A MOOC for language teaching and learning: the MOOC "Décloisonnons les langues, approches plurielles du français". A look back at the design of an AHFLO' project at Inalco.

MOOC (Massive Open On line Course), LMOOC (Language learning MOOC), SPOC (Small Private On line Course), language teaching-learning and digital uses

Since 2015, the launch of LMOOCs in France has, without question, contributed to the observation of uses by different players in digital environments and to the enrichment of reflection on the challenges of language teaching-learning delivered online and totally at a distance. As avatars of open learning, MOOCs continue to attract thousands of participants, who now number in the millions internationally.

Grâce à sa production de LMOOC, l'Inalco a largement contribué à rendre accessible à tous des MOOC[1] d'enseignement des langues offrant ainsi une première contact avec de nombreuses langues (arabe littéral, chinois, tchèque, birman, hébreu, turc, etc.) Œuvrant en faveur de la diversité des langues, du deuxième volet de la série de MOOC proposé par l'Inalco, retenons qu'il s'appuie sur les " langues et cultures autochtones ". The Dongba MOOC in this second series, for example, will be offered in a multilingual version (French, Chinese, English and German) and will appeal to a varied international audience, while giving wide visibility to an endangered language-culture. Over and above the challenges of disseminating and safeguarding languages, it can be said that all these MOOCs have enabled and will continue to enable a "public" discourse by a range of players through exchanges according to a mode of regulation that expresses a form of appropriation of the uses of digital technology in teaching.

What can we learn from the provision of this type of environment for the field of language teaching-learning? How can we reinvest and adapt this learning modality in future devices?


From MOOC to SPOC: feedback on two devices

In the field of teaching French as a foreign language, launched in 2015, the Paroles de FLE MOOC was not part of Inalco's MOOCs. It was offered three years in a row at the University of Nantes, but was nevertheless the subject of research that was anchored within PLIDAM (Pluralités des Langues et des Identités) at Inalco. The study showed that, despite technological constraints and those intrinsically linked to the open, massive format, it was possible to support the proactive engagement of registrants and the development of metacognitive and metareflexive skills (through the linking of knowledge, the implementation of contrastive, critical and reflexive approaches, etc.).).


From MOOC to SPOC, which format for which uses?

Within the Paroles de FLE MOOC device, forums have helped to encourage collaborative practices, the negotiation of meaning, the engagement of registrants in communities of inquiry, mutual support through peer evaluation and the sharing of new knowledge. The design of the MOOC device was flexible, with different weightings depending on the importance and value that learners attached to different tasks. Despite the positive results regarding the effectiveness of the device and the pedagogical scenario, feedback from the three sessions of the Paroles de FLE MOOC also revealed problems. These included:

• Difficulties in tracking and engaging learners linked to massiveness
• Difficulties in tracking engaged learners individually and effectively
• Difficulties for some learners to engage actively in peer evaluations
• Difficulties in managing exchanges in the forums as the number of messages is so voluminous.

Seeking to explore the advantages of formats associated with MOOCs in a different but complementary format, an experiment with a smaller SPOC[2] (Small Private On line Course) device was launched in 2019 following the "Paroles de FLE" MOOC. The design of the SPOC was based on an adjustment of the MOOC device.

While the project revealed some interesting avenues for reflection, the device was only offered twice. One of the reasons for this can be explained in part by contextual effects: it proved impossible to create a hybrid pathway between face-to-face courses and the SPOC because the initial face-to-face training curriculum did not allow it. Despite this, and as demonstrated by the opening of Inalco's Arabic language SPOC, the articulation and complementarity of different types of system - MOOC, SPOC and distance learning, whatever the medium (FUN, Moodle, etc.) - remains an asset for language teaching and learning, even from an institutional point of view. So it seems clear that the SPOC format can make language training accessible beyond the regional boundaries of institutions[3] and encourage hybridization of audiences. This potential is confirmed when we examine the diversity of learner profiles enrolled in the FLE SPOC.

A total of 75 learners, some of them geographically distant, took part in the two SPOC sessions in a totally distance, hybrid and face-to-face format, suggesting very different follow-up modalities. Analyses also reveal different usage patterns to those of the MOOC:

• A greater number of learners committed to the end of the course compared to the MOOC.
• A facilitated personalized follow-up which has an effect on the potential for language development.
• A number of peer interactions in the forums, on the other hand, very limited and exchanges limited to a teacher-learner dialogue.

This assessment thus underlines that the SPOC was anchored in an institutional context in which learners seek training above all else. It may be noted that the limited number of interactions in the SPOC's forums is in line with studies that have previously been carried out on interactions and uses of forums in other distance learning courses.

We can deduce from this feedback that the context and conditions in which any device is set up remain essential elements for understanding and analyzing the uses and appropriation of a MOOC or SPOC device or any distance or face-to-face training course. This review of MOOC and SPOC systems shows that social interaction in discussion forums is an important way for learners in distance learning to exchange and share information. It is also a key factor affecting the quality of language learning (Wise and Cui, 2018). Based on this feedback, we can therefore hypothesize that knowledge construction that is distributed between learners (MOOCs) and between learners and teachers (SPOCs) have their own characteristics, but that both are necessary for online language learning in the future.


