GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
Many proposals don't address how having a Web-based task is better than or does something that a "paper and pencil" classroom activity can't do. A complain of many critics of Web-based educational tasks is that they don't do anything that traditional ones don't.
Preparation for the U.S. citizenship test, Ding, Yi <yiding@students.uiuc.edu>
This seems like it could be a very useful site. I'm assuming that the citizenship test does not involve the use of audio recordings. If it does not, then using audio on the Web page probably wouldn't be a good idea. To simulate the interview process more accurately, I'd suggest that all questions be asked by a video interviewer.
As for which images to use, I don't think you are limited to one. Use as many as you need. You can arrange the page so that an image is not loaded until the user (or the question) calls for it.
Are the tests available? I know that they try to keep these tests relatively secret. Can you get materials that mirror the actual test in appearance and content? Are these copyrighted? If so, how will you get to use them?
These are just a few questions to get you started. I'm anxious to see the finished product.
Site Seeing in the U.S.A., Draganescu, Marilena <draganes@students.uiuc.edu>
Research on travel is a great way to use the Web. There is a lot of information out there.
How is this going to be different from activities that are already done in "paper and pencil" classrooms? There are many wonderful things that can be done with reading materials to enhance students comprehension. Unless some kind of multimedia/interactive components are used, though, there is no difference between the Web page and a word processor page.
There are also many great things that can be done for listening drills: telephone calls, asking information, etc....
This looks like it has great potential.
No Title, Elatia, Samira <elatia@students.uiuc.edu>
The Arabic section is a good idea. If I'm not mistaken Arabic orthography doesn't include vowels. This can be very difficult for many language learners. Seeing the words, along with graphics and pronunciation, is a great way to reinfornce vocabulary items.
When these graphics are displayed what is the context? Are they just going to be laid out on a page? They could be placed in a picture and either be linked using an image map or layers.
I questions the French section's usefulness. This seems to be identical to something that I would do in class. Why would should this be put on a Web page? What is the benefit of moving this to the Web? These are the questions that need to be answered when developing Web-based materials.
Movie Review, Kim, Eun-hee <ekim10@students.uiuc.edu>
This looks really fun. To make this site really useful you should have student reviews appear on the page itself. Doing this constitutes some problems. You would have to use some sort of server side tools (database, ASP, etc.) or you would have to update everything manually from student e-mails.
Everything else looks good. I'm curious as to how you are going to go about teaching vocabulary and other lexical items.
No Title, Koester, Martin <mkoester@students.uiuc.edu>
This is definately a term project, or maybe two terms. It looks like a lot for you to do alone. Will you be doing this alone?
I believe that I've read that about 15 words at a time should be the max when teaching/learning vocabulary. Maybe this will help you answer the "how many words" question.
Linking the text, graphics, and audio files seems like a really good way to teach vocabulary. It shouldn't be too difficult to do, but it will be a lot of work.
The Practice Kit for the SPEAK Test at UIUC, Lee, Gabseon(Sunny) <glee2@students.uiuc.edu>
The SPEAK test is definately a difficult thing for international students. I think that this is a good idea and it could be very helpful for a Web page to deal with it.
I think that you definately want to have students record their responses and listen to them. I also think that you should have the ability to send these files to instructors/whoever. This is where the feedback could come in. There is no way that the computer can do this analysis for you.
Online Interactive Reading Exercise, Lee, I-chun <ichunlee@students.uiuc.edu>
This sounds good. I like the part where students will hear the audio with a scrolling passage. Have you thought about "schema activation" activities. This term is a little cliche, but I believe that it does work. You could do the same kind of scrolling activity with a video clip, or maybe a Web search, etc....
American Holidays and Tradition - "Thanksgiving", Oh, MiJung <mioh@students.uiuc.edu>
Cultural activities are interesting for students. Thanksgiving has a very interesting past. You might want to go to the Lingua Center homepage and look at some of the things that Ann Salzman has done, http://deil.lang.uiuc.edu/web.pages/holidays/purpose.html.
How are you going to give feedback? When you ask students the questions in your outline, how are they going to respond?
A Web-based Activity for Intermediate Learners of Hindi, Singh, Sunita <ssingh2@students.uiuc.edu>
I'm not sure exactly what you plan on doing. As far as typing in Hindi, you may be able to download a Hindi IME program from the Microsoft homepage. I don't know what the best way to find it is, but I know that they have the program for Chinese, Japanese, Korea, ...., so they might have it for Hindi. Basically, you could link the download site from your Web page and have users download it. The program allows users to type the language into Web forms and various (mostly Microsoft) applications.
No Title, Sun, Chien-Yeh (William) <chiensun@students.uiuc.edu>
Sounds good. What kind of article are you looking at? Something that they are going to know about previously or something that is completely new? This would make a difference on how you approach the reading/listening assignment.
The Web is great for teaching reading and writing. There are so many things that can be done.
No Title, Trost, Steve <strost@students.uiuc.edu>
Looks good. It looks like you'll have a lot of support for your users. I'd like to see a rationale, maybe a target group for the 2nd proposal though. I'm not sure what you are going for on that one.
Spring Holidays, Turner, Rebecca <rsturner@students.uiuc.edu>
Like I said above, I think that holidays are good topics for international students. How are you going to lay this out? Are your activities going to be organized according to the list in your proposal? Are these going to be separate or interlaced?
Learning About Measure Words in English, Woo, Hui-jeong <hwoo@students.uiuc.edu>
Culture is a difficult topic for many language learners. My favorite book series is call "Culture Shock 'country name'." This book helped me to adjust to living in Korea when I went, from going to people's home to drinking culture.
What are "measure words"? I'm not quite sure.
Created by Daniel Craig