MOOC for Learning a Foreign Language. Pluses & Flaws (pt 3)
Several weeks ago I joined a MOOC about learning some Dutch .
It was an experiment - I'm currently studying MOOC as a brand new "tool" to use it in my future teaching.
Here (in Part 1) I shared a couple of things I liked and disliked about it.
And here (in Part 2) I talked about the pluses and flaws of ONLINE TECHNOLOGIES there.
In this final part of the article I'm going to talk about this course's PLANNING.
SOME "FLAWS" IN THE MOOC PLANNING
...and in
- explaining things
- giving new material
that I've noticed and would try to avoid myself :
FLAW №1
It's about "the principle of 1/single difficulty" I wrote about here . Very often new things were explained through... new things.
There were lots of examples for every grammar rule (which is good). But these examples were often new phrases with completely new words. Which is bad. At least - useless. Waste of time. A rare case when examples don't make anything clearer.
Result: the learner feels confusion, pressure and other chaotic sensations - and looses motivation.
FLAW №2
The next big "flaw" I've noticed, was giving new grammar structures and new vocabulary INDEPENDENTLY.
The best way in this case would be to
train (=use) all the new words in the already learnt/automised grammar structures, or - vice versa - train every new grammar structure using all the "just trained" words.
TIP
Make sure the new words you give are used in most grammar structures you have given before.
And vice versa: make sure that a new grammar structure you give, is later used/trained with as many words the student has learned before as it may logically be.
FLAW №3
One more thing I met in this course, which had been decreasing motivation was... a huge amount of new words.
In ONE SINGLE "block" there were about 50. I think the creators wanted to satisfy as many "needs" and "demands" as they could. But the result was opposite: many people commented about it. It was dissappointed trying to memorize such amount of new words at a time (especially through online flash card service).
One of the potential "treasures" of a language learning MOOC is the opportunity to absorb information "in small DIGESTIBLE pieces".
Pity that this "treasure" was not used.
TIP
Selecting another "block of vocabulary", or a list of themes and topics, make sure it won't be too long - it kills motivation. LESS IS BETTER !
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P.S. I've already taken part in another MOOC - dedicated to learning Italian. At first, I was very glad not to find such errors in it, but... soon I discovered others.
Would you like to know more? - If so, do let me know.
Your Foreign Languages Consultant,
Russian Language Whisperer,
Anna Barskaya
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