Introduction
Massive open online courses (MOOCs), as a potential means of providing access to education for all, have been around for more than a decade. MOOCs are generally free, open (no entry requirement), online courses developed for large or “massive” numbers of learners (Jansen & Schuwer, Reference Jansen and Schuwer2015) and promise to meet the needs of a changing learner population such as nontraditional part-time and lifelong learners (Siemens, Reference Siemens, Bonk, Lee, Reeves and Reynolds2015). The recent COVID-19 pandemic led to an upsurge in interest in MOOCs (Bates, Reference Bates2020), and thereby an expansion of previously highlighted benefits, such as mobilizing institutions to recognize online learning and support formal, informal, self-directed, or work-integrated learning. MOOCs can offer learners additional support for a university degree, provide professional development at work, or clarify a difficult concept for a school-level certificate (de Freitas, Mogran, & Gibson, Reference de Freitas, Mogran and Gibson2015; Stutchbury et al., Reference Stutchbury, Ebubedike, Amos and Chamberlain2023). They have enabled educators to experience teaching demographically diverse learner cohorts and to gain a richer understanding of online teaching at scale (Hew, Reference Hew2018). Additionally, they have increased the visibility of many educators (Blackmon, Reference Blackmon2018; Goel et al., Reference Goel, Raj, Garg, Singh and Gupta2023) by enabling them to reach a much wider audience.
MOOCs are often characterized as connectivist (cMOOCs) or extended (xMOOCs), depending on their pedagogical underpinnings. cMOOCs are based on connectivist pedagogy that recognizes learning as a distributed process whereby learners build and maintain connections to knowledge resources and peers in a network (Siemens, Reference Siemens2005). In contrast, xMOOCs follow a cognitivist–behaviorist pedagogy (Rodriguez, Reference Rodriguez2013) and are delivered through a learning platform such as edX, Coursera, Udacity, or FutureLearn. In these structured and curriculum-driven xMOOCs, learners study the course content (e.g. videos, articles, auto-graded activities), while engaging with peers and educator(s) in discussion areas (Wise & Cui, Reference Wise and Cui2018). Although the cMOOC–xMOOC dichotomy is criticized for showing insufficiencies in describing the diversity of MOOCs (Bayne & Ross, Reference Bayne and Ross2014), it “has gained considerable authority and reveals some of the key ideas that shaped the design, development, and promotion of the MOOC” (Knox, Reference Knox and Peters2015, p. 2). Many MOOCs include features of both types of MOOC.
The unique learning environment of MOOCs offers opportunities and creates challenges for learning and teaching, language learning being no exception (Wong, Reference Wong2021). For example, since these courses can involve the use of audiovisual materials and oral and written interactions (Wong, Reference Wong2021), they can help with the development of communication skills. At the same time, facilitating communication in the MOOC proves a challenge, as in many cases “learners outnumber educators by 1,000 to one or even more” (Ferguson & Sharples, Reference Ferguson and Sharples2014, p. 103). Thus it is important to know how to use these open and large-scale courses to support language learning and teaching, especially the development of foreign- and second-language communication skills and effective communication among participants and educators in MOOCs. To this end, the chapter aims to assess the promise and reality of communication in language MOOCs (LMOOCs).
Background
Language MOOCs are online courses offered at scale to people interested in learning or practicing a foreign or second language (Martín-Monje & Bárcena, Reference Martín-Monje and Bárcena2014). They are taught at a distance and the course materials are usually written by educators from higher education institutions or international organizations focused on education and culture. They are designed to develop language and cultural knowledge and may include employability skills for working in the countries where the target language is spoken (Beaven, Reference Beaven, Beaven, Comas-Quinn and Sawhill2013; Beaven, Codreanu, & Creuzé, Reference Beaven, Codreanu, Creuzé, Martín-Monje and Bárcena2014). Learners can make use of audiovisual resources, written material, and discussion forums to practice listening, reading, and writing (Sokolik, Reference Sokolik, Martín-Monje, Elorza and Riaza2016) and other aspects of language such as grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.
