Abstract Foreign language teachers and learners use
digital repositories frequently to find appropriate activities
for their teaching and learning activities. The question is:
How can content providers support them in finding exactly
what they need and in retrieving high quality resources?
This question has been discussed in the literature and in the
context of research projects. The answers are a taxonomy of
searching mechanism and quality criteria of online
resources from the methodologic point of view.
Correspondingly, this paper introduces a classification of
online resources according to the four skills (speaking,
writing, reading, listening/watching) and two language use
types (grammar, vocabulary), representing the changing
paradigm of foreign language teaching and learning.
Further the paper identifies quality criteria for designing
online learning materials with regard to content,
methodology, technic and design. Finally, the findings are
illustrated by an example of a learning scenario.
Keywords E-Learning, Classification, Quality Criteria,
OER, Foreign Language Learning
1. Introduction
Recent technological advancement provides challenges
for language training institutes and for the education sector
as a whole. At EU level, studies show that only 30% of
learners, and even more importantly, only 30% of teachers
can be regarded as digitally competent (see 2013
Communication on OpenupEducation). There is also a lack
of high-quality open education repositories designed for
language teaching and learning where users could find best
practices.
In addition, recent research shows that language learners
and teachers would be more inclined to use the world wide
web to find appropriate resources for their language learning
and teaching activities if they were not discouraged by the
huge quantity of materials to select from. According to
recent studies, they seek high quality resources and efficient
ways for searching and finding materials (accessible within
three clicks) from different training backgrounds
(classification by subject, topics and level). If we don’t want
these target groups to get lost in cyberspace, it is crucial to
provide adequate support to them and shorten the route to
accessible information [20].
2. Classification Theory
In this context, the design of teaching and learning
activities includes four components: environment, teacher,
learner, and activity (including materials/resources).
Resource-based learning is a view which gives prominence
to the role of resources in the teaching and learning process.
The classification theory of such activities determine
different factors playing a role in their design and
implementation: age of the learner, teaching approach, topic,
form of cooperation, type of the activities, task, assessment,
equipment, technical and other pre-requisites, etc.
[16,27,35].
Further classifications exist from the technical point of
view [12, 32, 38, 39], categorizing on-line activities: virtual
classrooms, Hot Potatoes, WebQests, etc.
The classification theory lacks the user involvement and
though remains to be the domain of experts rather than users.
When users look for an activity for their specific goal, they
want to find resources as quickly as possible, probably
within three clicks [8, 30].
Considering the practice, it can be stated that practitioners
search by activity type, topic and level, as these three factors
seem to be the most informative and decisive. The rest of the
factors build an additional information category (called
advanced search) – but they are not a core for the first
searching mechanism.
For a better understanding, these three key factors are
described in the following paragraph. The most recently and
commonly used guideline which describes the achievement
levels of foreign language competence is the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL),
containing six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. The
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