Flight path
I am the current chair of the Department of Languages at the regional university in Oaxaca, Mexico. I oversee a degree in language teaching, English as a foreign language courses for students in all the other departments and English for Specific Purposes courses for students taking Masters’ degrees. Each of these three areas could benefit from a virtual component to complement F2F teaching.
I propose to focus on the EFL courses for the many students in the other degree programs that the University offers.
Background
Though all students entering the University have taken EFL at high school, most enter our institution with almost no English. To graduate from the University, undergraduates have to certify by taking the TOEFL exam. Students take EFL classes in large, heterogeneous classes. Weak, less motivated, or passive learners tend to get left behind. This has long lasting consequences for their success in our course and for their performance at the University in general.
Proposal
I propose to develop an online component to our EFL course, making it a blended learning environment. I understand that this is a large and time consuming exercise and agree with Dudeney and Hockly (2007, p. 154) that it is not a “cheap” solution.
The course will be housed on the Moodle platform that the University set up last semester. It will offer multimodal means for practicing with the content, complying with Bates and Pooles’s recommendations that multiple forms of content representation respect differences in students’ learning styles (2003, p. 86). The standard paper based multiple choice exams will be replaced with online self-correcting versions, thus freeing up time for the teacher to concentrate on answering students questions in forums. More advanced students will get credit for helping weaker students in Q & A forums or Blogs. Respecting Chickering and Ehrmann’s seventh principle “Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning” (1996), homework assignments will involve students working in groups to create multimedia content in the target language and uploading it for class feedback. This will allow students to express themselves in the mode of their choosing to best suit their learning style. The class will also use a Wiki to build a glossary of new vocabulary. Finally the students will use the platform to evaluate themselves, the course and the teacher. Students might also be required to keep a blog diary to reflect on their learning.
Skills needed
To be able to build this course I need to master the following skills:
Course design on the Moodle platform
Online testing
Forum use
Wiki construction
Video editing
Pod casting
Forum use
Online surveying
Blogging
Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education (pp. 75-108). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996). Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm
Dudeney, G. & Hockly, N. (2007). How to Teach English with Technology. Harlow: Pearson Education