Abstract:

Given the large amount of resources that are daily developed for language learning purposes through the Web, it is necessary to establish methodologies to evaluate them from a pedagogical standpoint. After exploring several existing evaluation methods for Web-based language learning resources, this paper goes on to suggest a series of pedagogical evaluation parameters for such an evaluation that takes into account the main topics, areas of interest and findings of previous research in the field of Web-based CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning). This theoretical base is used to build an evaluation tool to examine the pedagogical characteristics of language learning resources based on the Web and related technologies. The tool, consisting of an evaluation rubric, is later used to evaluate two language learning resources on the Web: the BBC educational websites to learn Spanish and English. The reason for this selection is based on the fact that the BBC has traditionally been concerned with the promotion of high-quality language learning through the use of the news and current topics of general interest, in other words, content-based and contextualized learning. Although the study cannot draw any general conclusions regarding web resources to learn those languages, the paper does compare both language learning resources and suggests a methodology to compare the treatment of several languages in similar Web-based language learning resources.

Keywords:

Web-based CALL, pedagogical evaluation, Spanish as a Foreign Language, English as a Foreign language.