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Moodle 1.9 For Second Language Teaching
witthaus writes "Jeff Stanford's Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching is described in the preface as 'a recipe book' for creating communicative language teaching activities in Moodle. True to its description, the book contains over 500 pages of detailed, descriptive information on how to squeeze every last drop out of Moodle for language teaching purposes." Keep reading for the rest of Gabi's review.
Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching
author
Jeff Stanford
pages
420
publisher
Packt Publishing
rating
9/10
reviewer
Gabi Witthaus
ISBN
1847196241
summary
A descriptive how-to approach with enthusiastic insights into the rich potential of Moodle for creating engaging, useful language learning activities
In the first two chapters, the book gives an introduction to Moodle and advice on how to get started with the platform. It then goes on to consider vocabulary, speaking, grammar, reading, writing and listening activities in chapters three to eight. Chapter nine looks at assessment, giving many practical tips on the best and most efficient ways to exploit Moodle's powerful capacity to generate statistics. Chapter 10 gives suggestions on some extended activities you could use Moodle for (requiring more set-up time as well as more of students' time, but with correspondingly greater pay-off in terms of learning). The final chapter deals with formatting and enhancing the visual aspects of Moodle, and enabling stress-free navigation through the platform for your students.
Activity descriptions are framed in terms of language teaching goals rather than technical functionality, making it an easy read for language teachers who are new to online platforms. Detailed, step-by-step instructions are given, along with helpful screenshots, and a star system to differentiate the easier from the more technically advanced activities. A clear distinction is made between what the language teacher could reasonably be expected to do with Moodle and the issues that should be referred to a more experienced Moodle administrator. The book goes beyond basic Moodle features and functions, introducing the reader to many useful add-ons (such as the wonderfully named Nanogong, for incorporating audio files), and other Web tools such as Audacity for creating and editing podcasts, and Hot Potatoes for making quizzes.
The recipes are indeed delicious, ranging from simple rustic dishes – requiring little or no patience for the technical side of things; just a deep love of the classical ingredients needed for communicative language teaching, such as personalization and a focus on meaningful communication – to sophisticated gourmet platters that probably are best avoided by IT novices. There is even a section (in chapter 10 – my favorite) on creating a whole dinner menu by stringing together a sequence of activities in various ways.
My only lament about the book is that I would like to have seen some discussion on the difference between using Moodle to supplement your face-to-face teaching, as opposed to using it for wholly online courses. The most obvious difference is that students probably already know one another in a face-to-face environment, whereas in a purely online environment they come in 'cold', and this can have a significant impact on their confidence and their engagement levels. Some tips and guidelines on how to draw remote learners in, and then keep them engaged, would be really helpful, as would tips on how to find the balance between face-to-face interaction and online work for classroom-based students. But perhaps here I am talking about how to host the dinner party, which goes beyond the scope of a recipe book.
All things considered, Moodle 1.9 for Language Teaching will undoubtedly increase the language teacher's ability to cook up interesting and enjoyable activities for language students. Bon appétit!
Disclosure: The reviewer is a colleague of Jeff Stanford's at the University of Leicester, where they both tutor on the online MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL.
Gabi Witthaus has over 20 years' experience in EFL teaching and curriculum development. She is currently based at the University of Leicester, where she is involved in e-learning research and tutoring on the MA in TESOL and Applied Linguistics. (). This review was written in her personal capacity.
You can purchase Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Activity descriptions are framed in terms of language teaching goals rather than technical functionality, making it an easy read for language teachers who are new to online platforms. Detailed, step-by-step instructions are given, along with helpful screenshots, and a star system to differentiate the easier from the more technically advanced activities. A clear distinction is made between what the language teacher could reasonably be expected to do with Moodle and the issues that should be referred to a more experienced Moodle administrator. The book goes beyond basic Moodle features and functions, introducing the reader to many useful add-ons (such as the wonderfully named Nanogong, for incorporating audio files), and other Web tools such as Audacity for creating and editing podcasts, and Hot Potatoes for making quizzes.
The recipes are indeed delicious, ranging from simple rustic dishes – requiring little or no patience for the technical side of things; just a deep love of the classical ingredients needed for communicative language teaching, such as personalization and a focus on meaningful communication – to sophisticated gourmet platters that probably are best avoided by IT novices. There is even a section (in chapter 10 – my favorite) on creating a whole dinner menu by stringing together a sequence of activities in various ways.
My only lament about the book is that I would like to have seen some discussion on the difference between using Moodle to supplement your face-to-face teaching, as opposed to using it for wholly online courses. The most obvious difference is that students probably already know one another in a face-to-face environment, whereas in a purely online environment they come in 'cold', and this can have a significant impact on their confidence and their engagement levels. Some tips and guidelines on how to draw remote learners in, and then keep them engaged, would be really helpful, as would tips on how to find the balance between face-to-face interaction and online work for classroom-based students. But perhaps here I am talking about how to host the dinner party, which goes beyond the scope of a recipe book.
