TSL 641 – COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING
ESL WEBSITE EVALUATION
PREPARED BY:
SITI
NABILA BINTI MOHD RUS
(2013495282)
GROUP: ED2417A
PREPARED
FOR: PM
DR. IZAHAM SHAH ISMAIL
***
ESL Website Evaluation
First
of all, the website entitled LearnEnglish is operated by British
Council, a United Kingdom international organization. The aims are to expose
the people more to cultural exchange and to provide the adult learners the
English educational opportunities. It attempts to educate the users on various
aspects of the language learning. The learners are able to improve on their speaking
skill, their knowledge of vocabulary, writing and also grammar. For improving
the learners’ speaking skill, the website prepares a wide range of audio and
video materials. Based on my experience of participating in the website’s listening
lesson, there are activities included by the end of each activity. In a
listening lesson, for instance, four tasks are developed for the users after
they have finished listening to the audio. There are immediate feedbacks, of
course. The website will present scores to the users after they have finished
answering the questions in the exercises. Speaking of which, yes, there are
different levels of difficulty for different proficiency levels. The website
provides six various levels of English lessons which suit beginners to advanced
learners, from A1 to C2. What makes this website interesting for me as compared
to other ESL websites is that it provides a test to specifically identify the
learners’ proficiency level. Even if you are a new learner of English, and you
do not precisely know how proficient you really are at the language, this
website’s help and support will guide you through it.
In
order to learn the content of the website, the learners have the option of
whether to learn as guests or to register themselves an account. The lessons
are still available to them for free, but if they are registered users, they
will be able to comment on the commentary section. The administrators will
enlighten your inquiries, be them related to English language or the website
itself. However, you must be aged 18 and above to be able to use this feature.
There are also mini-websites especially designed for users aged below 18. LearnEnglishKids
and LearnEnglishTeens are both provided in order to cater to the pedagogical
needs of the users. And yes, generally, LearnEnglish is for teaching
English to adult learners. In other words, this website is created for androgogical
purposes. Moving on to the content of the website, there are various lessons
offered for the users. They are grammar, writing and vocabulary. In order to
learn grammar, the students have to read some notes on various grammatical
aspects such as pronouns and prepositions. These contents are made accessible
to the students for free and there are options. Students may choose whichever
they want to learn without any obligation to follow the sequence. An interactive
exercise will be provided at the end of the grammar lesson. There will be
immediate feedback, where the score and the answers are both included. In my
opinion, what makes this website highly interesting is the fact that there are
also games. As a matter of fact, I find myself really enjoying them. There are
amusing sound effects for each game you play, providing a very conducive
environment for the learners to test their English skill in a very relaxed
manner.
Moving
on to the next point, the website does present something that cannot be done in
a face-to-face classroom. Firstly, it applies the concept of virtual learning,
which fosters an individualized learning environment. In comparison to a
traditional learning environment, teachers are unable to pay attention to every
single student of the class, especially during a formal classroom session.
However, the teachers may be able to do so only if they take some of their personal
time to assess the students’ work, providing some feedback on how well the
students have performed on their tasks. This method, however, may be time-consuming
for the teachers. Some students might not even be aware of their performance
and how they can improve on it. As what we already know, they may take less
effort to look back at their returned paper or assignments, simply because they
are engrossed in more current things they do, like preparing for a test. In
contrary to that, the ESL learning inculcated by the website really makes the
students learn interactively. The students are able to learn even as they have
fun playing the games. The immediate feedback provided for both the lessons and
the games helps to develop more effective learning environment for the
students. They immediately know what they have done wrong, or what concept they
have mistakenly assume as true, which will definitely help them to unlearn the
wrong presumptions made on their own, and relearn the correct concept. I am not
saying that traditional learning environment is not good at all. It is just
that virtual learning compensates on some of the flaws expedited by
face-to-face classrooms.
In
regard to any learning theory, I believe that this ESL website truly has
implemented some of it. The first one is it applies the Bloom’s taxonomy. As
proposed by the well renowned educationist, an ideal learning environment is
the one that undergoes increasing difficulty level of learning activity.
