Assignment 1 : DIGITAL ESL MATERIAL EVALUATION

 You are to evaluate an ESL website or ESL/ELT Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) or Mobile Application or ESL Games or Any ESL Teaching and Learning Digital Materials 

DEADLINE – (Week 5, 4/10) 

DIGITAL ESL MATERIAL EVALUATION 

1. You are to evaluate an ESL website (on English as a Second Language Teaching & Learning) or MOOC or Mobile Apps or any form of Digital ESL teaching and learning tools by answering the attached list of questions. Do not forget to include the site’s address in your commentary.  
2. Your answers to each question must be at least one paragraph in length. 
3. This evaluation task is to be done individually. 

Evaluation Guide 

https://www.memrise.com/learn-english/

1. What does the website or MOOC or app or tool attempt to “teach”? Are exercises or activities included in the website? What are the types of exercise or activities included? Are there immediate feedbacks? Are there different levels of difficulty for different proficiency levels? (You can add any other comments you think is important to point out).  

Memrise uses spaced repetition to accelerate language acquisition. Spaced repetition is an evidence-based learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect. 

The courses are packed with thousands of video clips of native speakers speaking in their native language, in their hometown. So students can learn to understand authentic voices and accents, as well as taking in the scenery and getting a sense of the culture. The types of exercise included are mostly visual and auditorial, however it is mainly self-reflective in terms of feedback. Despite that, students are free to evaluate their own proficiency level and given the variety of difficulty levels, they are able to choose one that suits them and proceed from there. 

2. What are the learners/visitors required to do with regards to learning the content of the website or MOOC or apps? 

Students are required to sign up, and make an account, firstly. Afterwards, there are options of language courses for them to choose from and they can enroll in. The courses will guide them through conversational structure of the chosen language using flashcards and emphasizing on memorization by spaced repetition to acquire the language.The use of spaced repetition has been shown to increase rate of memorization. Although the principle is useful in many contexts, spaced repetition is commonly applied in contexts in which a learner must acquire a large number of items and retain them indefinitely in memory. It is, therefore, well suited for the problem of vocabulary acquisition in the course of second language learning, due to the size of the target language's inventory of open-class words.

3. Does the website or MOOC or app or tools present learners with something that cannot be done in a face-to-face classroom? If yes, how so? 

Yes, which is the opportunity to learn more than one language with guidance from the native speaker of the chosen language. This presents a wider field to acquire language despite only emphasizing on the structural parts of them because as far as vocabularies go, conversational is enough. Memrise is built with a mix of technology and science that brings the mind to life. Re-reading endless lists of words and phrases is boring, and the brain knows it, getting them to use what they are learning in a variety of ways and at specific times can be exciting and effective and increases their interest in learning more languages.

4. Can you pinpoint some theories of language learning and/or teaching underlying the application? 

Memrise focuses on drilling/rote and repetitive practices, therefore it falls under behaviorism emphasizing on operant conditioning. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. When a desirable result follows an action, the behavior becomes more likely to occur again in the future. Responses followed by adverse outcomes, on the other hand, become less likely to happen again in the future.

5. An important criterion for evaluating a CALL program, task or activity is the potential for language learning (i.e. will student learn something?) Does the website or MOOC or app fulfill this criterion? If yes, how so? If no, why? 

This app does fulfill the criterion, by accumulating several languages aside from English, it creates a common ground for students from other countries to learn other foreign languages for example, an American student learning japanese, a Korean student learning Spanish, an Italian student learning Malay, etc. Even if the app mainly operates on conversational level for the language structure, students will be able to speak the language enough to understand simple phrases such as "where is the toilet?" and "may I know the name of this place?". While they will not be able to speak it fluently, they will be able to acquire basic levels of understanding of the language and that is enough foundation to go on more than most.