Abstract:

In the present study we are going to see how the concept of genre (Orlikowski & Yates, 1998; Swales, 1990) has evolved to reflect the traits in the new existing genres or ‘Cybergenres’ (Crowston & Williams, 2000; Askehave & Nielsen, 2005; Shepherd & Watters & Kennedy, 2004). The emergence of cybergenres has not only affected the field of genre-analysis but also the field of language learning. Indeed a static approach to cybergenres from a language learning perspective does not seem to be the most effective one, due to the dynamism of such genres. Bearing in mind these reflections, it seems obvious that what language teachers really need to understand of cybergenres is how various literacies, various cultural traditions, combine to make meanings that are more than the sum of what each could mean separately (Lemke, 2003).
We are conscious about the existence of other fields related to language learning, but as far as this work is concerned, we are only going to focus on this feature: the use of cybergenres for language education. In this context, the main aim of this study is, therefore, to search how we can improve the students’ autonomy development through the design of language learning tasks which include the training in the new multiliteracies (Kress, 2003; Luzón, 2002; Villanueva, Luzón & Ruiz, 2008).
We are presenting a WebQuest-based design for the EFL classroom to be performed by students of English Philology within the subject of “English Language III”. Students were provided with a list of websites to gather information related to the topic “The Writing Process”. Finally, we also present the results obtained after the analysis of all the data collected.

Keywords:

Autonomy, literacy, cybergenre, webquest, cybertask, navigating, browsing, reading, EFL.