The role of WeQuests in learning a foreign/second language?

  Example of Webquests:
 http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=133833

                            
                                Let’s Party

   The role of the students:

1. Each student has a role in making a list about the party by answering the questions about the place, time, and preparations of the party.
2. Each student will make a brainstorming about birthday parties in order to have a number of ideas to share with her classmate.
3. Students are encouraged to confer with the teacher and take risks during discussion without fear of committing mistakes.
4. Students are encouraged to derive the meanings of the unknown words through word analysis, structural analysis and context. Also, the teacher encourages students to join the discussion and confer as they are able.
5. Students are encouraged to predict as they write. The teacher helps them draw on their understanding and their knowledge of the structure of language.
6. Students are encouraged to answer questions that are at the literal and interpretational levels of comprehension. Also, they should be encouraged to conduct and pose their own questions about the party or birthday.
7. Students are encouraged to produce a report about the party.

                                                             
 The role of the teacher:

1. The teacher acts as a resource for the students. She is to provide students with vocabulary related to birthday parties in order to form sentences about the topic.
2. The teacher acts as an organizer who organizes the work of the students into groups and as individuals. The teacher will ask each student to write his own list.
3. The teacher will monitor the students as they work in groups and answers all of these questions and provide them the vocabulary and language they need.
4. The teacher discusses the topic with the students to activate prior and background knowledge about the topic.
5. The teacher helps students predict the passage from the title, headings (if there are any) and illustrations.
6. The teacher introduces prompts that help students predict the issue and confirm their predictions. To assist students, the teacher should try to link more than one prompt.
7. The teacher motivates students to keep commenting. Difficult points that need to be clarified and the most interesting point (s) should be dealt with whether through context clues or teacher’s clarifications.


Classroom Environment:

1. A classroom with instructional aids such as birthday’s pictures and parties video should be presented to the students to allow them to identify similar concepts.
2. The teacher should allow students to participate freely without any hesitation of fear or committing any errors.
3. The desks should be organized in order for students can work as groups.
4. Also, all students should participate effectively in the class discussions so that all of them interact and benefit from the class.
5. The classroom should be tension-free and all students should be allowed to use the resources they see appropriate.

Evaluating "http://www.eduplace.com/tales/ Website"

 As the use of technology nowadays is increasing day by day, we can clearly see that is being entered also in almost every section and aspects of our lives, and this includes the education field where the technology has made a very big change. Students now can easily develop and improve their education through using the technology and the websites which are specialize in education with its different fields and levels. One of those websites is http://www.eduplace.com/tales/.

     This website is a commercial website that aims to practice the students reading and listing also as the tales are geared for grades 3 and above. It contains a large number of an interesting and enjoyable tales that helps the child to turn the learning to an entertaining process rather than just a boring learning process. Also, as there is a chance to let the child have his own version of the tale by choosing the names, cities, towns, verbs and nouns, It'll increase the child's motivation and create an enjoyable atmosphere.

     This website is a branch of the official website of the Education Place of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company. It has been noticed that the website is not updated and there is no date information. It can contact to theauthors but no reference list.

       Also for the background, layout, navigation, and the links, The design of the website isn't attractive to attract the child's eyes. The home page has a little colorful picture, but other pages have no graphic picture or animation. The font style and size are good and easy to read and appropriate for heading and text. Also, the tales links are easy to open and it doesn't take a long time to open. There is no search section and no advertisement at all. In addition, it can use and move around the site easily, free to use with no login requirement and well structured and organized website.

The website is good, but need some improvements. For example, adding an option for printing out, images and animations, feedback, Sound to improve listening skills, search section and update the tales.