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Maximising the use of your VLE for
language learning and teaching
Marina Orsini-Jones
Joint Associate Head
Department of English and Languages
Association of the University Language Centre
12th Annual Conference and AGM: Enhancing
Quality. University of Reading, 5th January
2012
Virtual Learning Environments and Language
Learning and Teaching: students can (from
Web 1 to Web 2 and beyond)
• Find more opportunities to plan their discourse
• Reflect on their production
• Compare their production with that of their peers and their teachers
• Share language learning knowledge
• Obtain immediate feedback on their learning
• Acquire useful ICT transferable skills (myth of the “digital native”)
• + connect to other learners globally/use their mobile phones – or other mobile devices - to connect to the VLE anywhere/anytime
Virtual Learning Environments and Language
Learning and Teaching: teachers can (from
Web 1 to Web 2 and beyond)
• Explore new ways of assessing students
• Reflect on their students’ production
• Research use-function-opportunities offered by the VLE with peers
• Compare their students’ work with that of students in previous cohorts in an easier way
• Maximise the opportunity for examples of good practice (displaying students’ output from one year to the other)
• Obtain immediate feedback on their teaching if needed
• Acquire useful ICT transferable skills
• Detect web plagiarism easily (Turnitin)
• + learn on the way their students interact with other learners and incorporate learners’ ‘tips’ on language learning into their teaching
New horizons in CALL (becoming MALL): 4
skills anywhere/anytime + 5th skill
(multilingual digital literacy)
• Online speaking and listening : Skype, audio-
conferencing and discussions (synchronous and
asynchronous)
• Online virtual world creation: games, Second
Life, World of Warcraft
• Online knowledge sharing: Language learning
exchanges (SNSs like Livemocha and Busuu)
Engaging with new media: digital
multilingual multiliteracies
• ICT literacy
• Employability
• “Reading the world”
Research evidence that effective use of e-
learning/blended learning can “empower the
learner”
Which VLE?
overall principle - 1
An e-learning activity must be very carefully designed
and is defined as a specific interaction of learner(s)
with other(s) using specific tools and resources,
orientated towards specific outcomes”.
(Beetham 2007, 28, italics in original)
overall principle - 2
As implied by McLuhan (1967) the medium (or media)
chosen for the task affects the students’ learning
experience and cognitive journey.
overall principle - 3
Learning, as argued by Vigotsky, “is a socially
mediated activity in the first instance, with concepts
and skills being internalized only after they have been
mastered in a collaborative context”.
(Vigotsky 1986, cited in Beetham 2007, 36).
overall principle - 4
Do not confine your children to your own learning for
they were born in a different time.
[ Hebrew proverb ]
Adapted from Dudeney (2009), EuroCALL
Plenary, “Beyond the Book”, used with
permission
overall principle - 5
Build metacognitive activities supported by e-
learning tools into your language learning tasks:
thinking on how one learns is proven to help with
learning (and it fosters employability skills too)
and link them to assessment
Voice tools
embedded in
Vista 4
Tip 1: Personalise the environment
e.g.: Blackboard and Wimba
Tip 1: Personalise the environment
e.g.: Moodle and Nanogong
Free and open source audio applets
(IMS and SCORM)
Free conferencing – Big Blue Button (OR Wimba
collaborate)
How? Tip 2: Organise your material by maximising the tools
within your VLE (and using a digital repository)
How? Tip 3: Ask your students for suggestions on what to
include
How? Tip 3: Ask your students for suggestions on what to
include: e.g. BECTA extensive tutorials nln http://go.nln.ac.uk/content/tata4_FK12_Future%20tense%20using%20Goin
g%20To/harness/frameset.htm
Tip 4: don’t reinvent the wheel
Useful packages exist
already (e.g. EAP toolkit
and Clarity materials for
EAP/EFL respectively)
Useful websites too
There is not much point in
spending time re-creating
‘drill and kill’ behaviouristic-
