Feedback has become a buzzword in Higher Education in the United Kingdom. As successive National ... more Feedback has become a buzzword in Higher Education in the United Kingdom. As successive National Students’ Surveys show current feedback practices as a source of discontent rather than reassurance and guidance, the question of what good feedback should or could be has come under tight scrutiny by academics and students alike.
This research is an exploratory study that seeks to evaluate the potentials of the Chinese app We... more This research is an exploratory study that seeks to evaluate the potentials of the Chinese app WeChat to enhance the spoken fluency of learners of French in China, who report having limited and insufficient opportunities to practice speaking in their daily life. WeChat is an extremely popular instant messenger facilitating communication through a media rich environment that can be used synchronously, asynchronously or semi-synchronously with voice or text messages. WeChat is widely used in China and a growing number of informal highly autonomous language learners join or form WeChat groups to learn and practice speaking languages in personal networks of learning. The study sought to bring together French learners and expert users to give them increased opportunities to practise their spoken French on a daily basis for a period of three months to support the development of spoken fluency.
This paper explores the way in which the Modern Languages team at the Oxford University Language ... more This paper explores the way in which the Modern Languages team at the Oxford University Language Centre (OULC) sought to embrace the challenges of switching to a remote mode of teaching in the third term of 2019-20 as an opportunity to develop new ways of designing and delivering language courses for a flexible and hybrid future. It seeks to make note of agile recommendations towards further challenges to come.
This paper reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of setting up a flexible distributive b... more This paper reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of setting up a flexible distributive blended learning language upskilling course for Primary School teachers. Published in December 2002, Languages for All: Languages for Life A Strategy for England, set out the Government's 8 year plan to transform the national language capability. The cornerstone of the strategy was the introduction of an entitlement for all pupils ages 7-11 to learn another language by 2010. It was expected that the language teaching would be done by private tutors, secondary school teachers or even by parents. In reality, most of the language teaching taking place in Primary schools today is undertaken by the class teacher, and the choice of language has often been driven by the languages available among the teaching staff. CILT (the National Centre for Languages), in partnership with other stakeholders, produced up skilling specifications targeted at training providers, including HEIs, Adult Educati...
The focus of this case study is to report and reflect on the design, implementation and fine tuni... more The focus of this case study is to report and reflect on the design, implementation and fine tuning of the Peer Supported Online Language Learning Exchange module, known more simply as OLLE (Online Language Learning Exchange) which was developed in 2013 and is delivered in collaboration with students at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. This module seeks to give students in all three University Campuses (United Kingdom, China, and Malaysia) the opportunity to continue to learn a foreign language together, blending, where this is geographically possible, face to face learning opportunities with online learning. It strongly emphasizes language learning as a lifelong learning skill and seeks in particular to develop students' skills in learning to learn a language in digital realms and to develop a strong set of digital literacies for language learning.
Feedback has become a buzzword in Higher Education in the United Kingdom. As successive National ... more Feedback has become a buzzword in Higher Education in the United Kingdom. As successive National Students’ Surveys show current feedback practices as a source of discontent rather than reassurance and guidance, the question of what good feedback should or could be has come under tight scrutiny by academics and students alike.
This research is an exploratory study that seeks to evaluate the potentials of the Chinese app We... more This research is an exploratory study that seeks to evaluate the potentials of the Chinese app WeChat to enhance the spoken fluency of learners of French in China, who report having limited and insufficient opportunities to practice speaking in their daily life. WeChat is an extremely popular instant messenger facilitating communication through a media rich environment that can be used synchronously, asynchronously or semi-synchronously with voice or text messages. WeChat is widely used in China and a growing number of informal highly autonomous language learners join or form WeChat groups to learn and practice speaking languages in personal networks of learning. The study sought to bring together French learners and expert users to give them increased opportunities to practise their spoken French on a daily basis for a period of three months to support the development of spoken fluency.
This paper explores the way in which the Modern Languages team at the Oxford University Language ... more This paper explores the way in which the Modern Languages team at the Oxford University Language Centre (OULC) sought to embrace the challenges of switching to a remote mode of teaching in the third term of 2019-20 as an opportunity to develop new ways of designing and delivering language courses for a flexible and hybrid future. It seeks to make note of agile recommendations towards further challenges to come.
This paper reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of setting up a flexible distributive b... more This paper reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of setting up a flexible distributive blended learning language upskilling course for Primary School teachers. Published in December 2002, Languages for All: Languages for Life A Strategy for England, set out the Government's 8 year plan to transform the national language capability. The cornerstone of the strategy was the introduction of an entitlement for all pupils ages 7-11 to learn another language by 2010. It was expected that the language teaching would be done by private tutors, secondary school teachers or even by parents. In reality, most of the language teaching taking place in Primary schools today is undertaken by the class teacher, and the choice of language has often been driven by the languages available among the teaching staff. CILT (the National Centre for Languages), in partnership with other stakeholders, produced up skilling specifications targeted at training providers, including HEIs, Adult Educati...
The focus of this case study is to report and reflect on the design, implementation and fine tuni... more The focus of this case study is to report and reflect on the design, implementation and fine tuning of the Peer Supported Online Language Learning Exchange module, known more simply as OLLE (Online Language Learning Exchange) which was developed in 2013 and is delivered in collaboration with students at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. This module seeks to give students in all three University Campuses (United Kingdom, China, and Malaysia) the opportunity to continue to learn a foreign language together, blending, where this is geographically possible, face to face learning opportunities with online learning. It strongly emphasizes language learning as a lifelong learning skill and seeks in particular to develop students' skills in learning to learn a language in digital realms and to develop a strong set of digital literacies for language learning.
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