Karin's ESL Partyland
Introduction
Next, I checked
out Karin's ESL Partyland, which
provides information for both students and teachers.
Content
I found that there was more information for teachers than students, for teachers could teach
listening, speaking, reading, writing, and even vocabulary! This site is not
too interactive overall for the ESL student, although the homepage does boast
of having over 75 interactive quizzes, 15 discussion forums, and
interactive lessons on a variety of topics, a chat room, and lots of great
links.
Navigation
I began to investigate the quizzes. I simply clicked on the link
"student pages" because it said that under this link I would find the quizzes.
At this point, I was confused, for I was taken to another page where I did not
see the word "Quizzes" in big letters. In very small letters at towards the top
of the screen, there is a menu bar. I was unaware that the little tiny yellow,
green, and blue squares actually contained links, for I could not view them
accurately. The font is really small, probably at about eight point font. This
is extremely small, and therefore this site needs to be a little bit more
navigable terms of layout and style.
Then, when I clicked on "quiz
center" there were various links that, when clicked upon, could take me to
reading quizzes, grammar quizzes, and useful expressions quizzes, to name a
few. When I clicked the grammar link, it brought me down towards the bottom of
the page, where I had the choice between very easy, easy, medium, and difficult
grammar quizzes. So, at first, it was hard to navigate where I wanted to go,
but after I figured it out, it was a cinch. Plus, I was relieved to see that
this site made accommodations for the different difficulty levels as well as
topics to be quizzed on. Also, at the end of every quiz category, there is a
link that will take the user back to the top of the screen. I even entered one
of the quiz centers, which consists of about ten questions, and the background
is solid blue.
Summary
There are no pop-up windows or sponsors or annoying boxes like
on the homepage, which is very relieving. Students are going to come to this
Web site to take a quizzes to test their skills. The site overall looks professional. And once the user figures out where he/she wants to go in the site, it seems to
be smooth sailing getting from place to place.
Rating
I would rate this site a 3 plates out of 5 for the trouble
that it caused me and for the fact that the text appears too small in some
areas.
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