Workshop at University of Limerick

1. University of Limerick, Ireland 17 February 2017
Open educational practices in language
education: resources, tools, and training
Shona Whyte
Université Côte d’Azur

2. PLAN
➤ introduction: me, OERs & you
➤ resources
➤ tools:
➤ a TBLT example
➤ a few caveats
➤ training
➤ in summary

3. background
monolingual English background
French, German undergraduate studies
anglophone in France

4. language
teaching
English language, translation (LLCE)
English for special purposes (ESP)
young learners

5. research
PhD Linguistics (second language
acquisition)
CALL (computer-assisted language
learning)
teacher education (HDR didactique de
l’anglais)

6. teacher educator
pre-service language teacher preparation
international projects & teacher education
groups
social media & open educational practices
@whyshona

7. Open educational
practices?

8. 2012 Paris declaration on OERs
a. Foster awareness and use of Open Educational
Resources
Promote and use OER to widen access to education at
all levels, both formal and non-formal, in a perspective
of lifelong learning, thus contributing to social
inclusion, gender equity and special needs education.

9. 2012 Paris OER declaration
d. Support capacity building for the sustainable
development of quality learning materials.
Support institutions, train and motivate teachers and
other personnel to produce and share high-quality,
accessible educational resources, taking into account
local needs and the full diversity of learners.

10. 2012 Paris OER declaration
h. Encourage research on OER.
Foster research on the development, use, evaluation
and re-contextualisation of OER as well as on the
opportunities and challenges they present, and their
impact on the quality and cost-efficiency of teaching
and learning.

11. 2012 Paris OER declaration
j. Encourage the open licensing of educational
materials produced with public funds.
Governments/competent authorities can create
substantial benefits for their citizens by ensuring that
educational materials developed with public funds be
made available under open licenses to maximize the
impact of the investment.
resources =>
practices

12. Why open
practices?
“work that would
otherwise be invisible or
lost to the wider
community once a course
assignment is completed
here can be recovered
and exploited by others”
Whyte (2014)

13. Why open practices?
1. “everyone has the right to
education”
(Paris declaration, 2012)
2. unanticipated benefits (utility
argument)
3. extension of current practice
(usability argument)

14. TODAY’S PARTICIPANTS
➤ OEP Limerick workshop
➤ background information
➤ language teaching tools
and resources
➤ views of OER and OEP
goo.gl/beOhU8

15. PLAN
➤ introduction: me, OERs & you
➤ resources
➤ tools:
➤ a TBLT example
➤ a few caveats
➤ training
➤ in summary

16. “… we cannot really teach language,
we can only create conditions in
which it will develop spontaneously
in the mind in its own way …
-Von Humboldt (1767–1835)

17. Resources
✤ look at the links for your
target language
✤ find something relevant to
your learners
✤ post a link and short
description
goo.gl/beOhU8
FROM OER TO OEP …

18. OPEN
EDUCATIONAL
PRACTICES
OPEN
EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES
FROM OER TO OEP: WHAT IS SHARED?
➤ define objectives for language
learning
➤ identify resources for language
teaching
➤ prepare language teaching
materials
➤ implement language teaching/
learning activities to exploit
materials with learners
➤ examine learners’ productions
and provide feedback on
performance to encourage
reflection and learning

19. PLAN
➤ introduction: me, OERs & you
➤ resources
➤ tools:
➤ a TBLT example
➤ a few caveats
➤ training
➤ in summary

20. Tools
✤ too many tools to even
classify
✤ need principles for
selection
✤ task-based language
teaching is a good option
goo.gl/beOhU8

22. activities have
real-world
relevance
there is
meaningful
content
learners marshall
their own linguistic
resources
there is an
outcome
there are
opportunities for
reflection
Resources
TASK-BASED
LANGUAGE
TEACHING

23. An example of technology-mediated
TBLT goo.gl/beOhU8

24. Moth story task
✤ real-world activity/
community
✤ preparing story: focus on
meaning
✤ telling story: own linguistic
resources, outcome
✤ listening with feedback,
reaction: reflection
•student technology use:
•smartphone
•SoundCloud account
•teacher technology use:
•Google Form
•blog/webpage
•student reactions?

25. activities have
real-world
relevance
there is
meaningful
content
learners marshall
their own linguistic
resources
there is an
outcome
there are
opportunities for
reflection
Pre-task
TASK-BASED
LANGUAGE
TEACHING
Task
Post-task

26. situated learning:
communities of practice
(CoP)
• a group with common
activities and goals
• exchanges between peers
rather than official hierarchy
• engagement which varies
across members and over time
• learning in an informal context
which allows for social
interaction
Lave & Wenger, 1991

27. Try out some tools
✤ upload a recording to
SoundCloud
✤ create a Google Form to collect
SoundCloud links
✤ create generic message on gmail
✤ make a webpage (Google sites
or Weebly)
✤ try storyscribe
• find links on workshop
page

28. PLAN
➤ introduction: me, OERs & you
➤ resources
➤ tools:
➤ a TBLT example
➤ a few caveats
➤ training
➤ in summary

29. Odd one out?
x
copyright
x
x

30. COPYRIGHT & PERMISSIONS
➤ playing fair
Creative commons licences
➤ playing safe
permissions
➤ Kurek, M. & Skowron, A.
(2015). Going open with
LangOER. PDF