All things considered, Moodle 1.9 for Language Teaching will undoubtedly increase the language teacher's ability to cook up interesting and enjoyable activities for language students. Bon appétit!
Disclosure: The reviewer is a colleague of Jeff Stanford's at the University of Leicester, where they both tutor on the online MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL.
Gabi Witthaus has over 20 years' experience in EFL teaching and curriculum development. She is currently based at the University of Leicester, where she is involved in e-learning research and tutoring on the MA in TESOL and Applied Linguistics. (). This review was written in her personal capacity.
You can purchase Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I wish colleges would quit using blackboard.
Every class I've had that used blackboard would hide assignments and tests in ALL of the 5 places you can hide them.
Moodle's killer ap is the simplicity.
I don't know about a book. But there's products out there for using Moodle 1.9 integrated with online learning for live interactive classrooms. See Groopex Integrated Conferencing for example, which integrates Moodle with WebEx. I've already seen some language schools using this. I think that supersedes just using Moodle by itself as a language learning solution as this book describes.
You can be an insane coder too, read: Insane Coding
You know, I think I've finally figured out why there's never a negative review on /,, and no, it's not the "shilling." Reviews on this site are voluntary. It's not a job where you're actively employed and assigned to review something by your boss. When we're not required to do something, we usually only do things we like. So it stands to reason we only get positive reviews, because we only like to write about things we like. If the reviewer didn't like the book, he or she would probably not have the motivation to write out a full review. The trend can invert when you get into hatred territory, but let's face it, there aren't a lot of books terrible enough to write a ranty review about it.
/vertisement, likely the first of several, I figured I'd just post my thoughts on it.
Yes, this is not directly related to the actual review, but since there's already been one post harping on it being a
You can get paid to write things on Slashdot? Where do I sign up?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
The sad thing is Moodle is SO VERY far behind real LMS innovation. The Web 2.0 world has left Moodle on the sidewalk.
Second language teaching is pretty big, some estimates run to 1 billion learning English alone, and the UK alone estimates that generates 1.3 billion pounds/year in revenue.
Moodle, is by most estimates the most widely used online learning software with 49,000 registered sites in 211 countries and is also an example of a successful open source project ecosystem with commercial support partners in many countries.
You go find a Publisher who does Tech Books, tell them you'll write a glowing 9/10 review on Slashdot for some kickback.
When will people learn? The important things about teaching are, in order:
the willingness of the student to put time and effort in learning
the intelligence of the student with respect to the particular subject
the interest and ability of the teacher
the tools used to teach
Blackboard and chalk have been fine for decades and replacing those is simply not as important.
My book: Friendly F#, fun with game development and XNA; my game: Galaxy Wars by VSTeam; my gamedev language: Casanova.
I find the Pimsleur courses the most helpful; although I've been designing my own sort. What I want to do is go directly to applications; the first 4-6 Pimsleur lessons seem to set up a codepage enough that I can learn the language easier by interpretation (i.e. they teach my brain the very basic foundation, but don't give me a viable structure; I need the whole course for that). From there I'm thinking going into philosophical proverbs (one-liners), poetry, songs, and then stories would be more helpful. Not a linear course, but rather a two-part construction branching in multiple directions: Exposure to new grammar, explanations, new vocabulary, etc; then just copies of the stuff. Mixed in with the course.
So you'd learn i.e. Morehei Ueshiba quotes and Japanese poetry like Sakura etc for Japanese; German drinking songs in German; and so on. Things that may interest you, that get mixed in with your own amusement. It'd be branched off the main courses, but it would offer more full exposure-- longer songs, eventually audiobooks for short stories. A book is going to be a huge bantering of continuous language, with repeated explanation of grammar and new vocabulary, slowly draining away until there's nothing left. And also, a copy of the story without any such annotation. And of course a book of the material for reference.
I'm learning multiple languages at once and there's a certain amount of naturalization that goes into it. If you don't have constant exposure to conversation, you start translating. You need something to force rapid recall. Pimsleur got that right; I'm not really sure any particular part of their course is misguided at all, though that doesn't mean there isn't room for a more advanced theory to supersede it.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Too bad I've already posted in this thread and can't use my mod points, because you're obviously a tard.
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You seem more interested in hiding behind the AC label and calling names than in making any counter argument of substance, although I realize that would be very difficult to do. It is such a shame that you allow someone simply expressing their own opinion (arrived at by watching "teachers" from an IT support position) to upset you so much that you would resort to acting as you did, or want to use mod points to silence a viewpoint that you apparently don't completely agree with.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
As far as I can see, the review is missing only one thing:
What the @%&$! is Moodle?
Supposedly the book spends two chapters on "an introduction to Moodle and advice on how to get started with the platform," but the reviewer couldn't spare two sentences.
I appreciate the sentiment. There's lots of poorly or foolishly applied Javascript out there. And I assume you are engaging in hyperbole when you say "NOTHING." But I am convinced of the potential of judiciously applied Javascript.
