Critical Review of Karin’s ESL Partyland

Merve ELDEM
1491331

The website of http://www.eslpartyland.com/default.htm is called as Karin’s ESL Partyland and it is both for ESL students and teachers. The creator of the website is Karin M. Cintron who says that her aim was to create a place for students and teachers highly interactive. She introduces her site as in the following “Karin's ESL PartyLand has quizzes, lessons, and lots of opportunity to talk to people around the world”. The website has also some famous rewards such as the Blue Web'n library. "Inclusion in the Blue Web'n library is an honor reserved for the best online lessons, activities, projects, resources, references, and tools." Moreover; Karin's ESL PartyLand was chosen by the Community Learning Network as a Network Nugget Selection! "Network Nuggets" is a listserv serving thousands of teachers around the world. This was PartyLand's first award.
In the home page of the site, there are two sections consisting of the box of student and teacher. Its student pages have over 75 interactive quizzes, 15 discussion forums, and interactive lessons on a variety of topics, a chat room, and lots of great links. On the teacher side, there are loads of lesson plans and reproducible materials to use in class.the site also provides discussion forums, ideas for communicative practice activities, a chat room, a job board, links, and more.
In the student page, there are some learning pages which are Dating& Relationship, Food, The Internet, The Media, Movies, Music and Travel. When you click on them, the discussion form appears questions related with the topic so that you can discuss about them.
Also there are the section of Activites&Games which are also related with the same topic. In the activites section, there are the parts of thinking about the topic, vocabulary, reading, writing and finally links for the further information. In this part, you choose the best option according to the statements above the questions. There is also idioms and expressions part where you can see some examples about different idioms.
In the quiz center, there are the sections of Business Center, Grammar, Idioms, Slang& Phrasal Verbs, Reading and Toeflesque, Trivia, Useful expressions, Vocabulary which changes according to level of difficulty such as difficult, medium, easy and very easy. They are made up pf multiple choice tests, fill-in-the-blanks and matching activities prepared by Hot potatoes.
In the discussion part, there are discussion forms for students where they can choose a variety of topics and write posts about their ideas. Dating and relationships, extreme sports, international cooking and cuisine, learning languages are some of the topics.
In the shopcool part, you can access to a variety of links related with learning and teaching resources. In the learning resource, there is Business English, Basic Texts, Dictionaries, Grammar, Idioms, Slang & Phrasal Verbs, Listening &Speaking, Picture Dictionaries, Pronunciation, Toefl Prep. and Vocabulary. Teaching resource includes Conversation and Grammar and finally Games.
In the teacher page, there are the pages of teacher under the title of Teaching Conversation, Teaching with Film& Video, Teaching with the Internet, Teaching with Music, Teaching Grammar, Teaching Listening& Speaking, Teaching Reading, Writing and Vocabulary, Teaching Integrated Skills. In the first part, there are the discussion questions for the teachers to use in the classroom. In the second part, there is films and videos also the activities to do before and during the film. In the third part, there are useful websites so as to use the technology efficiently. In the fourth part, there is music to involve the students by using songs. In the integrated skills part, there are a variety of activities with different topics to use each one of the skills.
In the chat section, you can have the chance of chatting with other ESL students and teachers in real time. Also there is the employment section where you can post job vacancies for free, look for a new job, or get the inside scoop on ESL.
Evaluation of the web site
It is quite easy to use this site and you do not need anything except a computer and internet connection. For the listening activities, you can need a headphone. This product is useful for the elementary and intermediate learners as it has simple examples and activities. The upper-intermediate and advanced learners can find these activities easy. The teachers also can benefit from this site. There are games, quizzes and activities for them to apply in the classroom.
The advantage of this site is the easiness of accessing as you can follow the pages by links and clicking on them is enough. Also every topic is in an order you do not mixed up by surfing on the site. By the way, the examples and discussion questions are very useful and creative. They can encourage students to speak and use their skills. The integrated skills part is another important section in the site which is an essential part to achieve in an ESL classroom. The best part of this site is the availability to both students and teachers freely. You do not need to register. The activities can be applied to students to increase their reading, speaking, writing and listening skills which makes the site quite useful. Also the vocabulary part can be taught with quizzes which help students to keep them in mind with ease.
The drawback of the web site is that it does not include enough visuals and it has quite simple web design layout. These can be a negative effect on the starters of the learners. Also some pages cannot be found when clicked on which shows the poor framework of the site. Apart from these, the website offers a variety of original examples and an elaborated content.