UNIT 3: Application - How to Use MOOCs for English Learning

Aim: Participants will be able to use and adapt courses of Coursera for listening and writing in English.

There have been papers dealing with usage of MOOCs in enhancing English skills in temrs of listening or writing. Freihat (2014) compared the two groups’ English learning. One of them were taught through the instruction with MOOCs while the other one was taught through the traditional method. The result revealed that there was a significant difference between the group with MOOCs and that without MOOCs in their listening test outcomes. More specifically, the group which studied listening skills in English through MOOC was able to distinguish the differences in pronunciations better than the control group. Also, in the study of Buendgens-Kosten (2015), students with MOOC were likely to make connections between English listening course topics and their social network services channels.

When it comes to using MOOC in English writing, McCorkle, Halasek, Clinnin, and Selfe (2016) developed undergraduate-level composition MOOC and taught writing to undergraduate learners. They found out that the students utilized online discussion forum of the course for sharing comments and ideas about writing each other. The discussion forum was used effectively; however, there were opinions of the students saying that they needed feedbacks from teachers as well. Furthermore, for more easy and efficient adaptation of MOOCs in English learning, it is necessary to train the participants to better integrate MOOCs and their own instruction (Freihat, 2014).

In this Unit, participants will learn the way of adapting MOOCs to teach English. The primary skills are listening and writing; thus, participants can choose either listening or writing, or both of them, based on the results of the pre-assessments of Unit 2.

Lesson 1: Listening

Participants will see the demonstration of choosing an example course and make listening materials via www.lextutor.ca. The course shown in this lesson is an example; therefore, participants can choose the appropriate one, considering their students’ English level and needs.

In order to learn how to use MOOCs in English listening, please refer to the manual (File:Coursera listening.pdf).

Lesson 2: Writing

Participants will see the way of selecting an English composition course as an example. Since writing is not a one-shot activity, participants should more carefully take into account their students’ learning situation. For example, they can ask students fewer/more and shorter/longer papers to write based on the available time that students can spend. Students may write individually or cooperatively. If the writing task is too difficult for students, participants can provide them with additional supporting materials (e.g. vocabulary list, useful expressions, or example writing sample that students can refer to during the writing).

In order to learn how to use MOOCs in English writing, please check this manual (File:Coursera writing.pdf).

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There have been discussions on the usage of MOOCs for English learning, revealing that using MOOCs for English education has many positive benefits. On the other hand, there are challenging aspects as well. For example, participants have to spend extra time on finding decent courses in MOOCs platforms and adapt the course materials for their classes. Also, there might be students who struggle to preview the MOOCs courses before the class. Unless they take the MOOCs in advance, it might be harder to participate in class activities or catch up the class. Therefore, it is important to keep taking care of students’ learning and understanding. In order for that, participants can have regular communications with students can be a good way. Besides, participants should understand well if they are happy with using MOOCs for their class and what the good points and bad points were during the process (Erwen & Wenning, 2017).

After the instruction (e.g. after a semester of using the course and materials that you choose and design for your students), please conduct the non-graded self-assessment for reflecting the experience of using MOOCs in English class and thinking about the further usage: Non-graded Self-assessment.