Connie: An Empirical Study Of The Model Of Webquest In College English Teaching

Since1990s, information technology has obtained unprecedented widespread application in various fields. With the development of information technology and the widespread application of Internet, education is facing a severe challenge, and is provided with a good opportunity at the same time. How to combine the advantages of information technology with instructional ideas and principles to improve the teaching quality of English curriculum in non-governmental institutions of higher learning is an important subject in front of the English educators.WebQuest, first proposed in1995by Bernie Dodge, a professor in San Diego University in America, is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the Internet. With carefully built WebQuests, teachers instruct students to learn independently, cooperatively, enable students to reach their full potential and improve students’abilities of innovation and higher level thinking.In the WebQuest activity, students can explore subjects by analyzing, integrating and evaluating network resources with situations created. It aims to develop students’abilities in collecting, dealing with information, analyzing and solving problems, as well as abilities of communication and cooperation. More and more educators are trying to put the theory into practice both in the studio and in the classroom.In the study, the author tries to introduce WebQuest into English curriculum in Kangni College, investigate the effects of integrating WebQuest activity into college English teaching and learning, and improve the teaching quality of English curriculum in Kangni College. In the meantime the author aims to find out limitations and defects of the implementation and tries to figure out solutions in order to make improvements of the mode in future study.This study has used the cultural heritage method, experiment method, test method, observation method and investigation method. At first, with the research of the cultural heritage method, the author has found out the current developments of the theories and practice of WebQuest. Then, the author selects a class as the experimental object and carries out the teaching experiment in the class. By using the research methods of questionnaire, data analysis and individual interview, the author assesses the result of the study and discusses the limitation of the study and gives some suggestions for future study.The study shows that WebQuest for English teaching and learning in Kangni College is a remarkable success. It has made the class atmosphere more active, aroused students’ enthusiasm in English acquisition, stimulated their intrinsic study power, strengthened their learning independence, and improved their abilities in dealing with information, solving problems as well as abilities of cooperation and innovation.But at the same time, the author has also discovered that there are some limitations and defects in the research. In regard to these problems, the author has put forward some suggestions for the improvement of the teaching model for further studies.