32. PLAN
➤ introduction: me, OERs & you
➤ resources
➤ tools:
➤ a TBLT example
➤ a few caveats
➤ training
➤ in summary

33. INTENT PROJECT:
UNICOLLABORATION
http://uni-collaboration.eu/
Evaluate project : http://uni-collaboration.eu/node/1226

34. TILA: EU PROJECT
http://tilaproject.eu/

35. PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS
➤ EuroCALL
➤ Twitter #mfl #elt #eltchat
➤ Teacher Education for
Languages with Technology
➤ repositories: LORO

36. gaps in CALL
teacher education
✤ acquiring techno-pedagogical
competences
✤ managing superabundant
resources (from the ivory tower
to the cloud)
✤ openness: “publish don’t just
read, share don’t just
publish” (Cann, 2011)
three major transitions during their
pre-service teacher education: from
low or mainly personal use of
technology to basic techno-
pedagogical competence for the
classroom; from a scholastic tradition
of information-gathering
from limited authoritative sources to
managing greater quantities of
content from a variety of sources (cf.
Katz 2008a, 2008b); and from
individual, teacher-controlled
classroom activities to more
autonomous, collaborative and
networked approaches to learning to
teach.
Whyte, 2014

37. CALL course:
curation
✤ 24 pre-service language
teachers (DE, EN, FR, ES, IT)
✤ CALL course: curation of target
language teaching resources
✤ techno-pedagogical
competences, collaborative
experience, but little sharing
beyond class group
Whyte, 2014
it really seems to me to fit the
expectations of task-based
learning in that each pupil
provides his or her personal
contribution in a fun way. He is
therefore learning by doing [...]
but this personal contribution is
embedded in a real, wider project,
a collective task in which each
plays a full part. I really found
this approach worthwhile and I
think it would be fruitful to use in
the language class. It would also
allow the development of pupil-
teacher relations which are no
doubt different from the usual
interaction.

38. SOCIAL ACTORS
➤ 7 pre-service teachers (DE,
ES, IT) in CALL course
➤ design and implement CALL
task + curate teaching
resources
➤ difficulties with TBLT; focus
on technologies for teacher
efficiency, not pedagogical
impact
➤ reluctance to share beyond
immediate group
Whyte, 2016

39. I learned
many things (creation and
use of a blog, social networks, IWB
etc.); nevertheless I would have liked a
framework that was stricter and clearer
so that I could perhaps have learned
more.
This
week I used the IWB in the
multimedia lab in my school My knowledge
was pretty thin, since you only showed me
yesterday in class for a few minutes. My pupils
were wonderful and showed me things they
had learned with their technology
teacher.

40. I
don't think I explained the goal
properly to the pupils. They believed, I think, that
they had to give presentations for the sake of giving
presentations. Because that's what we do in school and because
their teacher needed a grade. But they weren't "social actors", they
didn't get excited about a place in Berlin, and didn't have enough
time to turn in a substantial piece of work.
I also think I "failed" in my aim of making them more
autonomous by doing a large part of their work
myself

41. SUMMARY
➤ TOOLS
➤ Google Apps
➤ Padlet
➤ SoundCloud
➤ RESOURCES
➤ open materials
➤ curated collections
➤ TRAINING
➤ personal learning network
➤ telecollaborative projects
➤ challenges of openness for
teacher education

42. REFERENCES
➤ Goodman, E. (2015). Teach
me what I need to say.
(Videocast)
➤ González-Lloret, M. (2015). A
practical guide to integrating
technology into task-based
language teaching.
Georgetown University Press.
➤ Kurek, M. & Skowron, A.
(2015). Going open with
LangOER. PDF
➤ UNESCO (2012). Paris OER
declaration. PDF

43. González-Lloret, M., & Ortega, L. (Eds.). (2014). Technology-mediated TBLT:
Researching technology and tasks. New York: Benjamins.
Whyte, S. (2016). From "solitary thinkers" to "social actors:" OER in
multilingual CALL teacher education. Alsic, 19.
Whyte, S. (2014). Bridging gaps : Using social media to develop techno-
pedagogical competences in pre-service language teacher education.
Recherche et pratiques pédagogiques en langues de spécialité – Cahiers de
l’APLIUT, 33(2):143-169.
Whyte, S., Cutrim Schmid, E., van Hazebrouck, S., & Oberhofer, M. (2013).
Open educational resources for CALL teacher education: the iTILT interactive
whiteboard project. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 27 (2), 122-148
Zourou, K. (2016). Social dynamics in open educational language practices.
Alsic, 19.

44. open educational practice: taking care in the design and
creation of (digital) materials with a view to future sharing
and repurposing, working towards a goal of sustainable
development for language teachers
– thank you

45. BELIEFS
ABOUT
LANGUAGE
TEACHING AND
LEARNING
Quiz

46. LIGHTBOWN & SPADA: HOW LANGUAGES ARE LEARNED.
➤ Languages are learned mainly through imitation.
➤ The earlier a second language is introduced in school
programmes, the greater the likelihood of success.
➤ Most of the mistakes which second language learners make are
due to interference from their first language.
➤ Teachers should use materials that expose students only to
those language structures which they have already been taught.
➤ Learners' errors should be corrected as soon as they are made
in order to prevent the formation of bad habits.
➤ When learners are allowed to interact freely (e.g., in pair or
group activities), they learn each others' mistakes.