Annual Review of Education, Communication and
Language Sciences, Volume 2, 2005
AN
EVALUATION OF THE WEB SITE: SELF-STUDY GRAMMAR QUIZZES
ABDULAZIZ
ALTORAIQE
The
aim of this report is to evaluate the web site (http://a4esl.org/q/h/grammar.html)
and its didactic methodology. The section of this site that will be addressed
is the one with three levels of Self-Study Grammar Quizzes. The web site will
be evaluated through the Checklist for Judgmental CALL Evaluation suggested by
Scholfield.
Pedagogical Characteristics
The site in general
is dedicated to ESL/EFL students in which different types of quizzes are
offered using various formats.
The site offers its services to both students and teachers. The learners have
many activities covering a wide range of topics that can help them test and
progressively reinforce what they have learned. The teachers can use the
existing activities for their teaching, or they can create their own activities
with the help of the materials available to them on the site.
The site uses
standard US English to construct its authentic activities. The activities used
are appropriate for the intended level of language and provide simple
structures to make it easy for the learner to understand.
These activities
are categorised into three difficulty levels i.e. easy, medium and difficult.
The site concentrates on the grammar and vocabulary. Because the site does not
offer learners the facility to write the answer and there is no speaking or
listening involved, it mainly focuses on reading skills. The learner can choose
the target structure he/she wants to practice from the list of structures
available. However, there is no comprehension measurement since the right
answer is already given in the quiz. Although these activities can be used
communicatively, they neglect other important aspects of language, such as
semantic and pragmatic considerations, since they primarily focus on reading
activities. It seems audio-lingually oriented because of the activities used
and the intense focus on form rather than meaning.
Activities
available on this site are intended to reinforce the material or as a practice
of language that has been presented in the classroom. It is also a way of
checking learners’ understanding of the target structures with the focus being
on accuracy rather than fluency. Moreover, activities are not based on the
communicative approach of teaching since they lack the communicative techniques
such as games and role play. The activities are in multiple-choice format with
one right answer and are extremely focussed on particular points of structure.
The feedback section only exists in the Java and Flash versions. Such feedback
is not helpful because it does not provide further explanation for wrong
answers. It is advisable to provide access to some online links to help
learners correct and notice their errors (Chapelle 1998 ). Borg (1999) suggests
that error awareness helps learners to monitor and to self-correct their use of
language. There is not even a feature to select or type the answer which is a
computerized format of a traditional type of teaching exercise. If students try
once and fail, this type of exercises encourages the learners to go directly to
the right answer and not to try other strategies. Additionally, giving only two
answers increases the chance of guessing the right one.
Construction/Design Characteristics
This site is
designed in an HTML format that can be explored using any internet browser
available. Browsing this site does not require much computers skills since
available links are simple to access via a mouse click. The activities are
organised in a menu under specific topics and according to levels of
difficulty. Places for responses are shown as blank and the student is given
three options from which to choose. Selecting answers is done either orally or
on a separate piece of paper as the site does not enable the student either to
type the answers or to click them. The correct answer is hidden under a field
labelled ‘Answer’ which can be hit by the student. In its HTML format, the site
lacks multimedia output such as sounds, graphics and video; however, these are
easily available in other versions of the site i.e. the Java or Flash versions.
Furthermore, the screen layout is rather condensed and requires a thorough
reading to find the target topic. The written fonts are black with blue
references to the target links which makes it easier to distinguish links from
titles. The text size is small with inadequate line spacing which does not
facilitate reading. The page layout is very basic with no use of graphics,
pictures or tables.
Instructions are
concise and quite clear They are listed at the beginning of each task; yet, their
font and colour are the same as that of the text which stops the learner for a
while until he/she finds the required instruction line. The site does not offer
a help section which could be consulted by the learners concerning the
activities, nor does it have a search facility to save the learner’s time when
looking for a particular activity.
There is no
facility to save learners’ unfinished work in order that he/she may resume
their work at a later time, nor is there a tracking system that tells the
student when s/he has finished a section. The scoring system is only available
in the Java and Flash versions, as is the feedback for chosen answers. The
content of the site is fixed and is not open to editing. However, there is a
section designated for teachers where they can create similar activities to
those available on the site with the help of online materials provided by this
site.
This site would
have been more useful if it had considered using a multimedia, scoring and
tracking system, communicative techniques such as games and diverse types of
activities rather than adhering only to the multiple choice format.
References
BORG,S., 1999. Teacher's theories in grammar teaching. ELT journal, 53
(3),157-167.
CHAPELLE,C., 1998. Multimedia CALL: lessons to be learned from research on instructed SLA. Language learning & technology, 2 (1), 22-34.
SCHOLFIELD,P. Evaluation of CALL software[online]. Available from:
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~scholp/calleval.htm#check
[Accessed 18 Sep 2005].
About the reviewer
Abdulaziz Altoraiqe is a first year IPhD student at the University of Newcastle
upon Tyne, School of Education,
Communication, and Language Sciences.