Summary

The Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) materials described in this assignment are two lessons with five exercises each. The first four exercises are designed to prepare students for the fifth descriptive writing exercise. The target group includes A2 to B1 (almost elementary to pre-intermediate level) students aged 9 to 12 in my home country, in which English is not spoken as a native language. The first three exercises are created via HotPotatoes and DreamWeaver, and the fourth and fifth exercises are created via Dreamweaver only. The aim of the first three exercises is to provide students with the necessary lexis for describing people and animals. The fourth is a speaking exercise which aims at giving children the opportunity to express their thoughts and describe a person or animal to a classmate before individually doing the final, written exercise. All the exercises, including the final exercise, are intended to be conducted in class. The pedagogical rationale behind these exercises is that teaching vocabulary before writing is essential, as emphasised by many empirical studies. The collaborative learning represented in the fourth exercise is also found to be good preparation for writing. Moreover, the literature reveals that videos and pictures are effective in activating students’ free vocabulary and are powerful in preparing students to adequately express their thoughts.