Evaluation of an LMS for Productive Language Skills

Abstract E-learning is considered to be a matured field, both in theoretical foundations as well as practical applications. It has been greatly boosted by the dynamic and explosive growth of web technologies over the past decade. However, e-learning is still hampered by the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach where an e-learning platform is often designed to be used for all disciplines. This is the practice for most of the dominant e-learning platforms even when the reality that each discipline has different needs is already a well-recognized fact. In order to address this shortcoming and the needs of language learning specifically, our research team has developed an e-learning platform to help with the productive aspects of language skills, especially writing. The system has been tested for one semester on a group of learners in UKM. The results suggest that the system has teething problems like most prototypes would, yet it has managed to deliver on the premise of assisting with tasks like essay writing and written communication. This paper will discuss the features of the system in detail and describe the evaluation of the system.