designing intercultural communication tasks for business...

Designing intercultural communication tasks for Business Spanish MOOC modules

Carolina Egúsquiza

Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium

March 24, 2015

During this session…

Ongoing research project: Task design for intercultural communication in Business Spanish MOOC modules

Opportunities and affordances of MOOCs for specialized language learning and intercultural competence training

Motivation

Spanish, 3th or 4th FL Blended/online courses Professional Spanish textbooks/material

hypothesis: design of online modules that integrate intercultural communication tasks

Why MOOCs?

★flexibility ★openness ★modularity ★meeting point

Network-based (cMOOCs) Content-based (xMOOCs) Task-based MOOCs

Lane, L. (2012). Three kinds of MOOCs. Lisa’s (online) Teaching and History blog.

Educational Engineering/Distributed Design model

Analysis

Development

Implementation

Evaluation

conceptualization

specification

prototyping

Design

Theory Technology

learning situation

elaborated concept of LE which changes: pedagogical, content, technological example, model

Figure 1. Colpaert, J. (2014). Designing for personalization and contextuallization.

Theoretical background

Español para Fines Específicos (EFE) y Español de los Negocios (ENE)

Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)

Instructional Design

E-learning/MOOCs

Computer-mediated communication/Telecollaboration

Methodology

Needs analysis (interviews, focus groups).

Task design (psychological, pedagogical, linguistic criteria).

Specification of required functionalities.

Comparison of MOOC platforms and selection of most appropriate platform, based on required functionalities and functionalities offered on platforms.

Real-world test with students. Measurement of acceptance and perception of the MOOC learning environment and the online communication tools (UTAUT). Intercultural awareness? Not in absolute terms but identifying evidence of consciousness, sensibility, metacognition.

Comparison of MOOC platforms

Comparison of MOOC platforms

Overall course presentation & visual design

Activities & Tasks

Openness

Personalization

Technological environment

Overall course presentation and visual design

Technological environment: discussions, comments & social learning

Technological environment: collaboration & group dynamics

P2P: peer to peer activities

Group collaboration

Technological environment: tools for language learning/speaking

rich media editor (integrated function to record audio/video)

open resources: SpeakApps (can be integrated to certain platforms)

Conclusions (platforms)

Not easy! Different platforms offer you different features & tools Some platforms are more flexible (LMS), while developers on other MOOC platforms are constantly working on additions Key: Which tools serve us best to enhance the particular tasks we want to design for our particular MOOC?

MOOCs: Opportunities for LSP, CLIL, CLAC, IC

MOOCs: Opportunities for LSP, CLIL, CLAC & IC

Content & Language Integrated LearningL

MOOCs: Opportunities for LSP, CLIL, CLAC & IC

LSP: Authentic content, authentic language, authentic language & intercultural exchange

Interdisciplinary & Intercultural

To conclude…

MOOCs

Recent trend…

Opportunities (language, content, intercultural)…

Research project

Students’ perceptions of the learning environment and tasks? Evidence of intercultural reflection & consciousness?

Thank you!

cdegusquiza@gmail.com

www.ed-tech-design.com

@cegusquiza