WHERE WOULD YOU LIVE?

Introduction

Hi everyone! The goal of this project is to design a WebQuest for students of the 2nd year of Compulsory Secondary School taking English subject. We are Idoia Izquierdo, Sonia Prieto and Maialen Ros, three girls taking the Master in Secondary and Sixth Form Teaching, Vocational Training and Language Teaching at Valencian International University and this project is part of the subject Innovación docente e iniciación a la investigación educativa de Lengua Extranjera.

Now, imagine you just turned 18 and you want to go abroad to improve your English and make a living. You should choose whether you would prefer living in the USA, Australia, England, Scotland or Ireland, and why. You would need to search information about accommodation, transport, jobs, culture and other aspects you may find relevant for your decision and afterwards, defend your choice using a poster.

Task

1- TASK: Brainstorming (creativity task)

1. Gather in pairs.

2. Make a list with all the “must have” of the perfect city to live.

3. Then, the whole class will create one list with all the contributions that each pair has made.

2- TASK: Pros and cons list (self-knowledge and compilation task)

1. Gather in groups of 4 (depending on the number of students per class) and one country will be assigned to each group.

2. Each group will make a list of pros and cons of the country they have been assigned.

3- TASK: a poster and its defense (creative, design and persuasion tasks)

Prepare a Glogster (a poster)  to convince your classmates of your election. The poster should include information about: accommodation, transport, work and culture.

Process

We propose three different tasks based on Bernie Dodge’s (1995) classification:

  1. Make a “must have” list → creativity task

  2. Make a pros and cons list →  self-knowledge and compilation task

  3. Create a poster and defend your country → creative, design and persuasion tasks

These tasks will have some points that  are essential for a good working environment:

  • We will work in small groups throughout the whole project.

  • The autonomy will be an important part of these tasks since all of them encourage self-regulation and self-determination.

  • To avoid the feeling of imposition, all the decisions will be taken democratically.

  • To guide the process of creating a pro and against list, web-pages that contain videos, or lists will be provided, so there are different examples of the work to do.

    • The poster should include all the information that has been searched for, such as the accommodation, transport, work, culture, etc,.

Evaluation

Marking criteria

  • Poster: 50%

  • Peer assessment and self assessment: 20%

  • Observation of group-work, behaviour, participation: 30%

Rubric for assessing the poster

Group members :

CATEGORY

VERY GOOD

GOOD

FAIR

POOR

CONTENT. Explanation of the country, pros and cons and opinion

Relevant information is included and each part is correctly developed

Relevant information is included but the parts not wholly developed

There is information but most of it is not relevant

All the information is not relevant.

ORGANISATION.

Student presents information in logical and interesting way and the rest of the peers can follow it easily

Student presents information in an orderly way and the rest of the peers can follow.

Their peers have difficulties following the presentation because the student does not follow any order.

 

Audience cannot understand presentation because there is no sequence of information

 

 

DELIVERY.

Holds attention of entire audience with the use of direct eye contact, hardly ever looking at notes

 

Consistent use of direct eye contact with audience, but still returns to notes

Displays minimal eye contact with audience, while reading mostly from the notes

 

 

Holds no eye contact with audience, as entire report is read from notes

PRESENTATION. Material resources

Clear, and direct. All the information is included and there are no errors.

 

Clear and direct. All the information is included but some mistakes can be found

 

Relevant information is missing and some mistakes can be found

Difficulty of understanding the slides due to the number of errors and desorganisation of them

OVERALL USE OF LANGUAGE

Excellent use of vocabulary and grammatical structures.

Good use of language although with some errors.

Use of different vocabulary and grammatical structures but some important errors.

Poor language use

 

>Peer-assessment rubric and Self-assessment rubric (the same)

Group members:

 

Content: relevant information is included

1

2

3

4

5

Organization: coherence and cohesion

1

2

3

4

5

Delivery: reading notes, all the members participate and time limit

1

2

3

4

5

Poster presentation: material resources (errors, layout, creativity)

1

2

3

4

5

Language use: regarding grammar, vocabulary, and register

1

2

3

4

5

Comments:

 

 

 

 

 

Overall mark (from 1 to 5):

 

Conclusion

The aim of this project was to propose a WebQuest for 2nd ESO students. Students had to accomplish three different tasks: creating a list of ‘must haves’ in a city, making a list of pros and cons about a place, and finally, presenting their choice using a poster. In order to do so, various web pages and videos have been recommended, thus, making the work for the learners easier and much more straightforward.

Overall, this project was intended to prove the students’ ability to work in groups, the way to grasp the most important information and their presence and performance when presenting their choice in a poster.

If you have reached this point, congratulations! Now it turns to properly assess yourself and your peers, so be honest and fair, as this is not a matter of who gets the highest mark, but of learning.