Barbie's Weblog

Using WebQuests to Engage Students in the French Classroom

            A WebQuest according to the article, ?Five Rules for a Great WebQuest,? is ?an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web.?  WebQuests when well written can be an excellent tool for both teachers and students because they provide structure and make the volume of information on the web much more manageable.  With WebQuests, students are researching predetermined sites and resources given rather than just aimlessly searching and feeling overwhelmed by the plethora of information available on the Internet.  WebQuests generally include an introduction, which presents the students with a real-world problem, a task, which explains what students have to do, resources, which link to websites and worksheets students will need to reference to accomplish their task, the process, which lists the steps that students must follow to complete the task, evaluation, which explains how students will be graded, and a conclusion stating what students should have learned and accomplished by the end of the entire process.  In addition, WebQuests engage students in higher-order thinking by asking them to analyze synthesize and evaluate the information presented and then having them produce a real-world product that illustrates their understanding of this information. 

            The author of this article, Bernie Dodge, presents five guiding principles that one must consider when choosing or creating a WebQuest for their students.  He first states that teachers must ?find great sites? that are interesting to our students, current and accurate.  Therefore, when creating a WebQuest for my own students, I plan on identifying sites and archives that are unique and provide a variety of information from which students can draw.  Next, he states that teachers must, ?orchestrate their learners and resources.?  Therefore, I will make sure that all students have something to do at all times so that there is no down time in the classroom.    In addition, when writing the process, I will make sure that each student has a unique role that requires students to collaborate as a group in order to be successful.  Afterwards, he mentions that teachers need to ?challenge their learners to think.?  To accomplish this task, I will assign my students a real-world problem and assign them a task that requires them to use their higher-order thinking skills.  Finally, he recommends that teachers, ?use the medium,? and ?scaffold high expectations.?  To accomplish this task, I will take advantage of the multimedia environment that the web offers by including audio, video, and images.  Finally, I will model and provide the necessary resources to help students achieve higher expectations by including tips, guides and charts that illustrate how students are to approach various tasks.

            I see several applications of WebQuests and I intend on using both WebQuests currently available on the web and designing my own WebQuests with my French students in the future.  In my French II classroom, I teach my students house and apartment vocabulary as a part of the curriculum and a WebQuest would make this topic more interesting and give it a real-world context.  As a part of this WebQuest, I would assign students to groups to research apartments in Paris, France online.  I would give students a list of sites in French to access where they could study and learn what apartments are like in France including their location, price, size, what furniture/appliances are included, colors, etc.  Students would be given the real-world task of locating an apartment, designing the interior and marketing it to prospective clients.  Each student would be given a different role as well such as designer, apartment manager and marketer.  Each of these roles would require students to complete different tasks needed to accomplish the end product, which would be either a brochure or poster.  In addition, students would be required to interview other agencies about their apartments and to respond to interviews from prospective clients about their own apartment.  In the end, students would have to choose the apartment that is best fit for them based upon all of the information provided and justify their choice to their classmates and the teacher.

            I could also see using WebQuests in my classroom to teach students about all of the major sites and monuments in Paris.  In this type of WebQuest, students would pretend that they are a travel agency creating an all-inclusive vacation package for a family on a given budget.  Students would have to research transportation costs and times for the subway, plane and train.  They would also have to select the best sites to visit and research their cost and location.  Students would also have to consider including a variety of things to do since it is a family vacation.  In the end, students could once again create a brochure and engage in interviews with various agencies about their packages. 

Posted at 02:43PM Nov 03, 2006 by bdbook in General  |  Comments[0]