Educational tasks modelling on the basis of the web-quest technology (from the experience of teaching Foreign Languages)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the aspects of designing learning tasks using web-quest technology as a method of independent information search by students on a given topic with the involvement of foreign language sites. The object of this article are the learning tasks designed by the teacher for the effective teaching of a foreign language. A review of previous studies is presented, a position is suggested according to which the result of this design is a three-stage model that includes modeling the communicative situation, defining the complexity of the learning task and determining the form of the task and the technology for solving it. On this basis, the authors outlined the fundamental principles required for the development of learning tasks and related tasks: the principle of tasks' correspondence to normative documentation; the principle of consistency; the principle of individualization and differentiation of education; principle of development of independence; principle of reflexivity. These principles formed the basis for the proposed author's algorithm for the phased development of learning tasks based on the web-quest technology. It is noteworthy that the algorithm steps are specified for different subjects of their implementation: a teacher, taking into account the experience of colleagues, and students working individually, in pairs or in groups. The discussed algorithm is applied in the development of a web-quest on the relevant topic "Martin Luther and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation". The proposed topic can be studied in "Foreign Language" classes within the "Great People of Germany" block of the work program. The authors demonstrate Internet sources that make it possible to collect information about the person being studied, his creativity and the essence of the Reformation, as well as sites that can be used to compile and post web-quests on other topics being studied. © 2018 Transilvanian Association for the Literarure and Culture of Romanian People (ASTRA). All rights reserved.