EMA_4_Moodle: On-line French Course for International Students

Transcription

1 EMA_4_Moodle: On-line French Course for International Students Thomas Semmler Telecom Bretagne (France) Abstract We propose to present results of our ERASMUS MUNDUS project EMA-4-Moodle. The aim of the project is to facilitate international mobility for European and non-european students by offering them specifically adapted on-line language courses and intercultural activities that will help them overcome linguistic and cultural difficulties. Courses are available to students via the "Moodle" platform. Moodle is a free, open source easy to use LMS. Students benefit from the courses and intercultural materials either at their home institution, before they leave, or after their arrival at the new establishment. In order to help both teachers and course developers, as well as student users, EMA-4-Moodle offers teachers a Moodle language lesson template which facilitates course creation and course use by offering a standardized lesson structure based on the large variety of didactic activities available in Moodle. Greatest beneficiaries of our project will be students coming to our institutions from abroad. Better linguistic and cultural preparation will allow them to concentrate on their engineering curriculum. Language teachers will also reap benefits in that they will be able to create on-line language courses more easily thanks to the template. With students spending ever more time outside the classroom, on-line courses are becoming ever more attractive. EMA-4-Moodle hopes to satisfy this demand, at least in part. Although the European project contains a Russian, a German and a Slovak course, we propose to show participants at the ICT 2012 conference our completed French course, give them details of contents and make suggestions for use of our template. The French language course contains 10 learning units containing some 200 language exercises and intercultural activities as well as 10 original videos. We consider the intercultural activities with their innovative structure to be particularly interesting. Furthermore, the learning units offer students access to 50 websites which touch on subjects related to the linguistic themes and French culture in general. The course is presently being used by some students before they arrive in France, but mainly by students already present, in a "blended" language course context. We believe both our language course and our course template will be of great interest to all foreign language teachers because the latter can be used for any language at any level. A. Introduction EMA-4-Moodle is a European project under the Erasmus Mundus Program. The aim of the project is to facilitate access to European higher education for both European and non-european students. The six consortium members (Telecom Bretagne, Telecom Lille-1, Hochschule für Telekommunikation Leipzig, Bonch-Bruevich Telecommunications University St. Petersburg, The State University of Informatics and Telecommunications Novosibirsk, The University of Zilina) developed four on-line language courses and a reusable course structure (template) for Moodle. B. Moodle Moodle is a free on-line learning and teaching platform which can be downloaded from Moodle.org. Moodle is free and thousands of institutions around the world use it. This facilitates exchanges of course or modules. Moodle makes it possible to create a large variety of on-line learning materials: quizzes, games, forums, wikis, essays etc. which can all be adapted to your specific needs. This is what we have done by creating our template.

2 C. The Template The course template is a predefined reusable structure for Moodle language courses. It facilitates work for language teachers wishing to create their own Moodle courses. It is freely downloadable from our website: Using the template requires basic knowledge of Moodle. The template comes with information for installation and operation. Description The template offers a clear and simple structure. At the top of the course template the teacher will find communication tools, 10 buttons linking directly to the learning units. These in turn are followed by the actual learning units. Communication Tools The communication tools include a journal, a forum, chats, a dictionary and a glossary and a link to an RSS flow. A journal allows students to reflect on their learning process. The forum is used by the teacher to communicate vital information to the students. If the course is tutored the template offers both a writing chat room and a video chat room. The latter is called "Open Meeting" and is an add-on to Moodle. These tools are duplicated for inter-student communication so that students can organize their own chats without teacher intervention. Furthermore, there is a general dictionary. Our French course uses the dictionary made available by TV 5 which can be installed directly in the students browser. The glossary offers vocabulary that is not available in the general dictionary. This includes words of student jargon or slang or specific terms related to the educational institution. And finally the link to an RSS flow sends students information automatically from chosen websites. In the template all these structures are empty. It is up to the teacher-developer to fill them with his/her content. Learning Units The learning units all have the same structure. There is an introduction which can be basic text or audio or video or all three, depending on your needs. The informational and theoretical input includes three video spaces for the original version, a foreign language subtitled version and a mother tongue subtitled version.to help understand the video the script and sound track can also be made available. This is followed by phonetics and grammar input. This "input phase" is followed by an "output phase" of student practice. Exercises The template offers teachers/developers 30 language exercise spaces. The exercises are based on Moodle activities i.e. multiple choice questions, true-false questions, cloze exercises, games and lesson. All these activities are self-correcting. The exercises cover the four basic language skills mentioned in the Common European Framework. There are also spaces for intercultural exercises and games, and finally there are spaces for three review exercises and a final test containing 30 questions. Using the Template The template is an empty structure. It is up to the teacher-developer to fill it with contents. All the spaces do not have to be used.. They can be "shut off". If more spaces are required they can be added. The template user guide contains instructions on how to place your content. The template is very flexible and can be used for all languages at any level. To create a coherent course it is good practice to begin by writing a detailed course description and a complete course script on paper. This will allows for verification of the coherence of your materials. The template contains 250 exercise spaces. Benefits for the Instructor The template facilitates course production for the instructor by offering him/her an empty course structure which only has to be filled with media content. This is particularly helpful for teachers who are just beginning to work with Moodle. It is easiest to begin with text exercises and then move on to multi-

