Book Image

Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching

Book Image

Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching

Overview of this book

That word Moodle keeps cropping up all over the place ñ it's in the newspapers, on other teachers' tongues, in more and more articles. Do you want to find out more about it yourself and learn how to create all sorts of fun and useful online language activities with it? Your search ends right here. This book demystifies Moodle and provides you with answers to your queries. It helps you create engaging online language learning activities using the Moodle platform. It has suggestions and fully working examples for adapting classroom activities to the Virtual Learning Environment. This book breaks down the core components of a typical language syllabus ñ speaking, pronunciation, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and assessment ñ and shows you how to use Moodle 1.9 to create complete, usable activities that practise them. Each chapter starts with activities that are easier to set up and progresses to more complex ones. Nevertheless, it's a recipe book so each activity is independent. We start off with a brief introduction to Moodle so that you're ready to deal with those specific syllabus topics, and conclude with building extended activities that combine all syllabus elements, making your course attractive and effective. Building activities based on the models in this book, you will develop the confidence to set up your own Moodle site with impressive results.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Index

Part 4: General design principles for creating a good Moodle course


It's likely that the activities you choose will be determined by the language syllabus you're teaching to. A good online course follows the principles of a good face-to-face course. Here are 10 reminders which might be handy.

Ten principles of a good Moodle course

Structure

Make sure your course and the activities are clearly structured, so that it's clear what is happening at any particular stage.

Audience

Make sure the course and activities are appropriate for your students.

Goal

Remind yourself why you've set the activity. With so many goodies available in Moodle, it's easy to fall into the trap of doing something because it's there rather than because it's useful and interesting.

Memorable

Try to make the materials interesting and memorable by providing stimulating topics and attractive materials.

Review

Remember to proof your materials. Also, get feedback from students and other teachers with a view to improving...