Currently, I have my GoogleScholar Alert set to ESL AND technology. This week the article that caught my eye was Challenges of Identifying Second Language English Speakers in MOOCs (the article was published in the Digital Education: Out to the World and Back to the Campus journal at a European conference). The title is what caught my eye because I wondered, "What in the world is a MOOC?" I discovered the acronym stands for Massive Open Online Courses.
Immediately, I was intrigued because I have been a an online graduate student for almost 2 years and the quantity of advanced information would be daunting to an advanced learner. The data suggested the only indicator that an online student may be an ESL learner was the length of the discussion posts and a few instances of awkward/unnatural phrasing.
Last summer, two of my practicum placements were at Penn State University; one class was a graduate writing class and the other was a TA/adjunct professorship preparation class. Each catered to the need of the students, their particular field of interest, while focusing on the skills needed to be successful in the class itself. After reading the article, it seems to me that there is a need for a similar mentoring-teaching program for ESL students enrolled in online courses. If they are not fully engaged in the learning community, how are they to extract all they need from the course?
I'm very interested to read what people have to think!
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