Do teachers need to create web-based language activities for EFL students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Why and why not?

Teachers should create their own interactive language learning activities on the web because it allows them to tailor the activities to suit their own courses and students and a whole lot of other advantages, like:
1-Accessibility to the material on the web 24/7 and updates can be done at any time and the students will be notified immediately.
2-The material can be renewed and updated easily and often.
3-Web-based activities can easily be modified to support students at different proficiency levels or with special needs.
4-The teacher will catch the students interest by the web activities since most of the students are digital natives.
5-The teachers know best what will benefit the students and help their development.

Virtual classrooms in EFL teaching

Last week, my classmates and I took a virtual classroom by ms. Peggy Tharpe, the session was called: "How does Arabic influence the pronunciation of English."

The session involved us watching, listening and responding to ms. Peggy's session. The session lasted for almost an hour, it involved two classrooms in my college approximately 15 to 20 students, two teachers and ms. Peggy. In the session ms. Peggy explains why it isn't easy for Arabs to reach the naive-like accent of English speakers, the difference in the phonetic system between Arabic and English, the common pronunciation mistakes and how to fix some of those pronunciation issues.

What I loved about the session was the aids ms. Peggy had, it was very easy to keep up with what she was saying because it was aided by pictures and examples.

Regardless of me liking or disliking virtual classrooms, they have clear advantages and disadvantages. Some of the advantages are: Students develop their language and critical thinking skills, the teacher is available when assistance is needed like in a real classroom, the virtual class is accessible via internet 24/7 for the students, any teacher any where can create a virtual classroom and students every where can access it.

The disadvantages are: The institution does not have enough economy resources in order to implement a virtual classroom, the lack of motivation from students and teachers in the use of technology for the teaching and learning process, some students do not have access to personal computer at home and some teachers do not have the knowledge in how to manage technology resources

After stating all of that, if you'd ask me would I use virtual classrooms in the future. my answer is definitely! Nothing is perfect, and I think that virtual classrooms are the way of the future, technology nowadays is cheap and available worldwide and the resources online are wide.

Wordle in EDU401