Rationale

 This Virtual Language Resource center is designed for  twelve  pre-kinder children of 4  years old. The proficiency level of the entire group corresponds to the “Principiante” level of the National Standards (Ministerio de Educación, 2006)—or its equivalent A1 of the Common European Framework (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte; 2002). However, since they have just started learning English and most of them have very little or not previous experience in doing so, they are beginners—a stage that the Council of Europe and the Association of Language Testers in Europe place before the A1 level Harmer (2007)

            The predominant learning styles of these students are visual and kinesthetic. Similarly, the most common multiple intelligences of the groups are bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, musical and interpersonal. Thus, these learners love to have fun with their teachers and friends through Total Physical Response activities in games, songs, chants and stories. Their interest in learning is boosted with videos, flashcards, paint, crayons, colors, play-dough, clay and sand among others.

    These youngsters, as most children in their year group, have very special physical, intellectual, and social features. Physically, they are in the process of mastering fine and gross motor skills; they look clumsier compared to children a couple of years older and they have not yet mastered writing, cutting, coloring and pasting skills.

     Intellectually, their thinking is very concrete; their understanding of the world is based on what they perceive and this makes them believe that everybody perceives the world as they do. Not only does this egocentrism makes it difficult for them to understand other people’s point of view, but also lowers their tolerance to frustration. Additionally, their attention span is very limited and their thinking is still bonded to their behavior. They cannot concentrate for long periods of time on a task (10 minutes more or less) and it is easier for them to do an action than to talk about it. These might explain their predominant kinesthetic learning style and multiple intelligence. Araújo (2000)

            Because of their age, language level and schools' expectations, these students need to expand their lexicon and learn frequently used patterned language in order to understand and follow instructions, comprehend and reply to questions and meet their basic personal needs. These learners need to focus on a central topic by which they can develop their communicative skills through simple utterances. They need to gain familiarity with the use of English as a second language in the classroom and outside it. Finally, since they are beginning their school life and most parents overprotect them, they are very dependent. Consequently, it is necessary to help students gain self-confidence and independence and train parents to relinquish control.

As the centre was designed to pre-kinder learners and they needed support from adults, it was taught to involve and ask for their parents'  help, but it  was not possible because of some school  limitations. The school disagreed with the idea of involving the children' parents in the development of the activities because of the lack of English knowledge, the lack of parents' time and the students lack of familiarity with technology. 

It is important to clarify that this centre will be used during the English classes at the students  classrooms.  The center will be supported and guided by the teacher in order to review and give clear instructions  and reinforce the vocabulary seen in class. Learners will have collaborative work in class and a little bit on the virtual environment. Besides, the teacher will have a facebook account  where she will  save  and upload the students' work. When the learners' tasks are ready uploaded in the facebook account, learners will see  their jobs and will give feedback to the others in the classroom supported by the teacher.