will also involve teacher evaluation, and good webquests will give guidance to the teacher for this particular part of the process. Since Bernie Dodge developed his model in 1995, many educators have added both to the theory and the practice of webquests, and it is now possible to find several good examples of them in many different subject areas.

In the case of a language-based webquest, as opposed to a purely content-based one, the process stage of the webquest may introduce or recycle lexical areas or grammatical points which are essential to the task. The process stage of the webquest will usually have one or sometimes several 'products' which the learners are expected to present at the end. These 'products' will often form the basis of the evaluation stage.

Lecture #5

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1659