Cultural and Contextual Affordances in Language MOOCs

Abstract

This case study explores cultural and contextual affordances in language massive open online courses (LMOOCs), especially the extent to which an LMOOC effectively promotes optimal language learning. Participants included 15 language student teachers of English as a second or foreign language in a spring technology elective course at a private university on the East Coast. Student teachers enrolled in language MOOCs and tracked and evaluated their learning process and progress through weekly logs and surveys. Data was collected from weekly reflection logs and pre- and post-surveys. Results indicate that the cultural affordances were more salient in the advanced Spanish MOOC and the Hindi MOOC, while in the beginning-level LMOOCs, contextual factors were lacking overall.