Hi, we meet again. I hope everyone is fine. For this entry, I would like to share my two-cent opinion regarding a brilliant ESL website named englishtestscore.net. I stumbled upon this website when I was looking for a good grammar exercise online. I can go on rambling the whole day about the advantage, disadvantage of this website or its practicality and such. But let me use these questions below as my firm guidelines as to avoid me from blabbering blatantly.

Question 1
What does the website attempt to teach? Are exercise included in the website? What are the types of exercise included? Are these immediate feedbacks? Are there different level of difficulty for different proficiency levels?

Basically the said website offers everything that you could possibly expect from esl website. It provides some meaningful learning experience for your speaking, writing, reading and listening skills. Yes my reader, all of it. But the core aspect of englishtestscore.net is its grammar. You can literally do tons of exercise to improve your grammar. And the best part is, all the answers for the questions are immediately given with an adequate explanation, giving an opportunity to the leaners to aware of their mistakes and errors. The exercises included are varies, for example, for grammar you can have multiple choice questions where you just have to click your desired answers and the correct ones will pop out. And for writing maybe the exercise will require you to rewrite the certain sentence while the meaning of the sentence does not change and so on. Besides, it also has different exercise for different level of proficiency. Are you still in the beginner level in English? Don’t worry because this website has loads of exercise for you. How about intermediate and advance level? It has it covered. Do you wish to find out if you are an absolute grammar nazi? I will recommend you to try the sudden-death Super Grammar Challenge Contest where you need to have streak correct answers to proceed to the next level. Besides, the score for each exercise, test or quiz will be attached to the screen when you have finished it, so it is easier for you to check you progress in learning the language.



Question 2
What are the learners/visitors required to do with regards to learning the content of the website?

Upon laying your eager eyes on the webpage of this website, I could guess few adjectives that will probably run throughout the back of your mind : intimidating, complicated, mundane, boring, haywire, colourless and all negative words. As a frequent user of this fantastic website, I would say relax and take a deep breath. This website is not that scary, I promise. My first advice for the fellow users would be you should be clear of your proficiency level, what you wish to learn from it and your expectation after your log out.
After you have clarified these things, you can check out the boxes provided, choosing which section of the boxes you should click on. For example, I usually visit this website because I would like to do some grammar exercises for advanced level and since I don’t have specific aspect of grammar I want to practice on, I click on Super Grammar Challenge Contest and from there I can find out my performance in grammar. Or if I would like to improve my listening, I can click on the Listening section, proceeding with some provided exercises like Filling Gap, Short Conversation, Picture Description etc where the audio are attached together. This website is quite simple to be maneuvered around; you just simply need to know your level and what you want to learn.

Question 3
While you are going through the website, does it remind you of anything you do in a classroom, or with a teacher, or with a fellow classmate, or in self-study?

Browsing through the website, I admit it reminds of the exercise I did during the classroom. When I was in a high school, I still remembered my favorite English teacher distributed grammar exercise; encompassed of multiple choice questions, and just like the exercise in the website you are given some feedbacks. When doing some exercises in the classroom, often we chat with our classmates to share our opinion, to clarify things, to ask questions and so on. And guess what, you can also have little chat with registered members in this website as well. Through this online chatting you may have an opportunity to actually connect with native speakers, enhancing your language skills in the outside classroom. Having a chat may give you a glimpse of authentic communication in real life situations, improving writing skills, learning the target culture etc. So if you are a new user, don’t be shy, just hit the chat window and ask for helps or shoot any related questions to other users. You will be surprised how friendly they are.

Question 4
Does the website present learners with something that cannot be done in a textbook/workbook? If yes, how so.

This website is quite similar with the traditional textbook or work book in many levels. You are given some exercise and the answers are provided as well. And just like the textbook/workbook, you are given the immediate feedbacks. Well I guess the advantage of the website compared to the textbook probably would be: a) The website gives you the score the moment you finish your exercise within the allocated time so doing exercise in this website will give you some preparation for your actual test , b) you can do listening exercise whereby you can listen to an audio and answer the questions given, c) if you are bored with traditional exercise and drill you can play language games like English Crosswords, Basketball English Grammar, Hangman and so on and the games are interactive and fun.

Question 5
Can you pinpoint some theories of language learning and/or teaching underlying the application?

Have you ever felt that you are a letdown when your grammar level is not up to par and your teacher points that out in front of the class? Been there done that. As a second language learner, it is not uncommon to develop a language ego meaning you are easily get offended and embarrassed when someone corrects your errors and mistakes. We know that nobody is perfect and that is why we always need another pair of eyes to point out our errors and mistakes. The problem is, some ‘grammar nazis’ are quite harsh in correcting the mistakes. Perhaps the harsh feedback or cruel tone could deter you from improving the language. It is normal for second language learners especially high school students to get hurt because of the unfiltered feedback, compelling them to hate the language. However when using the website, you will feel comfortable to receive the feedback as the feedback provided are natural, nonjudgmental. So the learners can learn from their mistakes without dreading some unforgiving feedback from anyone. This whole fiasco of harsh feedback could lead to anxiety. And this issue should not be threaded lightly as according to Brown (1973), anxiety in language learning can be detrimental factor to successful learning. And I think this website could somehow eliminate the said factor. Eliminating anxiety certainly can increase one’s self-efficacy. According to a famous psychologist Bernard Weiner, who proposed attribution theory,(1986, 1992, 2000) stated that the leaners will likely to succeed in language learning if they are not judged by anyone and they will feel they are capable of carrying out the task given. And using this website can enhance ones’ self-efficacy as no one is blatantly judged here and the users can take rein on how they should proceed with their lesson.


Question 6
An important criterion for evaluating a CALL program, task, activity is the potential for language learning. Does the website fulfill this criterion? If yes, how so?

Upon using the website, I have improved my language learning by doing its exercise and playing its little games. Based on my humble opinion, I think this website has its own potential in language learning. It has spurred the users to always improve their language. I think the biggest reason why the users would likely love to learn and improve themselves could be the grade given after each exercise and test. I am motivated to learn more grammar when I am eager to increase my mark each time I do the tests.

Question 7

Would you like to use the application for yourself in your future work?

It is a booming yes! I couldn’t find any reason why I shouldn’t use this website in my future work. In fact I could give you plenty of reasons why I will continue using it.
1) This website has everything that you could possibly want to improve in English. You want to improve your speaking? Check. You want to improve your  reading? Check. You want to improve your  grammar? Check.
2) This website is quite simple to use and once I’ve bookmarked it, I can do random exercises whenever I am online. The score provided for each exercise really helps me in tracking my performance.
3) I have learned many things from this website, so I would suggest you guys to at least check out the webpage. I promise it is worth it.
4) I used to show this website to my students during my practicum and based on my observation, they enjoyed doing the exercise using computer. And they felt intimidated, pressured, and excited when they have to answer the questions based on the allocated time. Then they would squeal in delight when they were rewarded with some marks or scores for their effort, wearing a satisfying smirk after that.
I think despite all the advantages mentioned above, this website has its own glaring disadvantage. If you wish to learn something for example preposition, this website does not include the explanation or reading material for that, it only offers the exercises for that topic. And it is quite disappointing actually to know that.
I think that’s all for now. I hope whoever reads this post will find this piece helpful in finding a good esl website. Before I forgot, her is the link for the website in case if you are interested to check it out later. Goodbye.


http://englishteststore.net/