Language learners have distinct motivations for using LMOOCs. Their reasons for enrolment in LMOOCs can include improving their target language for academic or professional purposes or communicating with other language learners worldwide. However, communication is usually in written or visual form (Chong, Khan, & Reinders, Reference Chong, Khan and Reinders2022; Maravelaki & Panagiotidis, Reference Maravelaki and Panagiotidis2022), as oral communication is a challenge when large numbers of participants are involved. Learners may also be interested in developing their translation skills while taking part in an online community of translators, language teachers, and other learners; such was the case of learners in the Open Translation MOOC (Beaven et al., Reference Beaven, Comas-Quinn, Hauck, de los Arcos and Lewis2013). In this MOOC, designed by academics in the Department of Languages at the Open University, learners collaborated in the translation and subtitling of open educational resources. LMOOCs may suit different participants’ interests that encompass language learning, target language culture, and communication skills development.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education led to increased interest in online language learning, positioning foreign language education among the top ten most studied subjects in 2020 (Shah, Reference Shah2020). LMOOC production is on the rise, and it is essential to know where and how to find these courses. Individuals interested in learning a language can find catalogues of LMOOCs available through websites such as classcentral.com, my-mooc.com and mooc-list.com. The first website is a search engine that displays online courses from various subjects, universities, nonacademic institutions, and platforms. Language-learning courses appear under the subject heading of “Humanities,” 1,803 courses being offered at the time of writing (Class Central, 2024). Learners can also discover free online courses via the my-mooc.com website, which organizes courses into categories according to thirteen fields of specialism. For instance, at the time of writing, 153 LMOOCs can be found in “foreign languages” within the “personal development” category (My Mooc, 2024). The third website (mooc-list.com) offers a list of more than fifty LMOOCs and online courses in the category “languages and literatures” in which courses are filtered by level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), provider, and duration (MOOC List, 2022).
Primary Themes
Communication Opportunities and Challenges
Interactions and communications between learners, educators, and content are a critical component of meaningful learning and quality online learning experiences (Anderson and Dron, Reference Anderson and Dron2011). In language learning their importance is supported by theories such as Krashen’s input hypothesis in 1985, Swain’s comprehensible output hypothesis in 1995, and Long’s interaction hypothesis in 1996, as the interactions enable learners to negotiate meaning through receiving input and producing output while practicing the target language (Chew & Ng, Reference Chew and Ng2021).
MOOCs, and particularly LMOOCs, provide opportunities for all learner-centric interaction types (learner–content, learner–learner, and learner–educator), but to varying degrees. Learner–content interactions, which are often stimulated by viewing videos and demonstrations or by reading texts (Gregori et al., Reference Gregori, Zhang, Galván-Fernández and de Asís Fernández-Navarro2018), support the development of receptive skills; they are very frequent as they are easily scalable. In contrast, interactions among learners (peer interactions) are generally low to medium in terms of frequency, even when learners are provided with several asynchronous and synchronous interaction opportunities. This is a likely result of the optional and voluntary nature of these interactions. MOOCs also include learner–educator interactions in several forms, for example weekly emails to learners or discussions in forums. Additionally, learners can have educator–learner-like interactions from several sources such as recordings of educators or automatic marking of tests and quizzes. However, learner–educator interactions are often limited as a result of cost, limited availability of educators, and lack of scalability (Miyazoe & Anderson, Reference Miyazoe and Anderson2013).
Since MOOCs provide several interaction opportunities, educators’ decisions and planning play a key role in managing learners’ cognitive load and minimizing their nonessential cognitive activities to save their mental resources for the desired learning activities (Kozan, Reference Kozan2016). This is important, as the sheer volume of communications in MOOCs (e.g. in discussion areas) sometimes makes learners disengage from interaction with peers and educators, as a mechanism to manage information overload. They may resort to strategies such as ignoring interactions or engaging with them selectively (Peters & Hewitt, Reference Peters and Hewitt2010; Wang et al., Reference Wang, Zhao, Wu and Goh2023).
The scale and openness of MOOCs affects interactions and creates both opportunities and challenges. For example, MOOCs support language learners to acquire communication experiences at different social, academic, and professional levels (Zubkov & Morozova, Reference Zubkov, Morozova, Filchenko and Anikina2018), to access an international and multicultural community of other learners, and to develop a better understanding of other cultures for successful communication (Pavlovskaya & Perkins, Reference Pavlovskaya and Perkins2016; Rai et al., Reference Rai, Deng, Lin and Fan2023). In addition, they can help learners develop valuable soft skills such as negotiation (de Freitas et al., Reference de Freitas, Mogran and Gibson2015) or ICT skills (Zubkov & Morozova, Reference Zubkov, Morozova, Filchenko and Anikina2018).
