The OpenCourseWare lecture: A new twist on an old genre?

Abstract

This paper explores OpenCourseWare (OCW) lectures as a key resource for EAP research and practice. The aim is to gain insights into the distinctive features of this technology-driven lecture format and how it may differ from the traditional classroom lecture not intended for an online audience. The analysis was structured into two parts. First, the digital affordances provided by two pioneers of the open education movement (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University) were surveyed to understand how they support and enhance the lecture experience. Then, 15 lectures from their OCW platforms were analyzed with corpus tools to extract linguistic features of lecturer-audience interaction (i.e., I-you patterns, dialogic episodes, informal expressions). For comparative purposes, the same analysis was performed on a corpus comprised of 15 lectures from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English. Results showed a wide array of supporting digital affordances beyond video-recorded lectures, including lecture transcripts with metadata, content structuring, and navigational features. The linguistic analysis revealed that the OCW lecturers used considerably more I-you patterns to engage with students on an interpersonal level than the MICASE lecturers. The findings provide insights into how OCW lectures can be effectively leveraged for improving lecture comprehension for EAP settings.