type tests when they are
available for free on the
web and are proven by
research not to improve LL
but include some in your
course, they keep the
students happy…
Tip 5: be creative
Allow for effective interface of the VLE with
the ‘world outside’, e.g. options with
hypertext creation: examples of text-
reconfiguration – exposing students to
different e-genres of Italian texts (Elena
Polisca – University of Manchester)
Tasks aimed at fostering learners’
autonomy and multiliteracy
awareness
Good practice from Manchester: CAMILLE 1 –
Hypertext (Elena Polisca)
CAMILLE 2
Streamed
MP3 tracks
embedded
video from
Youtube
CAMILLE 3
Core text
contains
auto-generated
glossary terms
linking to Media
Library
CAMILLE 4
Included
images, audio
and video in
some question
types (using
HTML)
Options with hypertext creation: examples of
text-reconfiguration 2 (MOJ/CU 1998-2008)
T
u
t
o
r
Group task of ‘deconstructing text’ following
guidelines on translation contained in Ulrich (1992)
with links to online dictionaries and online
corpora/concordancers
Analysed texts ‘taught’ to peers in assessed
‘microteaching’ translation sessions
Evidence from relevant literature (e.g. Klapper 2006)
that adult learners learn languages better via project
work carried out over a number of weeks
Cycles of action research to evaluate impact of tasks
on students’ learning experience (qual and quant
data)
Student group translation (constructivist task
shared via the VLE and discussed f2f and
online) – Language and Literature (CU) also
suitable for history of art courses run by LCs
Tip 6: explore your VLE and make creative use of other
platforms that can be launched from within it, e.g. e-
portfolios like PebblePad and Mahara
• The LC at Warwick is piloting an interesting assessment
model with Mahara
• The Common European Framework can be used in
conjunction with an e-portfolio
Assessed ‘Group grammar analysis’ – Built
with the webfolio tool in the e-portfolio
PebblePad and shared via a ‘gateway’ –
French example (CU)
Metacognition – reflecting on how grammar
is learnt on blogs in PebblePad (CU)
Positive feedback
T
u
t
o
r
Analysing a text in this way highlighted to us
linguistic aspects that we had not noticed on
the paper version of the text
Tip 7: bear in mind accessibility issues
No-nos: animations/non accessible
fonts/illegible colours (e.g. red/yellow;black
and blue)….
Your tips?
Emerging new ‘hybrid’ environments
for language learning: the personalised
classroom online - Social Networking
Sites to learn languages (also available
as phone apps)
’disruptive technologies’ in that they allow for
new and different ways of doing familiar tasks.
Godwin-Jones (2005) (quoted in Brick 2010)
Tandem learning in ‘controlled conditions’:
MentorIT Manchester (Elena Polisca)
VLE-based tandem learning secondary
schools/unis
BB
BB
Language Learning SNS
Functionality (Brick 2010)
• Web-based – no downloads.
• Synchronous voice and asynchronous
text chat
• Learning materials
• Peer review of written and spoken
submissions
• Profile matching (languages, levels)
• Motivational tools BB
Pandora’s box of multilingual
multiliteracies?
Ultimate user-centred model of LL?
Finally: apps/open VLE models
• Twitter feeds?
• Facebook?
• SNSs?
Difficult to handle assessment via non
proprietary platforms, ethical issues,
but…possible and happening
The FREEE – Fluid Role Evolving E-learning
Environment
(© Orsini-Jones 2009, in Orsini-Jones 2010: 357)
Affordances of multifunctional personalisation of the e-learning zones
inhabited by students in a connected ‘global village’
References can be emailed on demand
Based on two forthcoming chapters
• Orsini-Jones, M. (2010) Shared spaces and ‘secret gardens’: the
troublesome journey from undergraduate students to undergraduate
scholars via PebblePad In J. O’Donoghue (Ed.) Technology
Supported Environment for Personalised Learning: Methods and
Case Studies Hershey, PA: IGI Global. (pp. TBC).
• Orsini-Jones, M. (2010) Task-Based Development of Languages
Students’ Critical Digital Multiliteracies and Cybergenre Awareness.
In M.J. Luzon, N. Ruiz and L. Villanueva (Eds.) Genre Theory and
New Literacies. Applications to Autonomous Language Learning.
Cambridge: Scholar.