However, the sheer volume of communications in MOOCs can discourage learners from sharing their views or seeking information (Hew, Reference Hew2018), and the diversity of learners’ backgrounds and knowledge bases can make interactions between learners difficult, since they do not share similar learning profiles (Chen, Reference Chen2014). Furthermore, difficulties caused by language, different cultures, and even time zones are recognized as barriers to interactions in MOOCs. While learner diversity and heterogeneity can support learning from various perspectives, it can also cause difficulties when engaging in meaningful and continued communications (Tawfik et al., Reference Tawfik, Reeves, Stich, Gill, Hong, McDade, Pillutla, Zhou and Giiabbanelli2017). Learner diversity in terms of languages and cultural backgrounds means that communications are cross-cultural and, if learners or educators are not aware of different communication patterns, cultures, and values, misunderstandings and miscommunications are likely to arise. Pavlovskaya and Perkins’s (Reference Pavlovskaya and Perkins2016) study highlights unexpected communication breakdowns and failures experienced by language learners as a result of a lack of sociocultural awareness and competence. They suggest that verbal and nonverbal sociocultural mistakes such as inappropriate lexical and grammatical choices, taboo topics, or misinterpreting visual information can end communications. Similarly, they can impede deep learning and community formation (Rovai, Reference Rovai2007).
Another difficulty associated with communications in MOOCs concerns learners’ willingness to listen to alternative views and to accept those that aid in a collective understanding of the topic. This dialogic aspect of interactions can improve learners’ understanding; however, in the case of MOOCs, where large numbers of learners are involved, the dialogue does not occur in an orderly and progressive way (Wells & Arauz, Reference Wells and Arauz2006). Some promises and realities of communication in LMOOCs are summarized in Table 11.1.
| Promises | Realities | Moving forward |
|---|---|---|
| LMOOCs provide communication opportunities at different social, academic, and professional levels. | Not many learners are keen to engage with such opportunities, especially older language learners. | Provide learners with clear instruction about their participation in communication opportunities and try to minimize barriers to their engagement. |
| LMOOCs enable access to an international and multicultural community of other learners. |
|
|
| LMOOCs help learners develop soft skills such as negotiation and decision making. | Learners can cooperate with others and, for instance, interact with speakers of the target language in a tandemMOOC (http://mooce.speakapps.org) | More research and learning design efforts are needed to address the pedagogical and technological design issues that represent the development of speaking interaction, and thereby soft skills in LMOOCs. |
Current Research and Practice
In LMOOCs, learners can practice their productive language skills asynchronously and synchronously, through peer or learner–educator interactions. Often the discussion areas in these courses provide learners with an opportunity to communicate in writing in the target language (Sokolik, Reference Sokolik, Martín-Monje, Elorza and Riaza2016). However, for various reasons, some learners choose not to take up such opportunities. For example, older language learners in the Irish 101 LMOOC were more engaged in watching videos and completing quizzes and less keen to contribute to discussion forums (Mac Lochlainn, Mhichíl, & Beirne, Reference Mac Lochlainn, Nic Giolla Mhichíl and Beirne2021). The feeling of exposure when expressing personal ideas in a large and open course can make learners avoid this kind of activity and thereby miss the opportunity to develop their writing skills in the target language.
Fostering speaking among learners has generally been a challenge, given the scale and openness of LMOOCs (Read, Bárcena, & Kukulska-Hulme, Reference Read, Bárcena, Kukulska-Hulme, Martín-Monje, Elorza and Riaza2016). Nevertheless, the work of Appel and Pujolà (Reference Appel and Pujolà2021) has led to the development of a MOOC that provides learners with speaking practice by taking advantage of the online and massive features of LMOOCs. The course, titled “TandemMOOC English–Spanish,” follows a tandem learning approach, in which large numbers of proficient speakers of English collaborate synchronously with speakers of Spanish while both learn each other’s languages. This online course includes:
a tool to manage content during the task, and
matching tools to help participants find a tandem partner.
As well as affording opportunities to interact with proficient speakers of the target language, the course provides learners with the necessary competencies to interact, collaborate, and give peer feedback. Emerging LMOOCs should foster these types of synchronous interaction in which learners can practice their speaking skills and at the same time develop communicative strategies.
For both written and oral communications and interactions, learners require feedback to improve their learning and to fill the gap between what they have understood and what should be learned. In other words, feedback is required to scaffold their learning. In MOOCs, this feedback is provided through various means, as summarized in Table 11.2.
Table 11.2 Sources of feedback for learners in MOOCs
Recommendations for Research and Practice
Effective use of LMOOCs to support the development of communication skills requires more than knowing about the opportunities and challenges these courses create for communication. There are various factors that should be considered, such as the educator’s role, learners’ preparedness and autonomy, and how to integrate them into classroom practices.
