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11 - Communication in Language MOOCs

from Part III - Tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2025

By
Agnes Kukulska-Hulme ,
Fereshte Goshtasbpour  and
Barbara Conde-Gafaro
Edited by
Glenn Stockwell  and
Yijen Wang
Glenn Stockwell
Affiliation:
Waseda University, Japan
Yijen Wang
Affiliation:
Waseda University, Japan
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Summary

MOOCs for language learning offer opportunities for communication to help develop learners’ productive skills in the target language, but these environments can also be challenging for learners, which may result in a disconnect between promise and reality. The chapter introduces MOOCs and language MOOCs (LMOOCs), considering their purposes and the reasons why learners enrol in LMOOCs. Communication opportunities and challenges in LMOOCs are reviewed, and relevant findings from research and practice are identified. Special consideration is given to the provision of feedback to learners. Fostering speaking among learners has generally been a challenge, due to the scale and openness of LMOOCs. The chapter offers recommendations for research and practice relating to the educator’s role, learners’ autonomy, affordances of communication technology, integration of LMOOCs into classroom practice, and cultural issues in communication. It is also recommended that MOOC providers should work together with educators to provide learners with adequate and innovative technological tools to facilitate their productive skills practice. Future directions are identified, emphasizing scalable methods of analysing learner activity and taking advantage of developments in artificial intelligence, including ways of supporting learners through interactions with conversational agents.

Keywords

massive open online courses (MOOCs)LMOOCscomputer-assisted language learning (CALL)self-regulationteacher role
Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge Handbook of Technology in Language Teaching and Learning , pp. 179 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

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Further Reading

This book provides an analysis of MOOCs with the aim of highlighting the tension between what MOOCs originally were developed for (opening up access to education) and what they involve in reality today. It considers MOOCs within educational, social, and economic contexts and reflects on whether they address the demands of opening up access to education effectively. Additionally, it offers a critical perspective on how learners, educators, learning, and teaching as well as accreditation are conceptualized in these open and scaled educational settings.

This article reports the findings of a study focusing on the impact of variation in course activities such as videos, articles, discussions, and quizzes in a MOOC on learners’ progress when their geocultural and socioeconomic contexts are considered. The findings suggest that certain types of learning activities (e.g. discussion) facilitate progress for learners in one context (e.g. Anglo-Saxon), while inhibiting progress in another (e.g. South Asia). This article offers new insights into learning activities that can inform more effective learning design for learners from diverse backgrounds and locations.

The authors of this article discuss how MOOCs for refugees and migrants can help them develop the language competences and transverse skills they require in order to improve their level of social inclusion and their chances in the labor market or access higher education in the country in which they find themselves or where they plan to go. The authors also explore how LMOOCs can best be deployed on mobile devices.

Littlejohn, A., & Hood, N. (2018). Reconceptualising learning in the digital age: The [un]democratizing potential of MOOCs. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizvi, S., Rienties, B., Rogaten, J., & Kizilcec, R. F. (2022). Beyond one-size-fits-all in MOOCs: Variation in learning design and persistence of learners in different cultural and socioeconomic contexts. Computers in Human Behavior, 126, 106973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106973CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, T., Sedano, B., & Barcena, E. (2021). Inclusive language MOOCs. Journal of Universal Computer Science (JUCS), 27, 437–449. https://doi.org/10.3897/jucs.67932CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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