Formulating on the six levels of learning, namely knowledge, comprehension,
analysis, application, synthesis and evaluation, Bloom really took a great
concern on the importance of students’ learning progress. As for the website,
the activities or exercises for the end of each activity has an increasing
level of difficulty, which requires the heightened level of students’ cognitive
development on the particular subject of the lesson. A listening lesson, for
instance, extracted from the series “Big City, Small World” entitled Nice to
Meet You first lets the learners to listen to the recording. The exercises are
arranged according to the increasing level of difficulty. The first is an
arrange-the-order exercise. Here, the learners have to arrange the sequence of
events which happened throughout the conversation. So basically, it tests the
listeners’ knowledge on the flow of the events. The second task is a true-false
exercise. It is a task which requires the learners to understand what really happened.
Subsequently, it is identified as the comprehension and analysis components of
the taxonomy. Next, the third exercise is a fill-in-the-blank exercise. The
learners have to identify the correct pronoun to be placed in each of the
sentences. In this case, they have to really understand the use of ‘anyone’
or ‘someone’ in order to apply them. According to the taxonomy, the task
tests the students on the application level. The fourth is a set of multiple-choice
questions. In this exercise, the learners have to evaluate and decide on the
most accurate form of pronoun phrases, verb phrases and adverbs. There are
three different options, which are not that distinct from one another. From my
humble experience, I find the last set of questions quite challenging. I
strongly believe that this lesson will be highly stimulating for the students,
not to mention the conversation is also interestingly authentic, or rather, as a
dialogue that is successfully made as make-believe. The second theory
implemented in this website is the adult learning theory, andragogy as proposed
by Malcolm Knowles. Through this theory, the adult learners are able to learn
better if the learning session includes materials which they can relate to
their experiences. In the website, there are a few offered lessons which may be
highly beneficial for the target users aged 18 and above, which I assume as college
students and working adults. This includes business and IELTS preparatory lessons.
Thus, this makes the ESL website more effective for them as it offers the
opportunities to fulfill the adult learners’ main purposes of learning English.
In
my opinion, I think this website is actually very good for language learning. The
lessons are easy to access. You may take them for free without having to become
a member. Besides that, the website also comes in mobile applications which you
may download on your smartphones and tablets. This also makes English language
learning easier to happen. The students may engage themselves in these lessons
on-the-go, be it as they are waiting for the bus or when they simply have
nothing to do. This also makes it easier even for working learners who
sometimes might not even have the proper chance to sit and use a computer, as
they are busy working at sites or anywhere outside their workplace.
In
conclusion, if asked on whether I would use the application in my future career
as an English teacher, the answer would probably be yes. This is due to the authenticity
of the material offered on the website. In my opinion, I like the listening
activity best because it is very entertaining. I can clearly listen to the
voice of the speakers. The storyline is also interesting. It is not cliché. I
expected the conversation would be like someone introducing his or her name to
the other person, and the process of getting to know each other happens.
However, for this one, there were also jokes, as speaker Olivia casually threw
witty responses. And what makes it more unique as compared to other ‘getting to
know other people’ conversations is the speakers only introduce themselves at
the end of the conversation. I had fun listening to this. Plus, there is the
written transcript and a downloadable audio file. The listeners are able to
participate in the lesson without having to reload the whole audio online,
which I am sure will consume a lot of Internet data. Even if I am not an
English teacher in future, I would still have to improve on the language. It is
a matter of fact that English has now become a really important medium for communication.
I would have to use it in various instances; be it communicating with clients
or writing reports. Moving on to the next point, the materials would also be
relevant to be used in the language learning. I have envisioned myself as a
teacher or an educator who includes virtual learning in the teaching. It is
highly likely that I would use this website as a main medium for the students
to engage themselves interactively in learning. I find that in an English lesson,
it might be challenging to cater to ever student’s needs due to the varying
level of students’ proficiency level. In all honesty, I strongly suggest that
this website would be a great help for both me and the students in terms of
improving on the language proficiency.
REFERENCE
Council,
B. (n.d.). LearnEnglish | British Council. Retrieved September 25, 2016,
from LearnEnglish: http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/