Educator’s Role
Educators play a crucial role in facilitating different aspects of communications in MOOCs. They support learners to make sense of the input provided by the learning resources, and they validate their outputs or contributions (Mishra, Cayzer, & Madden, Reference Mishra, Cayzer and Madden2017). Regardless of how self-regulated and autonomous learners are in understanding the content, when application of knowledge (e.g. a grammar rule) is considered, learners require an educator’s feedback to confirm whether they can apply their knowledge correctly (Bartalesi-Graf et al., Reference Bartalesi-Graf, Agonács, Matos and O’Steen2022). In addition, during a MOOC learning journey, when the topics become difficult or unfamiliar, few learners feel confident assisting others (Onah, Sinclair, & Boyatt, Reference Onah, Sinclair and Boyatt2014). This is when an educator’s involvement and scaffolding are key to maintaining learners’ engagement and facilitating the communication process. Moreover, a cohort of learners consists of both autonomous and less autonomous learners, and the latter require more direction from an educator (Kop & Bouchard, Reference Kop, Bouchard and Thomas2011).
Furthermore, it is educators’ skillful facilitation that prompts communication and encourages learners to interact and express their ideas. If educators do not facilitate or challenge ideas in an intercultural context such as MOOCs, learners tend to limit their conversations to safe topics and consequently do not use the potential opportunities for deep learning (Helm, Reference Helm2013). Overall, educators facilitate communications by orchestrating interactions, highlighting valuable learner contributions, and challenging incorrect or incomplete ones. Sharples’s (Reference Sharples2015) expression “oil the wheels” suitably describes the educator role in facilitating communications in MOOCs.
Learners’ Autonomy and Self-Regulation
Studying in an LMOOC is an opportunity for learners to develop a responsible role in their language education. The self-access nature of these courses implicitly requires a level of self-regulation that goes beyond choosing the time and course content to study. Learners are expected to employ strategies such as goal setting, strategic planning, and self-evaluation if they are to regulate their learning effectively. However, the format of these courses can present a challenge for learners who have not employed such strategies before (Milligan, Littlejohn, & Hood, Reference Milligan, Littlejohn, Hood, Khalil, Ebner, Kopp, Lorenz and Kalz2016). It has been suggested that the learning design should include adequate scaffolding to support the use of self-regulated learning strategies in these online courses (Kizilcec, Pérez-Sanagustín, & Maldonado, Reference Kizilcec, Pérez-Sanagustín and Maldonado2017). Hence educators and providers of LMOOCs should embed this type of support, especially within communicative activities designed to promote effective practice and self-reflection on the performance of oral and written production – activities that are usually underestimated in LMOOC-based learning. Alternatively, in-class tutors can inform learners about the importance of self-regulated learning and prompt them to use these strategies during their LMOOC-based learning, if it is integrated into a face-to-face course.
Affordances of LMOOC Technology for Communication
LMOOCs do not tend to have the appropriate technology to provide enough speaking interaction practice at scale. Most LMOOCs rarely address this productive skill on their platforms; this is due to the complex instructional and technological design behind the implementation of speaking interaction tasks (Appel & Pujolà, Reference Appel and Pujolà2021). Researchers and practitioners have worked together to integrate this skill into emerging online courses such as the tandemMOOC mentioned earlier, which takes advantage of the multitude of participants and affords authentic target language use through speaking interaction with proficient speakers. Yet synchronous communication in LMOOCs remains a challenge for language educators and educational technologists when developing speaking interaction and integrating it into these massive online courses. Hence pedagogical and technical support is needed from both MOOC educators and MOOC providers in order to increase the opportunities for oral communication within and beyond the platforms so that learners may interact and develop social competencies and skills while using the target language.
Integration of LMOOCs into Classroom Practice
The potential of LMOOCs should not be limited to learning at a distance. Research on blended MOOCs practices (Beaven, Reference Beaven, Beaven, Comas-Quinn and Sawhill2013; Conde Gafaro, Reference Conde Gafaro, Comas-Quinn, Beaven and Sawhill2019; de Waard & Demeulenaere, Reference de Waard, Demeulenaere, Kan and Bax2017) shows that integrating these online courses with face-to-face language courses can enable high-school and university students to:
improve their language use
Educators in LMOOCs should consider the possibility of designing activities that can be complemented with classroom-based ones, so as to expand the opportunities for communication in another language on a small scale and on a large scale alike. Similarly, in-class teachers should be open to embedding LMOOCs into their teaching, not necessarily by reusing the online content in their class, since most of the online resources might not be under a free license. Instead, they can integrate this informal learning modality into their lessons through follow-up activities designed to develop productive skills. Learners can be given a speaking or writing task that prompts them to interact with classmates and peers from the online course, drawing attention to active and cooperative learning.