Which dimension to retain for pedagogical reflection on language teaching-learning in these digital environments?

Despite the limitations that have been reviewed, it was also found that certain types of tasks common to both devices elicited active learner engagement, in-depth treatment of the target language and more collaborative exchanges. Drawing on the natural practices that plurilinguals use on a daily basis when switching from one language to another, these tasks encourage learners to mobilize different resources from their language repertoire.

When learners are involved in this type of task within a social environment, interactions are anchored. All these activities, which can be grouped under the heading of plural approaches to language teaching, facilitate creative diversity, diversity of expression of feelings, thoughts and identities, different ways of knowing and seeing the world. In fact, they encourage a multimodal and multisensory dimension (Li Wei, 2018).


Adapting, reinvesting and developing distance devices dedicated to language teaching

It is on the exploration of part of these processes that the MOOC project "Décloisonnons les langues : approches plurielles du français" is based. As for the context of the MOOC's launch, it is driven by the AHFLO' project supported by Inalco[4], one of whose aims is to enable the deployment of a digital development strategy in language and civilization training.


The projet AHFLO' "Décloisonnons les langues MOOC: une approche pluri du français"

This MOOC will offer from April 2022 (Opening planned on the FUN platform) a course based on a plural/multilingual posture of teaching-learning languages and more particularly French. The project is designed to create the conditions for participants to become aware of language diversity and to mobilize it reflexively in and through experience. The project also allows for the involvement of a wide range of players, including master's students in the Didactics of Languages (DDL) program, from the design stage right through to the follow-up of learners once the MOOC is open to the public.

The MOOC has been designed to be accessible to the general public.

From the audience's point of view, the course in its final version is aimed at both language teachers and language learners. Throughout the 6-week course, future enrollees will be able to share in a multi/multilingual reflection on the relationship between languages and the French language. One of the aims is to provide some of the tools needed to challenge the compartmentalization of languages. A complementary aim is to support the ability of pluri/multilingual speakers to shuttle between the languages that make up a single, integrated language repertoire.


This MOOC thus offers a space for exchange explicitly geared towards the intuitive, natural communication strategies that pluri/multilinguals deploy in everyday life that enable them to acquire new language resources.

In a few words, the design of the device seeks to adopt an exploratory, collaborative, cooperative pedagogical approach that encourages:

• A group learning experience of language learners and teachers.
• A socially authentic practice matched with explicit instructions for the development of reflective practice.
• Critical hindsight on practice where language teachers and learners question what they have just experienced.
• Collaborative dialogue to respond to tasks and a learning experience modified by experimentation resulting from reflection.

Two pathways support complementary uses and appropriation of the future MOOC:

• A free pathway that will give access to all the resources and activities planned in the MOOC that registrants will be able to consult at their own pace or carry out all the activities and exchange via discussion forums. However, no certificate of successful completion of the MOOC will be issued at the end in this path.
• A certifying path that will not only give the opportunity to follow the course at a pace "chosen" by future registrants with graded activities that will be taken into account in the overall assessment of successful completion of the course. Final access to a proctored exam will earn 4 ECTS credits (European Credits Transfer System) that can be used in any higher education diploma, at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) or any higher education institution, notably as LANSAD (Languages for Specialists in Other Disciplines).

In a few words, the strong idea of this project is to support a collaborative construction of actors who interact in a community of practice within an open learning culture. The experimentation of the device and the future research that will result from it are anchored in the Didactics of Languages (DDL) stream at Inalco and in the RAFAL program (Research, Accompaniment, Training and Appropriation in Languages) of the research team Plurality of Languages and Identities: Didactics, Acquisition, Mediation (PLIDAM). For research in the field of digitally-supported language teaching, it will be an opportunity to explore the MOOC's encounter with its audience, the way in which players will find their place and appropriate the device by fully expressing their identity within it. These feedbacks will undoubtedly be a means of further understanding the prospects for language teaching.


Christelle HOPPE, associate of PLIDAM & lecturer in the DDL course, Inalco - teacher of FLE at the University of Nantes.



References

Bárcena, E., & Martín-Monje, E. (2014). 1 Introduction. Language MOOCs: an Emerging Field. In Language MOOCs (pp. 1-15). De Gruyter Open Poland.

Hoppe, C. O. (2019). Mise en place d'un dispositif LMOOC d'enseignement-apprentissage des langues : analyse didactique d'une recherche intervention (Doctoral dissertation, Institut national des Langues et Civilisations orientales - Inalco Paris - Langues O').

Wei, L. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied linguistics, 39(1), 9-30.

Wise, A. F., & Cui, Y. (2018). Learning communities in the crowd: Characteristics of content related interactions and social relationships in MOOC discussion forums. Computers & Education, 122, 221-242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.03.021.


Notes

[1] http://www.inalco.fr/actualite/inalco-lance-moocs

[2] This SPOC entitled "d'une langue à l'autre" has also been tried out at the University of Nantes.

[3] Consult the article on FUN Corporate available by following the link: https://www.fun-corporate.fr/fr/actualites/les-spoc-permettent-de-souvr…

[4] http://www.inalco.fr/formations/formation-distance/projet-ahflo