WebQuest, an inspiring source

Theme parks

🌟The link for this webquest is http://questgarden.com/204/40/2/191123072006/index.htm

🎉Introduction

As we can see in this picture, it is about how to choose the best theme park in USA and introduce it to the class. The target group would be 9-12 year-old students.

🎉Analysis

    Instruction

• Clear and detailed. Good instructions of the task will help students to understand what they need to do during the process. Unclear instructions will force students to ask teachers again and again, which will affect classroom efficiency.

• Logical. Every step in the process is considered by the author and conforms to people's thinking logic. They are not written randomly and disorderly.

    Stimulate Motivation

• Interesting topic. For students between the ages of 9 and 12, “theme parks” is very attractive.

• Imaginary role play. Students can choose the point they are more interested in from ride, food, landscape and show/entertainment, and judge the advantages and disadvantages of the theme park from the perspective of a critic. New angles bring new discoveries.

    Collaboration and Team Work

• Encourage students to cooperate. They should first discuss the division of labor, and finally synthesize the information collected together and report the results in the name of a group. In fact, this process is to enhance students' communicative and cooperative competence.

    Autonomy

• The space to work individually. It doesn't just make students cooperate in groups all the time. After the division of labor, students can independently query useful relevant information according to the resources provided by the teacher, which exercise their skills of information inquiry.

• Feel free to express and share. Teachers do not excessively participate in the research process but give students full autonomy to complete the task from their own perspective. In this case, they will be more passionate to share with others (including the teacher).

All the materials (mainly from the theme parks websites)are authentic!

    Limitations

• Identify the number of theme parks that students need to investigate. The author writes in the introduction that there are 13 theme parks, but the subsequent video is about top 10 parks, and then the number of website links provided by the author are 8.
  
  
  

  

• Some links have expired and need to be updated.

• Maybe teachers can provide more informations or links that can see tourists' comments, which help students see the theme park from different angles.

🎉Conclusion

Overall, this webquest design takes into account the ability of reading, writing(need to write an article) and speaking. It not only exercises the students' skills to query information independently, but also enhances their both communicative and cooperative competence. It also allows students to expand their vocabulary about theme parks. 😊