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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.
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
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.