Chosen VSAC sites

So, here we go on the task:

I looked at two websites linked to VSAC, one for reading and the other one for grammar. I took my time with that. That's why I didn't look at more. Here are my findings:


Reading
intermediate level reading strategy exercise

http://www.readingcomprehensionconnection.com/cgi-bin/dcts1.pl

Text:

People love Superman because he always saves the day! Superman started as a comic book character. He was first drawn in 1938 by two men named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. He was an immediate success! Everyone loved the man from the planet Krypton. Since then, Superman has appeared in comic books, newspapers, movies, and on television.

1st question:
Find the best replacement for the word immediate.

a)popular
b)slow
c)very great
d)at once

I chose "very great" to check the feedback. It said "Incorrect. Try again."

My view: It is difficult to guess "at once" from context. In fact, given the co-text, I think "very great" is the most likely choice.

More exercises like this follow.

Then this:

Which sentence would best complete this paragraph?

a)Superman started as a comic book character.
b)One of the most famous characters of fiction is called "Superman."
c)Superman is as popular today as he was more than half a century ago.

My view: this tests comprehension and also the ability to interpret the task correctly. What this has to do with reading strategy, is not apparent to me.

The same goes for the following deduction question:

Which sentence could logically be inserted in this paragraph?

a)Superman led the way to many other 'superheroes' in comic books.
b)The Superman movies were not very good.
c)Superman was created before Batman.

The 7 criteria:

1. The linguistic characteristics of target language input need to be made salient.
The tasks are clear, but do not relate to the section I chose. No task addresses reading strategies.

2. Learners should receive help in comprehending semantic and syntactic aspects of linguistic input.
Not given. The learner receives "correct" or "incorrect" as reply to their effort. It would be helpful to have an explanation as to why a choice is incorrect, e.g. the real meaning of the word in the vocab exercise.

3. Learners need to have opportunities to produce target language output.
Multiple choice. No output.

4. Learners need to notice errors in their own output.
They don't through reflection or indication. Firstly, this is multiple choice, so there is no real output in terms of produced language. They are told that the answer is incorrect and they should choose another one. Basically, they are ruling out the wrong answers.

5. Learners need to correct their linguistic output.
They do, by multiple choice, eliminating wrong answers.

6. Learners need to engage in target language interaction whose structure can be modified for negotiation of meaning.
Not given. Synonyms in the vocab section could have helped.

7. Learners should engage in L2 tasks designed to maximize opportunities for good interaction.
No interaction.

Apart from the task assuming that everyone knows Superman and Batman, it disappoints as it does not give any help with reading strategies. It is a mixed task of vocab guessing and reading comprehension. There are thousands of tasks like this on the web, which work in the same way, so this one here is not special. If we take the 7 criteria, the task fails to address most of them, simply because the reader does not produce anything. The task about completing the paragraph, for example, could have been exploited to that goal. This was the first task that came up when I determined my choices (intermediate/reading strategies), so I would have expected something more tangible, or salient, to get me started.


Grammar
Guide to Grammar and Writing
No level indicated, no choice of e.g. intermediate, advanced etc.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

"highly recommended" by VSAC

On paragraph level, I chose an exercise on coherence and transition.
While doing so, I noticed that the site presumes a very high level of English for the reader, making it difficult to say how accessible this really is to learners of, say, IELTS 5.5. level. I also looked at prepositions on sentence level, the exercise related to which was all right, if not interactive in terms of production. It was a "click all the prepositions" exercise, which then went on to explain why some words that often are prepositions are not in this particular text. This may be helpful if the student is not put off by the sheer amount of theroetical reading.
But back to coherence and transition.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/transitions.htm

We look at explanations that could have been taken form a grammar book. That is not in itself bad. I look at grammar books a lot. So, a lot of information (rules, words, theory) is presented and some examples are given. Then we can move on to do an exercise.

The instructions are rather clear, but the actual task is exemplified by and requires a lot of meta language - perhaps quite the opposite of what a learner is looking for when trying to address one particular grammar issue. The information here is quite sound, but as I said, there is a lot of virtual teacher talking time and the application of the thusly acquired knowledge presumes a high level of language proficiency. So, for a lower level learner, this site may actually appear quite daunting. Once the task is completed (or at any time actually), the student can get the answers the website suggests.

So, back to the 7 criteria:

1. The linguistic characteristics of target language input need to be made salient.
The tasks are clear, and there is a lot of in-depth explantion, at times quite idiomatic (e.g. run the gamut), potentially making it difficult for lower-level users to find the site user friendly. There are some examples to illustrate the use of language features.

2. Learners should receive help in comprehending semantic and syntactic aspects of linguistic input.
Given. In the prepositions task, the learner receives explanations on why some words are prepostions and some, in the specific context, are not.

3. Learners need to have opportunities to produce target language output.
Very limited. The learner is required to identify devices for coherence. This does not make him/her actually produce them, but to analyse them and name them (meta language).

4. Learners need to notice errors in their own output.
Errors are not flagged. The student has to compare the own answers with the suggested answers. From an analytical point of view, this makes sense. From the learner's point of view, this may be inconvenient.

5. Learners need to correct their linguistic output.
Not given.

6. Learners need to engage in target language interaction whose structure can be modified for negotiation of meaning.
Not given. The exercise is entirely descriptive and does not allow for finding alternatives

7. Learners should engage in L2 tasks designed to maximize opportunities for good interaction.
Certainly, the tasks provide valid examples and good explanations, but they are not particularly interactive. The tasks I looked at are desinged for individual study and do not allow the student to expand. Practical language output is very limited.

All in all, this seems a good website for students who really want to engage in in-depth learning. It does not provide quick fixes or a lot of exercises. It presumes a high level of proficiency of the learner. From experience I would say that a large number of my current students (aiming at IELTS 5.5/6) might just close the site once they see the lengthy explanations that come before the small amount of exercises. Again, gramatically, the site is sound and it all makes sense. But it is quite theoretical behind a facade of superficial interactivity (clicking in places and writing down one's own thoughts in a text box).
It is not a bad site, but it does not at all levels satisfy the criteria we are looking at.

The two websites I spent quite some time looking at both do not fulfil all the given criteria. I do not believe that makes them bad websites with bad materials, but it may illustrate that to actually design web material that addresses a large number of needs and demanding quality criteria, is an extremely difficult thing to achieve that probably needs some serious funding if only to pay the programmer :). Still, the websites, I looked at are doing mostly fine in what they want to achieve, which is obviously different from what Chapelle's criteria ask for.
What does that tell me? Materials are not perfect and they need constant development. Whether the criteria Chapelle uses are really realistic, I will ponder another time.