This document summarizes an online course for English language learners. It describes the target group of engineers and technologists, the course context and goals of improving technical, social and organizational skills. Key elements included daily content, discussions, and activities to develop listening strategies. Challenges included variable student participation and workload. Overall students enjoyed communicating online and generated original content, while the instructor found planning more difficult than running the course.
2. Background
Course Proposal
Context
content
Goals
▪ Technical
▪ Social
▪ organizational
What Worked
What Didn’t Work
Comments
3. Target Group
English as a Second Language ‐ Internationally
Trained Professionals
Advanced English Level
Engineers and Technologists
Variety of ethnicities
Up to 10 students
4. Context
Offered to students attending Communication for
Engineers and Technologists (CET) at Vancouver
Community College
CET on hiatus during Olympic period‐no f2f
contact during on‐line course
Course ran for 12 days
Met students to present course and get recruits
8 students enrolled
5. Content
▪ Communications focus in a professional setting –
listening and speaking
▪ More on listening than speaking
▪ Listening strategies
▪ Listening practice
6. Technical
to post in a discussion forum, reply, or edit a post
to add an image, emoticons, a link
to upload a written document
to upload an audio file (MP3)
to add an entry in a class glossary (Vocabulary
Sharing)
to use Voice Thread (to create a voice message, to
“Tell me About Yourself”)
to participate in ‘Elluminate’ on‐line sessions
to complete a variety of quizzes (multiple choice,
matching, True/False)
7. Organizational
Content presented on a daily basis – not all at once
Students managed their time to complete a variety of tasks:
▪ complete short listening items and quizzes
▪ create written and spoken instructions to teach others
▪ create a voice message
▪ share listening resources
▪ share new or discovered vocabulary (minimum of 9 entries per student)
▪ evaluate a voice message and a classmate’s oral response
▪ complete a vocabulary quiz based on Vocabulary Sharing
▪ create a minimum of 24 ‘quality’ posts or interactions (each post must
respond to established criteria)
8. Social
Asynchronous communication with the instructor
on a daily basis
Asynchronous communication with other
participants on a daily basis
synchronously in Elluminate
Communicate for a variety of reasons ‐ to teach
others, ask questions, comment, respond to
feedback, share vocabulary, state opinions
9. Few technical problems
Students easily navigated the course
Instructions were clear
Students enjoyed communicating on‐line
Communicated with instructor and with each other
Communicated to ask questions, share, give feedback, state opinions
and to problem solve
Student generated material
Shared resources
Shared images
Created an activity not planned by the instructor (Song Sharing)
Vocabulary sharing
10. Elluminate Sessions added cohesiveness to course
Posts
Generally thoughtful ‘quality’ posts
Vocabulary Sharing
Fun – useful phrases shared “pain in the ass”
Students reflected on listening strategies through
Random listening glossary
Quizzes
Videos and feedback on videos
Feedback from instructor
Feedback
Instructor able to give effective written and oral feedback to students about
their speaking/pronunciation
11. Participation
a student dropped out at start (work
commitments)
Another disappeared half way through
One only participated in the Elluminate sessions
Posts
Some students participated more than others
Some students directed their posts more to the
instructor than to each other
Only a few managed to post 2x/day
12. Voicethread
Took a lot of time for instructor to learn and adapt
to course
Few students did this activity
Vocabulary Sharing
Not all students consistently contributed to
Vocabulary sharing
13. Assessment
Students not formally assessed by instructor
No ‘marks’ given except for quiz results and
anecdotal feedback
Lack of formal assessment may have affected
participation
Workload
Most students reported they spent 2 hours a day
in the course
14. Instructor Response
planning the course more stressful than running
and moderating the course
Sense of wonder when students started
participating in planned activities (It’s working!!)
Felt like there was more participation from
students on‐line than in the classroom
Wonder how it would be to manage same course
with 20 students as we do with f2f.