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Analysing student participation in Foreign Language MOOCs: a case study Elena Bárcena, Timothy Read, Elena Martín-Monje & Mª Dolores Castrillo ensure that they worked with them in an organized way, all the materials in the Professional English MOOC were available to students from the beginning of the course in order to fulfill the condition of openness in this type of modality. The teaching team decided to rely on the students’ responsibility to take their study seriously and not rush through the materials inappropriately. This feature provided flexibility to the course and allowed the course to be undertaken at different times and rhythms. As for the scaffolding mechanism that led students to simpler explanations and activities on a given topic when difficulties were encountered, it was used by less advanced students and valued as one of the key aspects of the course. This feature allowed for the diversification of the usefulness of the course, particularly since there was no entrance or diagnosis test. Learning and using a language involves a number of written and oral skills and competences, including linguistic (formal), pragmatic (contextual) and sociolinguistic (cultural and intercultural) (following the terminology of The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages [Council of Europe, 2001]), all of which have a comparable importance in successful communication, particularly in professional environments. However, many computer-based language courses emphasize the development of reading/writing skills and on formal rather than functional linguistic aspects, because of their computational intractability (Chowdhury, 2003). For this course it was decided to include the most computationally problematic areas of language teaching, namely oral and written interaction and sociolinguistic competence by making the most of the P2P tool available in the Miríada X platform. Students were asked to upload a video recording with an oral presentation on a given sociolinguistic topic and the online platform automatically sent the uploaded file to three other students, who had to provide feedback to their course mates using the following criteria: 1) appropriateness of vocabulary, terminology and register; 2) grammatical correctness; 3) fluency, pronunciation and intonation; and 4) intelligibility and coherence. Guidelines on how to provide useful and respectful feedback were provided in the course guide (consisting of an explanatory video recorded by the teaching team and a document), which was available for consultation throughout the course. Special emphasis was given to avoid erroneous feedback by asking students to stick to areas that they felt confident about and by asking for help if in doubt. In any case, the seven teachers tried to supervise most of the P2P activity and observed that the majority of students were prudent and responsible when they felt unsure about the correctness or appropriateness of a given element in the video. In fact, as the literature of P2P reveals, there is a tendency to be more cautious in correcting others’ production than in one’s own production. Furthermore, the students acknowledged (and there was evidence of this being true) having searched on the web and consulted several resources on the preparation of their feedback. On a negative note, it must be said that students focused their attention and criticism on criteria 1) and 2), rather than 3) and 4) (see above). Since they were university students (and highly likely to have undertaken a number of formal/conventional English courses in their academic lives), this preference is probably a reflection of the prioritization that they have experienced as students by their teachers. However, the skills which correspond to criteria 3) and 4) are of utmost importance in the professional world (Belcher, 2006), so further guidelines in this sense are likely to be incorporated into the feedback section of the course guide for future editions of the course. Conclusion This paper has provided an account of the first edition of the first language MOOC in Spain, which has recently taken place in the Miríada X platform. Although the overall feeling of the experience is rather positive both for students and for the teaching team, there were very significantly divergent results, reflected both in the statistical records of the students’ log and the final student questionnaires. The analysis of the data made it obvious that language MOOCs capture the interest of the population, but publicity is clearly not focused in the direction of those people who could benefit the most by free and open courses: the socially unprivileged and those out of formal education. A thorough revision of this area is required in the future. There is a huge variety of MOOC models being used at the moment and results on the methodology of the Professional English MOOC demonstrate that most of its features are worth preserving for future editions of the course. However, there was considerable dropout, which reflects the misconception that the general population has on MOOCs, despite the fact that each course had an associated number of European credits, and that could give them a rough idea of the volume of work involved. However, the fact that they are free makes people register with no commitment to continue, and randomly poking around in the course, due to curiosity, although subsequently dropping out. This is likely to carry on to some extent in the future and questions the validity of course abandonment as a quality variable for MOOCs (Read et al., 2013). Finally, the P2P activity was developed by the platform developers as a key tool that would enhance interaction and was welcome by the language teaching team because of the opportunity to put into practice what is a key skill in language use. However, a large number of students, who acknowledged the importance of interaction, etc., in the questionnaires, failed to make the most of this opportunity, probably because of the extra work, time and effort that it entailed, a common social phenomenon that has been widely acknowledged by language teachers in this country. The teaching team has realized the need to change this attitude of language learners and intends to emphasize the importance of collaborative learning from the beginning in the next edition of the MOOC so that students realize the incoherence underlying their atti- Research Track | 16
Analysing student participation in Foreign Language MOOCs: a case study Elena Bárcena, Timothy Read, Elena Martín-Monje & Mª Dolores Castrillo tude and their loss by failing to undertake this type of P2P activities. Among the measurements for the next edition of the LMOOC “Professional English”, an entire subsection is intended to be included within the course materials with the highly positive testimony of the minority of students who undertook the P2P with an attitude of effort and commitment. 1. An earlier and longer version of this article was presented by E. Martín-Monje, E. Bárcena and P. Ventura at ECLL 2013 – The European Conference on Language Learning (U. of Brighton, July 2013). 2. http://chaosbook.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/foundational-soocs-specialized-open.html (last accessed: 1/10/2013). 4. Hilton Head, SA http://www.nmc.org/events/2013-summer-conference (last accessed: 1/10/2013). 5. The Mixxer. Language exchange for everyone http://www. language-exchanges.org/blog (last accessed: 1/10/2013). 3. 