Al-Amri, M.
(2009). Starfall website: teaching English as a second or foreign language. The Electronic Journal for English as a
Second Language 13(3),1-10.
The author Majid N. Al-Amri, is an Assistant Professor in
the English Language Department at Yanbu
Industrial College,
Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. He has a B.A. in
English Language Education from Taibah
University, an M.A. in Applied
Linguistics from the University of Essex, UK and a PhD in Curriculum and
Instruction from New Mexico State
University, USA.
This article takes us through a tour into a free website that is geared towards
helping those students in preschool, first grade, second grade, special needs, home schooled, and English Language Learners (ELD, ELL, ESL). The website is
called Starfall and it is designed, produced and published by experts with
successful backgrounds and experiences in publishing educational products. Its
main purpose is to help learners master speech sounds and letters in meaningful
context where students can negotiate meaning to accomplish a real-world
communication task. The website has easy navigating tools and visual cues that
allow learners to engage in varied activities, games and materials
independently, in pairs, or with the whole class. The activities and games are
attractive and interactive. The website could also be used with ESL/EFL
learners with special needs because of its large print, easy navigation,
audio/read-aloud feature, and slow movement of letters and graphics. The
website helps build up key characteristics of a communicative language
environment, namely the opportunity for the students to use language within a
purposeful context. Another positive feature of this website is that the
ability email, print out or save materials can help the ESL/EFL students
practice and enhance their social, cognitive and meta cognitive skills.
Starfall.com is a fun and useful website for learners who are beginning their
journey as readers or who need practice with fundamental reading skills.
