Week 2: Analysis of a Website

The second activity consists of a comparison between the article which you have already analysed in Activity 1 and a website where plenty of learning tips are provided.

Try to find the differences and similarities between the content and the structure of both texts.

Once you have done it, you can read the ones we have done.

1)  Marta Osorio & Arnau Cunill

Module I was a virtual, didactic course where a teacher guided students how to learn English. So, it was not clearly autonomous learning. In this website, on the other hand, an approach to independent autonomous learning is provided. The author gives several tips to master a second language. It reflects that whenever learning a second language, two different aspects must be taken into account. There is a theoretical view to language X and a social part. The author tries to combine both approaches so that learners can succeed.

Although some of the suggestions are clear, common sense and practical, the main problem we see when using this approach is that students will never be corrected, that is to say, there is no much feedback (i.e. although the student makes mistakes, no one will correct him/her explicitly. Therefore, the student may speak comfortable and fluent, but with lots of errors). 

2) José Mira & Gerard Morales

Module 1 presents a structured, clearly designed program in which all activities have been scheduled for the learner to work on his own with the tools provided by the Internet. Its main aim is to teach students how to improve their learning of the English language within a virtual framework.

In the LLTA article, instead, learners are given plenty of advice and options they can easily access in their daily life for learning to move forward. It does not stick to the virtual framework, but touches upon many areas of life where learning can be implemented, not only the Internet. In relation to this, we can also note that Module 1 is restricted to a less large audience because it requires used to handle, if basic, some knowledge of how the Internet is used.

One of the fundamental points of Module 1 approach is that is concentrates on assessing what the learners’ level of English is in order to make them aware of the stage they are at. Contrary to this, LLTA supplies a wide range of language learning levels to be covered. It proposes activities of many sorts that can be much more helpful for a successful performance of the L2: real, natural, spontaneous language, also grammar books…

Finally, it is worth mentioning that whereas Module 1 is actually academically oriented, as marks, time limitations and self-evaluation progress must be provided, LLTA prefers to give students a list of materials that can be used for them to learn their L2 as best as possible.