Webquest: an efficient task-based learning method

As a teacher, have you ever think about making your students more engaged in class? Have you ever attempted to improve students comprihensive abilities instead of the ability to collect information? Or do you want to equip your students with teamwork skills? If you have the above concerns, what you need is: Webquest        

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What is webquest?

Webquest is a learnign tool which takes the pattern of task-based learning, the founder of webquest Bernie Dodge defined it as follows:

"A webquest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the web. Webquest are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, systhesis and evaluation." ---Bernie Dodge (2001)

Four characteristics of Webquest

From the definition above, we can briefly summarize that webquest has the following four features, which are also its advantages in ELT.

👉 inquiry-oriented
👉 teachers preselect sources
👉 collaborative learning

👉 students as participants

Elaboration of webquest's four advantages.

Here, i want to recommand the following webquests to you and use them as examples to elaborate advatages of webquest in ELT.

1. A webquest involving the evaluation of various webquests
2. An English holiday
3. Oh, the Possibilities!: Choosing an English Language Course Abroad

💕 Inquiry-oriented

Webquest is a task-basd learning which demands students not only to collect information, but also to reach a hypothesis, plan an activity or find a solution to some issue. For example,  "Oh, the possibilities" requires students to plan an overseas study trip with limit fund. "An English Holiday" asks students to make travel brochure and maps for an Engliand trip. "Cognitive psychology and constructivism" were built into webquest(Tom March, 1998). During this process, a plenty skills are needed and students will get comprehensive improvement. 

💕 Increasing students' engagement (Students as participants)

Students are seen as researchers instead of observers when using webquest, which will enhance their sense of participation in class.  Students play different roles in above webquests. For example, in "An English Holiday", students work as trip planners; in "Oh, the possibilities", students play the role of money managers; In the first webquest, students research various EFL webquests as education institution staff.

💕Collaborative learning

Collaborative learning is realised through spliting tasks into several different roles in Webquest. Usually, when faced with a problem, students in a team will paly different roles to make joint efforts to slove it. For example, in "An English Holiday", some students take charge of making maps while others are responsible for finding the cost of each activity or planning transportation. Teamwork ability and team spirit can be upgraded through tasks.

💕 Teachers preselect sources

Teachers preselecting sources can help get rid of unhealthy information for students. Also, it saves a lot of time for students to choose useful information from the Internet. Therefore, students' learning will be more efficient.

For more webquests

You can visit thousands of ready-made webquests here: the webquest garden

Hope all of you can find useful webquest~

Reference
Dodge, B. (2001). Five rules for writing a great WebQuest. Learning & Learning with Technology, 28(8), 6–9

March,T. (1998). Why WebQuests? An introduction by Tom March.