3 media exercises. These are a bit more complicated and may require outside tools for production. Benefits for the Learner Learners will find a course produced with the template easy to follow thanks to its clear and repeated structure.one of the major difficulties in on-line courses is knowing where you are. Our system will greatly help students to keep track of their advancing work. Furthermore, all exercises except the oral production exercises are self correcting so students will know immediately how they are progressing. D. An Example: The Telecom Bretagne French Course At Telecom Bretagne we have used the template to create a A2 French language course for our foreign students. It helps students prepare themselves linguistically and culturally for their stay in our school. Language Content Grammar The grammar points are presented as power point presentations. Explanations are not only textual but sound and pictures enhance the experience for students. Phonetics Each learning unit contains a short theoretical explanation of a point of French phonetics followed by five exercises allowing the student to practice the point in question. These exercises function according to the following model. The student hears a model word, phrase or short sentence which contains the sound being studied. The student listens as often as s/he wishes, then repeats what s/he has heard and records it on his/her computer. S/he then compares his/her production with the original. Students become accustomed to French sounds, and practise by comparison. Cultural Content In our course we distinguish between cultural and intercultural contents. Cultural contents are elements that have a purely descriptive function for a given culture. Only when one starts to ask questions about these elements does one begin to engage in intercultural reflection. "Why is this culture different from my own?" Naturally, purely cultural elements which students are going to encounter in France are important for his/her learning process and we show students these in our videos, on various web sites and in certain exercises. Videos We have produced minute videos. Each one deals with an important aspect of student life at Telecom Bretagne: Registration, Residences, Courses, Exams, Food Services, Campus Activities etc. The idea behind these videos is to offer students a virtual opportunity to find out how a French Engineering school works. These videos serve as an introduction to the students new environment. The humorous touch helps motivate. Web Sites There are also 50 weblinks which give information about life in France and Brittany. Students can listen to French radio, watch French TV, they have access to commercial and industrial websites, fashion sites, food sites, movie sites and so on. Exercise Content The exercise content revolves around aspects of French culture, dealing with transportation, hiring interviews or the organization of higher education. Foreign students should know about these themes if they want to understand France. It is not sufficient to study only the descriptive elements of a culture. We also want to stimulate thought about these phenomena. Only when one begins to analyze these cultural phenomena can they become interculturally useful. We not only want students "to know" French culture but we would like them to understand it and be able to participate in it.