Cultural Issues in Communication in LMOOCs
Positive cultural affordances of LMOOCs include authentic materials (Fuchs, Reference Fuchs2020) and opportunities for cultural enrichment, for example as reported by students taking part in an Irish language and culture MOOC (Mac Lochlainn et al. Reference Mac Lochlainn, Nic Giolla Mhichíl, Beirne and Brown2020). Yet there are cultural and contextual aspects that reveal not-so-positive experiences and concerns. Liyanagunawardena, Adams, and Williams (Reference Liyanagunawardena, Adams and Williams2013) argue that tensions in learners’ discussions in a MOOC could derive from possible cultural differences that should be further explored. A study by Orsini-Jones and Zou (Reference Orsini-Jones, Zou, Zou and Thomas2020), in which EFL teachers from China were looking to incorporate existing MOOCs into their teaching, notes the teachers’ concern that they might be unable to handle questions from students relating to materials in a MOOC, which would threaten the Chinese teachers’ traditional authority.
Future Directions
MOOCs are evolving, and there are continuous efforts to improve their effectiveness as well as the experiences of learners enrolled in the MOOCs. Given the large scale of most MOOCs, methods of analyzing learner activity and ways of supporting learners need to be scalable and take advantage of rapid developments in artificial intelligence.
Automated ways of analyzing the online behaviors of large numbers of learners, for instance the activities they complete or do not complete, and the extent to which they engage in communication with others on the course, can be used to reflect on MOOC designs. Data analytics is an established method of investigating how people behave online using data from online platforms. It is increasingly used in education as “learning analytics.” Diagnostic learning analytics is the collection and analysis of data about learners and their online actions that are derived from MOOC platform metrics and compiled while a course is running. The analytics can be used to improve student engagement by having educators review and revise or fine-tune the design of the MOOC, its content, and its learning activities. For example, in an LMOOC on giving presentations in English that was run in Thailand, learning analytics related to several communication channels used in the course (comments, discussion forums, and a Facebook group) revealed the relative frequency of peer interactions in various learning activities that used these channels (Jitpaisarnwattana, Reinders, & Darasawang, Reference Jitpaisarnwattana, Reinders and Darasawang2021). When considered alongside findings from interviews with students, the learning analytics data enabled reflection on future LMOOC designs, and also a suggestion to incorporate more personal communication channels into the courses.
Large-scale learning environments also call for ingenious ways of providing additional, personalized, or human-like support and engaging interactions in the absence or scarcity of teachers and facilitators. Conversational agents such as chatbots can serve such purposes. Chatbots can be programmed to ask and answer questions, to guide learners, and to assist in problem-solving. Tegos et al. (Reference Tegos, Demetriadis, Psathas, Tsiatsos, Følstad, Araujo, Papadopoulos, Law, Luger, Goodwin and Brandtzaeg2020) describe an experimental chatbot designed to advance productive peer dialogue and support students’ collaborations in MOOCs by promoting knowledge exchange. This chatbot can monitor a conversation in a MOOC and decide when to deliver “questioning interventions,” for example by posing a question (“Do you agree with the following statement: …?”), by encouraging a response to a peer (“[Person A], would you like to add something to what [Person B] has mentioned about [Topic X]?”), by making an informative statement, or by providing some guidance. The promise is that teachers will soon be able to configure such chatbots without the need for specialist programming knowledge.
In this chapter we have commented on the promises and realities of communication in MOOCs. We have addressed the opportunities and challenges faced by learners, educators, and providers when dealing with productive skills in LMOOCs. Learners can develop their communication skills in the target language within LMOOCs. They can access an online community of learners from around the world to exchange mainly written messages in the target language. Research shows that educators in these online courses can include different tasks and channels of communication, oral or written, in order to engage learners in meaningful and authentic discussions with others. Likewise, MOOC providers should work together with educators to provide learners with adequate and innovative technological tools to facilitate productive skills practice, and encourage the development of soft skills such as negotiation and decision-making. It appears that there is limited research on cultural and contextual aspects of MOOCs and LMOOCs, and we would agree with Fang et al. (Reference Fang, Tang, Yang and Peng2019), who suggest that future research could investigate potential cultural influence on engagement in MOOCs. LMOOCs have the potential to transform learners’ communication opportunities in a target language while fostering their practice of a set of skills that are needed in active language learning.
