I have spent the past few days exploring the website Quest Garden in order to examine WebQuests and explore the educational value that they add to the language classroom. I have found many advantages for using WebQuests in language classes that I believe teachers of English, especially in the Palestinian context, need to be aware of in order to enhance their teaching skills through incorporating technology in their classes. I am saying that because I have been constantly contacting Palestinian teachers of English, like Mr. Tawfiq Khwaireh, who have informed me that the Ministry of Education has been supporting the use of technology in Palestinian schools, especially in governmental ones, through establishing new computer labs and making the internet accessible to teachers and students all over the school.
What are WebQuests?
The name "WebQuest" can be quite misleading. Web generally refers to the internet, and quest, as defined by Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, is "an act or instance of seeking". However, WebQuests do not involve looking new information up using Google or other search engines. In fact, they provide students with the necessary knowledge that they need to discover, and the students' job is to learn the new knowledge through using it to accomplish a task.
In an interview with Dr. Bernie Dodge, the creator of WebQuests, he explains that WebQuests have a standard format: introduction, description of the task, structured process, and evaluation.
In each of these parts, the students are provided with detailed explanations of what they are expected to accomplish.
Here is an example of a WebQuest that is particularly helpful for English teachers because it takes them directly to the context of using WebQuests in their teaching. This WebQuest was designed by Dr. Tilly Harrison. She used this WebQuest to teach the ICT in ELT students at the University of Warwick about WebQuests.
Moreover, Here is another example of a ready-made WebQuest that you can try. It encourages young learners to read for fun and be involved in discussions about the reading they do. There is a huge number of WebQuest tasks on various topics available at websites such as WebQuest.org and QuestGarden for free.
Why use WebQuest in Palestinian Schools?
As mentioned earlier, the Ministry of Education in Palestine is putting a lot of efforts and resources to enhance the curriculum, especially that of the English language, through providing schools with technological tools and services. In addition, teachers are being given many training programmes in order to improve the quality of English classes through adopting more communicative approaches to language learning and teaching.
Through WebQuests, teachers will be able to achieve the two goals of using technology and of creating a communicative environment in the classroom. Dr. Bernie argues in the interview that WebQuest is based on the assumption that learning is a social activity where knowledge is primarily collected through interacting with other learners. This practice in itself promotes the communicative atmosphere in the classroom, for students will interact with each other and with the topic being discussed in a more authentic way. In addition, students are encouraged to perform higher-order thinking skills. In order to facilitate practicing the skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, WebQuests help learners to practice them in a structured way, which makes them achieve tasks which are significantly more advanced than the ones they would achieve following other traditional methods.
Moreover, it is necessary to acknowledge the role of the teacher in scaffolding the students to overcome the challenges and to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Students constantly receive feedback and assistance from the teachers while working with WebQuests in order to be able to overcome the obstacles and to remain engaged in the task.
Any Challenges?
Nonetheless, since WebQuests require students to perform higher-order thinking skills, teachers need to be careful when using this tool, for students may easily get overwhelmed. If the students are asked to perform tasks which involve the skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation without receiving the appropriate scaffolding from their teachers, they will most likely feel that they are incompetent and will, therefore, get disappointed. As a result, the teacher needs to be aware of the fact that he/she will need to assist the students all through the task and to take into consideration the different cognitive abilities of the students. working with WebQuests demands from the students not only being good at the language but also having developed thinking abilities, which not necessarily all students possess equally. Therefore, the level of scaffolding that the teacher offers to students might vary, yet the teacher needs to be very conscious that he/she should not make the students feel that he/she is offering more help to ones more than the others, for this issue is quite of a sensitive nature.
All in all, WebQuests are great tools for language classes, for they involve developing students' language as well as cognitive skills. However, the fact that students work more independently and interdependently demands special attention from the teacher, for he/she should make the right decisions at the right time for the right student.
