Resumen de The role of modularity and mobility in language MOOCs

Elena Bárcena Madera , Timothy Read

• This article reflects on the suitability of MOOCs for second language learning. It is argued that language MOOCs (or LMOOCs) can potentiate large-scale student interaction to facilitate verbal competence development if the course content is carefully structured to this end, i.e., modular, diversified and scaffolded. Most LMOOCs consist of blocks of texts/recordings followed by highly structured activities, and students are typically limited in the way in which they can work with the materials. A modularly organised LMOOC has the advantage of serving the interests of greatly heterogeneous groups by offering more activities than strictly necessary for the ideal average student (extra-theory, extra-simple to be used as didactic scaffolding) and making students complete only a certain percentage of the total. The article also argues that Mobile Assisted LMOOCs offer a richness to student-centred learning that opens the door to a variety of itinerant and context-based scenarios and activities that blur the line between formal and informal language learning and digital living. A student is, hence, able to carry over his/her learning into the world in which s/he lives, away from the desktop computer-based online course, and also into the free time that makes up a typical person’s day.