|
|
| Description: | Mesa Community College offers online courses for four languages including Japanese. In this session, the presenter shows her online Japanese courses using WebCT with the help of other tools. She will show how she teaches four different skills in language-learning: reading, writing, listening, and speaking as well as how she incorporates the National Standards for Foreign Languages into her teaching. She will also share do’s and don’ts in developing online language courses. |
| Presentation Format: | Oral |
| Topic: | Enabling learning: Effective instructional practices and flexible design models |
| Target Audience: | Course Designers, Faculty and Other Instructors, E-learning Managers, K-12 Educational Staff |
| Appropriate Audience Level: | Beginning or new users of WebCT, Experienced WebCT users |
| WebCT Version: | |
| Abstract Text: | The Japanese program at Mesa Community College (MCC) has approximately 180 students each semester. In Spring 2004, about 50 students chose to register fonline courses instead of traditional face-to-face courses. MCC for currently offers online Elementary Japanese I, II, and Intermediate I. MCC also plans to develop and offer online Intermediate II in the near future. They use WebCT as the course management tool. Students can find syllabus, calendar, weekly instructions, and other resources from the site. All of the documents for the courses are created by FrontPage and uploaded to the site. Students should take weekly quizzes. Their grades are immediately available. In order to teach writing, listening, and speaking in Japanese, I added the following features to the site. Since it is important for Japanese students to practice both typing and hand-writing, they are required to submit a quiz by faxing their hand-written documents. Weekly instructions embed many sound files. These files allow students to improve their listening skills. Students are required to record their voices using Purevoice and send them to me weekly, and take oral tests on the phone four times a semester. In order to measure students’ performances according to the National Standards for Foreign Languages, I require students to compile their students’ ePortfolios or electronic learning portfolios. This project fosters students’ higher thinking skills. I use the Student Presentation function of the WebCT for this project. Students are required to participate in discussion sessions to experience the sense of a learning community. Students are required to post at least two messages a week on the WebBoard; in English and in Japanese. Students post English messages to ask questions, while they use Japanese postings to practice creating sentences as well as discussing themes students are dealing in each unit of their textbooks. |
See more of Teaching Japanese in WebCT
See more of The 6th Annual WebCT User Conference