Literature Review 2: Webquests for English-Language Learners: Essential Elements for Design

Sox, A., & Rubinstein-Ávila, E. (2009). WebQuests for English-Language Learners: Essential Elements for Design. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(1), 38-48. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

This article examines essential elements for creating and using webquests for the instruction of English language learners. The author believes that Webquests can be highly effective tools to, "integrate technology, content knowledge, and comprehensible input for secondary Ells". In this study, the author evaluates eight examples of Webquests using a rubric based on (SLA) second language acquisition theories and (NLS) new literacy studies, breaking them down by their linguistic, multimedia, and organizational features.

The article describes what a Webquest is, and it asserts that Webquests have great potential for educating ELLs because they combine teacher-centered and student-centered attributes, develop academic language skills, provide opportunities for higher order thinking, and encourage students to interact with information technology in a meaningful fashion. For ELLs, opportunities to engage effectively with information technology can be particularly beneficial because many ELLs are considered "low users" of technology. Additionally, Webquests present content in multiple media, which can be helpful for language comprehension, i.e. pictures and video offer context for the text.

This authors' study selected eight Webquests which were highly recommended for use in a Secondary classroom and evaluated them on their suitability for ELLs according to their linguistic, multimedia, and organizational features, assigning them values of 1-4 (1 being ineffective, 4 being very effective). The author summarized the findings halfway through the article and claimed, "our analysis revealed potential concerns pertaining to the linguistic, multimedia and organizational features and their appropriateness for meeting the needs of ELLS. Basically, the Webquests were good but required some modifications to be suitable for ELLs, and the author uses the remaining article to examine each category and suggest how each could be improved.

The linguistic features of Webquests can be improved for ELLs by avoiding complex sentence structures, phrasal verbs, colloquialisms, and indirect commands. Language that defies direct translation can be very difficult for ELLs, although it is common in regular usage, for example "back up your argument" is much more difficult to translate than "provide evidence for your argument".

The multimedia features of the eight Webquests were varied, but mostly contained one or several illustrations per page and were found to relate well to the topic at hand. The author points out that one of the Webquests offered links to primary source documents that allow the student to examine diverse perspectives about the topic; in this case, the link accessed British and American documents describing the American Revolution. On the whole, it was found that even when the teacher designed the Webquests to be comprehensible to ELLs many of the sites which were linked to were "text heavy, without visual support to help create comprehensible input for ELLs". In addition, none of the Webquests offered first language resources, bilingual dictionaries, links to sites with translation services, or any other accommodation for non-native English speakers.

The organizational features of the Webquests were found to be fairly adequate, most containing features which "scaffolded the learning process". Some, however, had links that offered no explanation as to the nature and content of the site they accessed.

In closing, the author summarizes some points that a teacher designing a Webquest with ELLs in mind should be cognizant of: being selective and limiting the number of visual elements, writing clear and comprehensible instructions, connecting the information to content standards, and making readily available links to services that support ELLs such as online bilingual dictionaries.

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/ehost/detail?sid=d3d21392-13ee-457b-af53-b3241469240b%40sessionmgr115&vid=1&hid=119&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWNvb2tpZSxpcCx1cmwsY3BpZCZjdXN0aWQ9c2hhcGlybyZzaXRlPWVob3N0LWxpdmU%3d#db=a9h&AN=44054568

ETT # 243: Teachers Teaching Teachers

I started listening to my first ETT this morning. I must say that I am enjoying this somewhat less than the K12 online conference presentations. This format is longer, more rambling and something I would definitely listen to in a car, rather than sitting at a table being attentive... This episode features Alice Barr, from Seedlings, and Donovan Hohn, author of Moby-Duck.

His book actually sounds pretty good, it's titled: Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the BeachCombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them. Mr. Hohn was a high school English teacher in New York City, and every summer he assigned himself a writing project. During the school year, he taught a literary journalism class, and he asked his students to pick an artifact, anything fom oranges to bath toys, and a students project became the basis for his book. Mr. Hohn alludes to, and draws from, Mobby Dick and how "Ishmael searches for whales and for the meaning of whales." Apparently, container ships traveling from Asia to America lose cargo all the time, and several "great" spills happened in the 90s, Nike shoes and computer monitors most famously. During research for this book, Mr. Hohn was invited to beachcomb in Alaska with an oceanographer, and they found all manner of junk.

Alice Barr is making a guest appearance, and she is monitoring a chatroom, which asks: what are you doing this summer? Several people were attending conferences, camps, or participating in national writing projects. The first 30 minuted centered mostly around discussion of Mr. Hohn's book; however, it was noted that many ETT shows close down for the summer.

Frontline: Digital Nation

The idea presented in "Digital Nation" that interested me is the proposition that human beings are actually altering how our brains function through our immersion in the digital world form a young age. Looking back at my psychology classes, I distinctly remember discussing neural culling, which is the tendency of the brain to expand frequently used neural connections and discard less used connections. As a person interested in English, and language in general, the way technology has impacted the way students today write is an issue that I will eventually confront as an educator; honestly, I'm not sure if writing in paragraphs, versus a longer more integrated work, is necessarily worse writing, maybe simply different. In Eats, Shoots  and Leaves, Lynne Truss offers the idea that in an age of Facebook, blogging and instant messaging, young people are actually writing a great deal more frequently than the students from the paper-and-pencil generations.

The epidemic of Internet addiction in South Korea, however, was quite sad, but unsurprising. I remember when the first large online multi-player games arrived; I played Ultima Online for about a year, and I found it to be an addictive experience. Many times I played through the night until early into the morning, and I frequently thought about the game when I was supposed to be occupied with other tasks. I really pity what those children and their families must go through; where can you escape technology and the Internet in today's world?

The success of the school which featured the integrated use of technology, reading scores up 30% and math up 40%, is a testament to the necessity of making learning techniques relevant to digital native students. For better or worse, our students are now in a world which is shaped, guided and defined in terms of technology, and it is futile to think that we can ever take the classroom back to a pre-digital world and successfully instruct digital students.

The most disturbing topic was probably the military recruitment centers in the mall. The modern disconnect between accepting risk by participating in warfare and dealing risk fundamentally alters the nature of warfare. When I hear about drone strikes in Pakistan or Yemen, it really makes me wonder if we will someday live in a world where drone strikes will be conducted on us from far away places, and the kind of terrifying lifestyle that must engender for the populations affected.