I created Marginalia, an annotation extension for Moodle. It allows users to highlight passages of text and write notes in the margin. It has won rave reviews from many instructors and students. This is simply not possible without Javascript: it's supplementing the display of structured text, maintaining the benefits of HTML (compared to the opacity of an embedded applet, Flash, or what have you).
"Language Teaching", buddy, not "Teaching Language".
You know, as in for learning French, Japanese, Arabic. Spoken language, not computer language.
It's not about disagreeing with you. It's about your inability to comprehend what you have read.
What has upset you so much that you felt the need to post a criticism of teaching languages when the topic's about (natural) language teaching?
Rosetta Stone sells for $500 a copy. How long would it take me to write the equivalent in Moodle?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Rosetta Stone (my kid is using it right now through her school:-)) is a pretty simple application with some very good content. If you had the content you could do it as a SCORM or even a Lesson module in Moodle, but the content (and the marketing;-)) is mostly what you are paying $500 for. The content, it would take some time to write/record and take/locate supporting images & audio, once you had that done, a few days to a few weeks to put it in Moodle (depending on how far you were taking the user in the second language).
for setting a new *fundamental* benchmark for coherency in a Slashdot submission.
I believe that this submission achieves the smallest quantum of coherency observed to date -- possibly the smallest unit of information that might conceivably be called informative in any meaningful sense of the word. After reading over five hundred words reviewing this book, I determined that the book has something to do with language instruction, but remain uncertain as to whether the book describes hardware or software, a product or standard, an pedagogical method or, just possibly, a cookbook. I'm about 50% certain that the "languages" being discussed are natural languages and not computer languages; what is remarkable about this fact is that if I were any less certain, I couldn't reasonably be said to have learned anything at all from this article.
It's actually rather dumbfounding. I never imagined that I could be so little informed on any topic without being totally ignorant of it. Furthermore, I find that for once in my life I treasure my remaining ignorance of the topic discussed, although I do confess that I have conceived an intense curiosity about the review author's English as a Foreign Language students and how they fare putting the communication skills they've learned from him to practical use.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The big problem with Rosetta Stone is that it doesn't really delve that deep into the language. I actually asked a Rosetta stone guy about this once, he referred me to the website which then referred me to an email address which said I should just pick up a regular textbook(the same kind of regular textbook that Rosetta Stone frequently decries), to finish learning the language. Well guess what, the 80-20 rule is a bitch and Rosetta Stone only covers the 20 part.(The 80-20 rule states that it takes you 20% of the total time to learn a language to learn the first 80% and the remaining 80% to learn the last 20). The reason Rosetta Stone can sell so much is that they rely on people being ignorant of that fact and the fact that with almost any textbook a reasonably smart learner can learn the basics of the language quickly. So it seems like Rosetta Stone is teaching you a lot, but thats just cognitive dissonance :P
Monstar L
The lack of a spaced repetition-algorithm in Moodle--or any other course management system, such as Blackboard or Sakai--is a such a glaring omission that I wonder why no one has done it. SuperMemo, a Windows program written in Delphi, remains the best spaced repetition system for memorization despite an idiosyncratic user interface. Piotr Wozniak, the developer of SuperMemo, used it to learn English; an article in Wired mentions that Wozniak speaks perfect English despite never having set foot in an English-speaking country. In addition to SuperMemo, there are two open source spaced-repetition systems: Anki and Mnemosyne. But the algorithms have yet to be incorporated into online learning systems.
An extensive literature attests to the efficacy of spaced repetition algorithms, especially for learning language. I've used SuperMemo to make quick work of memorizing the FCC question pools for the General and Extra class amateur radio examinations. In fact, the program was so efficient that I was left with hardly any sense of accomplishment having used it to pass the exams.
The need for memorization algorithms is so obvious (I repeat myself) that I'm tempted to write a spaced-repetition plugin for Moodle myself.
At first I read that as "Moodle for 1.9 Second Language Teaching". Now that would be impressive.
Look, I don't mind the occasional slashvertisement, but reading this one gives me ENTIRELY ZERO IDEA about what the product is or does.. It's got something to do with teaching and languages.
Journalism isn't the same as teaching, but both of them use models of what the listener knows, what the speaker wants to convey to them, and how to lay out the information in ways that the speaker can use to get the listener interested in listening, give them a framework to understand the new information or skills, and then give them the content. The usual badly written Slashvertisement says "Version 4.6.2 of Grobzinator is out!" and goes on to explain that it's three times faster because they fixed a display bug, plus they've added Graphical Skins so you can decorate it any way you want, without indicating whether it's a programming language, game software, or open-hardware cell phone. This doesn't even do that part well. If you're writing a review, you need to do some journalism. Maybe the original review was written for a readership other than Slashdot, some kind of academic Moodle users' website where it's trying to recommend a new book. In that context it might be fine, but simply reposting here, out of context, fails.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks