Wordle in EDU 401

Virtual Classrooms in the EFL Classrooms

   Last week, we had  a virtual classroom on 24 Febayray 2014 it was about "How Does Arabic Influence the Pronunciation of English?" by Miss. Peggy Tharpe. It was for one hour and with few number of people, only 15 students and 2 teachers were there Dr.Hala and Ms.Amal. Peggy explained why Arab people faced difficulties to reach the native speaker’s accent, English and Arabic language have differences on phonological, consonants and vowels. Also, there are differences in terms of the stress patterns systems. For example, L1 speakers do not differentiate between /p/ and /b/ in L2 such distinction is not available in their L1. However, She believed that an active listening skill very important to differentiate between the almost similar sounds this is the most effective solution for wrong Arab pronunciation.

      There are many advantages of Virtual classrooms. Firstly, it helps the learners to develop their language proficiency of the target language, maximize their knowledge about a particular issue, the teacher of L2 has different opinion from us, as a result the learners will build their own beliefs about the issue and improve their thinking skill. Moreover, Virtual classes can be reached any time of the day by the student, teacher can create his own virtual classroom. In addition,The teacher is availabe when help is needed like the classroom.

    

  However, virtual classrooms have also disadvantages as any other techniques of teaching, which mainly determined by the context where learning will take place. First of all, Not all schools have the technology, cost of the technology, lack of development of appropriate instructional and learning methods, lack of motivation to use such type of learning by the studnts. In addition, some students doesn’t have computer in their home.

  Finally, I think virtual classrooms is useful if internet connection was high, good sound system and appropriate size of screen. But the most important thing if the students were really interested of using this technique and being active with such classes. If I were a teacher I would absolutely use virtual classes whenever I need.

Do teachers need to create web-based language activities for EFL students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Why and why not?

      Internet is very rich of information, which can help both teacher and learner in teaching and learning process. It’s really important for Saudi teachers to create their own web-based language activities, quizzes or materials, because it can help them to plan their lessons and make really interactive lessons. They also can get many ideas, resources, assessment tools, exercises and other materials for using in their classes. They can surf on Internet looking for magazines, journals for the purpose of reading, or games or ideas for lessons plans and apply them in their classrooms.

     There are many other advantages of creating teacher’s own interactive language learning activities for the web, which include accessibility, renewability, and adaptability.Using web-based activities can also enhance basic language skills of teacher and learner. Teacher can put many vocabulary exercises, grammar lessons, comprehension exercises, reading or writing tasks, and pronunciation tests on the web and make it interactive in different ways. Also, language teachers can use the basic tools of discussion boards and Weblogs, HTML, JavaScript…etc., to create interactive, dynamic, and functional materials for their courses on the World Wide Web (www).So I think that’s why teachers in KSA should create their own web-based language activities. It will help them a lot in classrooms.

       In my opinion, most of the teachers in KSA schools don’t have web-based language learning, they only depend on traditional methods of teaching languages. Maybe this because teachers' lack of knowledge in how to create webs and how to deal with it or maybe they in past have learned in an old ways so they apply these old ways now. On the other hand, there are some teachers who teach in advanced schools start using these webs like in private schools in Riyadh. I know some schools and universities teachers who use this web-based language activities. And I think in our soon future, all teachers will be having their own webs because this generation exposed to Internet very much, so they know how to deal with it.