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Analysing student participation in Foreign
Language MOOCs: a case study
Elena Bárcena, Timothy Read, Elena Martín-Monje & Mª Dolores Castrillo
[mbarcena,emartin,mcastrillo]@flog.uned.es & tread@lsi.uned.es UNED, Spain
Abstract: This article discusses the theoretical aspects and practical applications of foreign language massive open online courses
(henceforth, LMOOCs). Firstly, LMOOCs are presented as a fairly recent didactic modality that has emerged with an enormous
potential for rich, flexible, and attractive collaborative learning and social interaction, in a world where huge economic unbalance gives
rise to people with very different access opportunities to both formal language training and the diverse communicative scenarios that
enhance the development of language competences. Secondly, the article also analyses the opposing views of LMOOCs presented by
skeptical experts. While the practicality of this educational model is generally accepted as providing ‘useful experiences’ with more or
less epistemological value, there is still some fundamental doubt that this educational model will actually be useful in helping students
gain a command of a foreign language. Thirdly and finally, some of the conventional course quality factors are questioned, namely
student participation, dropout and satisfaction. This will be illustrated with data from a sample course undertaken by Bárcena and
Martín-Monje: “Professional English”, the first LMOOC in Spain, with over 40,000 students.
Key words:
Language MOOCs, Instructional design, Peer-to-peer.
Introduction
In general terms, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)
refer to a new model of online education delivering
content and proposing activities to meet learning goals
for a large number of people with a shared interest, with
no initial limits of access, attendance and credits offered
at the end (1).
Despite the potentially enormous conflict of interests
with the objectives of formal educational institutions and
the many criticisms raised in the literature by unconvinced
experts (Jackson, 2013), this concept is both having a significant
impact upon the online educational community,
with hundreds of thousands of people undertaking these
courses, and gaining significant media presence, where
hardly a week passes without a new article or report being
published on the subject.
An example of this media phenomenon was the definition
of 2012 by The New York Times as “the Year of the
MOOC”. However, the difficulty with MOOCs starts with
the term itself, which can cause confusion since a number
of courses offered as MOOCs actually violate at least one
of the letters in the acronym, while others have caused a
number of hyponyms to arise (TOOCs, SOOCs(2), etc.).
For example, how many students must a course have to be
considered “massive” Can there be no quantitative, qualitative,
financial, etc. entrance restrictions for MOOCs
Can MOOCs not offer blended training and include faceto-face
sessions Do they have to be independent activities
with a well-defined learning goal, etc.
The problem is that the more we try to define the term,
the less “open” it becomes and, conversely, the more
open-ended we leave it, the harder it becomes to differentiate
MOOCs from other Education 2.0 initiatives (Siemens,
2012). While practice is leading theory here in that
efforts are being made to refine the concept empirically
around what works best (number of hours, students, etc.;
Read & Bárcena, 2013), its methodology (the optimum
design to meet the same epistemological goals that are
achieved in other well-established ways), arguably the
core issue, inevitably depends to a large extent on the
technology that is being made available, something which
is constantly evolving.
Despite the conceptual and terminological confusion
related to MOOCs, they have been very well received
by society, in terms of student numbers, course statistics
and teacher satisfaction (Martín-Monje et al., 2013).
Students obviously appreciate the lack of associated cost
and the enormous flexibility of access and commitment.
Furthermore, unlike one of their key precursors OERs
(Open Educational Resources), which consisted mainly of
freely available learning materials, something that is fundamental
to understanding the contribution of MOOCs
is how they knit together the concepts of education, entertainment
(gamification) and social networking (Read &
Bárcena, 2013). They are both learner-centred and socially
oriented, placing the emphasis on the social interaction
generated in study groups around flexible learning materials
and related activities, which the students find both
stimulating and rewarding.
Research Track | 11