MERLOT - Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
Home Communities Learning Materials Member Directory My Profile About Us

Peer Review

Become a Member | Log In

Dave's ESL Cafe

 

Ratings

Overall Rating:

5 stars
Content Quality: 5 stars
Effectiveness: 5 stars
Ease of Use: 5 stars
Reviewed: Apr 05, 2001 by World Languages Editorial Board
Overview: This site is a colorful meeting place for students and teachers of ESL/EFL, featuring games, quizzes, discussions, job announcements, and many links. Addressing many academic and practical needs of learners, it offers an entertaining array of learning activities for practicing reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar skills at several levels of difficulty. Consistent with the author's casual style, the site features slang, daily quotations, and history trivia along with the more common fare of phrasal verbs and American idioms. Dave's ESL Cafe creates active communities for teaching professionals and for learners and an informal forum where those two groups can come together.

Evaluation and Observation

Content Quality

Rating: 5 stars
Strengths: Powerful and invaluable materials and tools for teachers and students.
Concerns:

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating: 5 stars
Strengths: This friendly site can give even hesitant learners a smooth introduction to the Internet. Its organization is clear, its graphics attractive and its content of manageable size and depth for most learners. Quizzes, which are categorized according to topic and sometimes level of difficulty, present language in context and include scoring. Although the site has limited use as a core teaching tool, it is a highly effective means of encouraging interaction among learners, a convenient and engaging means of independent study, and a timely resource for ESL/EFL teachers.
Concerns:

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating: 5 stars
Strengths: The site's design is clear and logical. Navigation is nicely simple. The attractive home page includes a table of contents and immediate access to job announcements for teachers along with discussion groups for teachers and learners. No special software or hardware is needed to use the site.
Concerns:
--%>