DISTANCE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Distance learning is becoming more and more popular nowadays. One of the main reasons is that people in the 21st century pursue several careers throughout their lives. Very often we have to choose the option of taking online courses, rather than travelling all the way to the university which offers them. 

However, as John Ebersole from Excelior College noted during the Digital Learning 2010 virtual conference, distance learning programs have the problem of establishing credibility of distance. That is, performance of distance learners has to be measured in order to change the mainstream attitudes towards online learning. This issue was also addressed in my previous blog post about open educational resources.

There are several other challenges related to the implementation of distance teaching. This is especially true about distance language teaching as it is so much more complex than the teaching of other disciplines. 

Important things to consider in the distance language teaching are the roles required of tutors, their competencies and professional development opportunities. The role of a distance language learning teacher is very different from that of a traditional classroom teacher. As Cynthia, et a"Towards an Understanding of Attributes and Expertise in Distance Language Teaching: Tutor Maxims", distance language learning teacher has to be more careful about providing proper guidance, assessment, feedback to distance language learners, as well as support and motivation. DLT teachers should also have collaboration skills, technology knowledge and, what is most important in my humble opinion, knowledge of the distance learning field. i mention this because I don't imagine myself in the role of a DLT teacher simply because I have never taken a distance language teaching course myself. Thus, it sounds strange to me. So, it is really crucial to provide training to language teachers who are new to distance education. DLT teachers also have to admit that they must take the role of the psychologist who will make the learners realize that they have the potential to succeed in their undertaking. They should make the learners feel that they can be approached any time learners have a problem. 

As for learners, their roles are also complex. In current research literature there is an implicit discussion about learner independence vs. collaborative control. The latter view argues that autonomy in language learning develops through interaction and learner interdependence (see "Independent Language Learning in Distance Education: Current Issues" by Cynthia J White). Well, it is not my intention to go deep into literature review.

To try myself in distance language learning, I tried to take some Italian language classes on Livemocha and Busuu, two distance language learning websites. I will be frank..... I didn't like them much. However, if we compare them, Busuu provides much better learning environment than Livemocha. 

Here I have to warn that I don't have experience with taking distance classes. Thus, my opinions could be extremely subjective. i would suggest you to go and have a look at online courses of your interest. Try to take them. After all, this is an epoch of trials...