The Use of Webquest For Teaching English Vocabulary in An EFL Young Learners Context

Abstract

In Globalization era, English teaching has been incorporated to the use of internet and virtual reality to build
up language learning which is attracting academic interest. How to create a good English learning
environment for the Indonesian primary students-whose native language obviously not English- to learn
English has become a challenging issue.  Web Quest is an inquiry-oriented online learning activity in which
all of the information used by learners nowadays is drawn from the Internet. Online learning language
through Web Quest is no longer limited to online communication such as mails, chat, forums, or other online
activities for learners to visit occasionally. Some studies also addressed the use of Web Quest as an
application in online leaning which were integrated in learners’ study experience and able to promote English
learning interest. This study is one of the examples of such issue in which it focuses on the effect of Web
Quest-based learning on vocabulary mastery of primary learners. The study took place in Bandung, West
Java. In addition, this was conducted in one of famous English course which is facilitated with the internet
and computer as media for learning English language. The researcher took one class as participants of the
study. They were primary students ranging from 9 to 10 years old that had mostly the same English language
level. In addition, this study used pre-experimental design with one group pre-test-post-test design. The result
of the study indicated that using Web Quest was effective in teaching English vocabularies to the primary
students. This means that there was significant difference of students’ achievement in vocabulary mastery
before and after Web Quest treatment.