4 Intercultural Activities Introduction to Intercultural Communication This introduction is for students who have not previously had an opportunity to touch on intercultural communication. We use cultural dilemmas to point out the different interpretations which any (cultural) phenomenon can have. These are based on a variety of logical arguments. Everyone assumes that his/her own interpretation is universal. What others say or do is odd, maybe even threatening. Our introduction offers several examples of such situations and analyzes a variety of possible reactions. By giving an explanation of the different reactions or interpretations we hope to stimulate students' reflection about these differences. Such analyses will diminish the oddness or the threat the student feels when confronted by unknown cultural phenomena. ELP: Lolipop Lolipop is an electronic intercultural portfolio similar to language portfolios. It is an on-line tool which helps students describe the intercultural skills they have already acquired, evaluate these skills and develop new strategies to improve them. Similarly to language portfolios, Lolipop offers students three tools with which they can analyze, plan and present their intercultural skills. We hope that students' curiosity will be stimulated so that they become interculturally pro-active and enjoy mingling with a new culture. Lolipop is a European project and the tools can be downloaded free from Intercultural Exercises The intercultural exercises reproduce basically what we do in traditional courses where our intercultural activities are based on cultural paradoxes. After presenting an actual situation students discuss various possible interpretations based on their culturally different backgrounds. The discussion concludes with an analysis of the logic of each interpretation. In the on-line course students are given a cultural paradox. This can be a text, an audio or a video. After the student has seen or heard the document s/he is given a question, for example "How would you react in this situation?" or "How do you think some other person might react in this situation?" The student then chooses one among four possible (and plausible) answers. For each answer chosen the student receives feedback explaining the logic of the chosen answer. The aim of these exercises is to open the student to new ways of interpreting the world around him/her. These intercultural activities strike us as indispensable in our European context. Cultural misunderstandings are very common and it is in the interest of both foreign and French students to develop their intercultural skills. Those who want to work in an international environment must be aware of these techniques and skills so that they can work in multicultural teams with success. This requires knowledge and skills which our course offers. E. Outlook Our project ended in 2011 but the work has no end. On the technical side the template will evolve or be replaced. Other courses will be developed on the basis of our work. As an example of developments, colleagues are presently experimenting the use of Facebook in conjunction with our Moodle course in order to facilitate the social interaction among students. This looks rather promising because students are generally avid users of Facebook, and do not have to learn how to use it. This is an advantage over the communication tools we installed in our template. Our experience has also proven that stand-alone on-line courses are not very successful. Tutors are necessary to maintain the human connection. Students quickly lose interest when they are left alone with their machine. They want human contact. Other Courses We are already planning and creating new language courses in the various languages we teach at Telecom Bretagne. These courses are not necessarily distance learning courses but "blended" courses in which on-line elements complement traditional classroom teaching. We are using a blended course to free "speaking time" for students. This implies putting various theoretical or writing exercises

5 on-line and using the time gained for oral exchanges with tutors. A further tendency in course development is using the Moodle as a repertoire or data base in which documents and exercises are stored and used in a traditional classroom context. New Templates Since the template is based on Moodle activities it is possible to adapt, change or replace activities as they stand today. This great flexibility offers the possibility of adapting the template, or creating completely different ones in the future. We are thinking about new course models that require less adaptation for new groups. We are searching for new ways of sharing media and other elements in our courses. F. Conclusion In conclusion we should like to sum up why we spent all this energy and time on this project. The first reason relates to the requirements of the European project as such. We wanted to make it easier for foreign students to attend our school. Our on-line course makes it easier for foreign students to prepare for their engineering studies at Telecom Bretagne. Before arriving they will already have some important basic knowledge and skills that will make studying at Telecom Bretagne more beneficial. Beyond that we wanted to make life easier for teachers interested in developing on-line language courses. Our template will encourage those who are tempted to develop such courses. Given the ever greater number of students circulating in Europe, this kind of course will find ever growing numbers of users. We want to encourage the international exchanges among all institutions of higher learning. We would like to thank the European Commission for its financial support which made this project possible. Selected Bibliography BERNATH, Ulrich et al, ed. Distance and E-Learning in Transition. London, ISTE, 2009 CAROLL, Raymonde. Évidences invisibles. Paris, Seuil, HAMPDEN-TURNER, C. & TROMPENAARS, F. Riding the Waves of Culture. New York, McGraw- Hill, NASH, S.S. & RICE, William. Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques. Birmingham, Packt, 2010 STANFORD, Jeff. Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching. Birmingham, Packt, 2009 WHITE, Cynthia. Language Learning in Distance Education. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003