challenging trends: on design and implementation of a moodle-based reading course and its promise for the development of l2 reading ability

From among the technological breakthroughs of the 21st century, modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (moodle) has marked a major milestone in pedagogy as a course management system that allows elt enthusiasts with little or no programming savvy to develop interactive, highly customizable web-based courses for quality education. the first part of this paper is devoted to an extensive review of six design principles (cummins, brown, & sayers, 2007) where the researcher detailed the development of a sample moodle-based reading course in a stepwise manner and in the following order: stage one is characterized by providing learners with opportunities for deep processing of meaning using the glossary module of moodle; the second stage aims at relating instruction to prior knowledge and experience by familiarizing practitioners with the mindmap tool, its stunning features, and the way it can be exploited to activate students’ schemata; the third stage has as its overriding objective the promotion of collaborative inquiry among learners using the wiki module; the fourth stage is characterized by encouraging extensive student involvement in all language skills using the rss (rich site summary) module; the fifth stage aims at promoting strategy investment among learners using the workshop module; and finally, the sixth stage has the goal of promoting students’ identity investment using the my moodle page. the second part of the article reports on the results of an experiment where the researcher examined the affordances, if any, of the moodle-based reading course designed earlier for the development of students’ l2 reading ability.