625 Free MOOCs from Free Universities http://www. openculture.com/free_certificate_courses (last accessed: 1/10/2013). References Bárcena, E. & R. Varela (2012) Professional English. Working and socializing internationally today, Madrid: CERASA. Belcher, D. (2006) English for specific purposes: Teaching to perceived needs and imagined futures in worlds of work, study and everyday life, TESOL Quarterly, vol. 40: 133-156. Castrillo, M.D. (2013) Cómo gestionar un curso online desde la perspectiva de la masividad. I Jornada de MiriadaX http://noticias.universia.es/vida-universitaria/noticia/2013/07/19/1037101/universidade-santiago-compostela-acoge-i-jornada-miriada-x.html (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Chowdhury, G. (2003) Natural language processing, Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, vol. 37: 51-89. Cohen, L., L. Manion, L. & K. Morrison (2007) Research Methods in Education. London: Routledge. Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dillenbourg, P. (1999) Collaborative Learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. Advances in Learning and Instruction Series. New York, NY: Elsevier Science. Jackson, N.B. (2013) On MOOCs and some possible futures for higher education http://noelbjackson.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/onmoocs-and-some-possible-futures-for-higher-ed/ (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Lewin, T. (2013) Universities Abroad Join Partnerships on the Web, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/education/universities-abroad-join-mooc-course-projects.html_r=0 (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Martín-Monje, E., E. Bárcena & T. Read (2013) Exploring the affordances of Massive Open Online Courses on second languages. Proceedings of UNED-ICDE (International Council for Open and Distance Education), Madrid: UNED. Nunan, D. (1992). Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pappano, L. (2/11/2012) The Year of the MOOC, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massiveopen-online-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.htmlpagewanted=all (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Read, T. (in press) MOOCs: attending educational demands of society. In G. Palazio and T. Read (eds.) MOOCs, PLEs and LMSs. London: Mac- Millan. Read, T. & E. Bárcena (2013) MOOCs and open higher education: the case of UNED, In G. Palazio (ed.) Proceedings of Ikasnabar 2013 - 6th International Conference on Open Education and Technology. Publishing Services of the University of the Basque Country (electronic format). Read, T., C. Corral & P. Pernías (2013) Evolución de las plataformas tecnológicas de cursos masivos, IV Jornadas eMadrid sobre MOOCs, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Read, T., E. Bárcena & C. Rodrigo (2010) Modelling ubiquity for second language Learning. In International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation. vol. 4, no. 2: 130-149. Robson, C. (2002) Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-Researchers. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Romeo, K. (2012) Language Learning MOOCs https://www.stanford. edu/group/ats/cgi-bin/hivetalkin/p=3011 (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Siemens, G. (2012) MOOCs are really a platform, Elearnspace http:// www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-a-platform/ (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Stevens, B. & Bárcena, E. 2002, English for Tourism. CERASA, Madrid. Wildberger, N.J. (2013) MOOCs and TOOCs and the role of problem solving in maths education. http://njwildberger.wordpress. com/2013/05/19/moocs-and-toocs/ (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Worlock, K. & L. Ricci (2013) MOOCs: Cutting Through the Hype. http:// www.smarthighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/MOOCs- CUTTING-THROUGH-THE-HYPE.pdf (last accessed: 1/10/2013). Research Track | 17
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Self-Regulated Learning in MOOCs: D
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Extending the MOOCversity A Multi-l
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Encouraging Forum Participation in
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MOOC Learning in Spontaneous Study
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Dropout: MOOC Participants’ Persp
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Reflections on Enrollment Numbers a
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The SIRET Training Platform: Facing
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MOOCs in fragile contexts Barbara M
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Cultural Translation in Massive Ope
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A typology and dimensions of a desc
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Characterizing video use in the cat
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How Students Learn using MOOCs: An
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A Platform that Integrates Quizzes
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Designing Video for Massive Open On
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Proceedings Experience Track Procee
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Opening up higher education through
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Designing your first MOOC from scra
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“A hostage to fortune” - Valida
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and others discussed COER13 issues
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tion process, in addition to the mu
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TORQUEs: Riding the MOOC wave to be
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Engineering MOOCs for Future Engine
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The Discrete Optimization MOOC An E
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Recasting a Traditional Course into
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Evaluation and field trials of MOOC
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Learning Electronics through a Remo
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Learning Electronics through a Remo
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abiertaUGR: modelling online learni
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abiertaUGR: modelling online learni
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University of London International
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The EPFL MOOC Factory Patrick Jerma
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Open Online Courses in the context
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Open Online Courses in the context
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Friendly Handmade Explanation Video
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Friendly Handmade Explanation Video
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Designing for the Unknown Learner H
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Designing for the Unknown Learner H
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MOOC Experience in the University o
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MOOC Experience in the University o
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Mathematics Courses: Fostering indi
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First time MOOC provider: reflectio
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An Academic Online Resource at Téc
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An Academic Online Resource at Téc
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Opening up higher education through
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SPOCs for Remedial Education: Exper
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Experiments with connectivism from
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Towards a quality model for UNED MO
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Project-based MOOCs. A Field Report
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Project-based MOOCs. A Field Report
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Reviewers of Experience Track: Carl
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