Distance Learning and Teacher Education 

 by Alejandro G. Martinez, M.A., Mexico City

The focus of this paper is on distance learning with an emphasis on long distance teacher education via electronic media.  The points I’d like to touch on are:

         a brief review of long distance courses

         e-education and the opportunities it offers for teacher development

         the advantages and disadvantages of e-education as related to teacher development

          the implications this has for carrying out research in certain areas of e-education and teacher education.

Computers and the Internet are here to stay, and teachers need to be aware of this lest we are taken by surprise by the imminent changes in the way we teach that computers are bound to bring.  Probably the best way of getting to grips with technology and long distance education is to be a part of it, and teacher education offers a good range of possibilities for experienced and inexperienced teachers, for teachers who have used this technology before and for those who haven’t. 

In this paper, I have divided the ways in which teacher education via long distance can take place in two broad areas: formal or institutional and informal or incidental. These two differ mainly in terms of the final objective and length.

Formal

It is generally provided by a university or a teaching institution and leads to some kind of certificate or degree.  It can be a crash course or a longer Master’s or PhD programme.

Informal

It is supplied by a wide range of universities, publishers and other private enterprises. In general,  this type of education is mostly inexpensive and easy to get by teachers who want to keep up-to-date.  Historically, long distance courses began with the arrival of correspondence courses. With the advent of e-mail and the internet, the media changed, but so did the method and speed of delivery.

Mixed media courses

These are developmentally more complex and include the use of videos, printed material and some sort of e-communication.

Online courses

Purely online courses now exist, and have started to be favoured by some British, American and Australian universities.  In these courses, computer-mediated communication (CMC), both synchronic and asynchronic has now become the norm, and are considered to be state-of-the-art courses run by the more avant-garde universities.

Some examples:

This is not an exhaustive list in any way, and I am aware of the fact that there are probably many more courses run in a long distance fashion leading to a wide range of diplomas and certificates.

Certificate Course in Online Education and Training, run by the University of London, Institute of Education. It is a short 20-week programme run from London, but with local groups in many countries throughout the world. For more information visit http://www.ioe.ac.uk/english/OET.htm

The British Council, in conjunction with International House, offers a course leading to a teaching diploma, issued by the University of Cambridge, for native and non-native speakers of English (UCLES). To find out more click http://www.thedistancedelta.com

For teachers who want to embark on a more challenging course, the University of Leeds has a programme that provides personalised support via e-mail, and the materials are provided on paper or via the Internet.  For further details visit http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/masters/tesol-dl.htm

Other universities offering long distance MA courses amongst others are: Indiana University, Bloomington  http://www.indiana.edu/~disted/courses.html and Oxford Brooks http://www.brookes.ac.uk/icels .

For a fuller discussion of long distance MA programmes see Barfield and Haruko (1996).

Platforms

The most commonly used platforms for course delivery can be divided into three main areas:

electronic mail or e-mail

bulletin boards and,

The World-Wide Web or HTML format

I should like to focus on bulletin boards, which seem to be the most promising platform.  Bulletin boards are a more advanced or better developed form of e-mail.  An example of a commonly-used learning environment is Blackboardä (sample screen shown below). It is easy for teachers and learners to use, and the support team replies immediately and with very straightforward instructions when users have a problem or simply want to know how it works.  It provides a simple way of sending and reading messages and it supports a wide range of formats such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat (PDF), HTML, digital images, digital audio files, digital video files and multimedia (Flash, Shockwave, and so on). An interesting feature is the possibility of creating quizzes and password-protected, timed tests. These can be released and recalled at specific dates and times or once the student has accessed it.

For more information you can visit: www.blackboard.com

Another platform that has been used is Merlinâ.  The University of Hull developed this web-based environment that allows tutors and course participants to exchange information, ideas and discuss issues in a very organized way.  It is not so easy to use at first, but the facilitators are very helpful and try to cater for needs as much as possible.  Merlin includes a more visually attractive e-mail program in which photos and other images can be inserted without much tinkering.

First Classâ is a virtual environment and a more complete e-mail program than Outlook or Eudora.  It is a kind of virtual environment that is easy to browse and surf.  As the user goes deeper, it becomes a very organized bulletin board.

The virtual college allows course participants to wander around, take a tutorial, and read articles in the college library. Besides this, it allows tutors to have their own room, to which students have no access, and a “social club” where they can meet their students in a more informal atmosphere. Often tutors have no access to this section so that learners can feel more relaxed and talk about things that are related to their lives as students.

The messages look very similar to e-mail, but there are certain features like replying with a quote, sending to one person only or to the whole group, that are quite handy.

HTML based pages are easy to navigate in general and look very straightforward. Virtual colleges or campuses allow course participants to browse and interact with other participants in a more “realistic” way.

For example, the user can download papers and articles, print them out, save them, read them on screen and so on.  Also, cross-referencing is made much easier.  This is a surprisingly easy-to-use tool that allows teachers to upload their research and papers so that more people can read them at the click of the mouse.

Virtual Colleges

There are some good examples of “virtual “ colleges or school campuses.  The one developed by Simon Fraser University in Canada is just one.  This is one extremely interesting possibility for the near future.

Informal or incidental approaches to teacher education via long distance learning include: discussion forums, journals, bulleting boards, chat groups and online conferences.

Discussion Forums

There are many discussion forums for teachers.  TESL-L, SLART-L, SLVA are probably the best known examples. They have been widely written about elsewhere (see for example: Dudeney, 2000, Sperling, 1997), so I will not go further into them. Suffice it to say that I personally find them widely recommendable and would encourage teachers to become members. 

Chat rooms

Perhaps chat rooms devoted to language teachers are the resource least used so far.  There may be several reasons for this: time differences, time needed to participate, the teacher needs to be online all the time and this can be costly and you might end up talking to yourself if nobody happens to be in the room when you stop by.

Online Journals

There are many journals now, but I have only included here the ones that have the whole contents on line and are free of charge.

English Teaching Forum (http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/) contains complete articles and these vary from purely theoretical and research based to more practical ones. Contributors come from all over the world which gives the journal an invaluable international perspective.

Language Learning and Technology (http://polyglot.cal.msu.edu/llt/intro.html) deals with technology-related issues and is generally very accessible.

Other journals worth mentioning are:

TEFL.NET  (http://www.tefl.net) 

Learning Technology (http://lttf.ieee.org/learn_tech/) 

ELT News (http://www.eltnews.com)

Humanizing Language Teaching (http://www.hltmag.co.uk/index.htm)

All of these allow the reader to print the articles or read them online.

Some publishers have now given subscribers access to their printed journals on-line. Studies in Second Language Acquisition by Cambridge University Press and English  Language Teaching Journal by Oxford University Press are but two examples.

Online conferences

The first ELT conference to be purely online took place in November 2001. The speakers were famous in the ELT area such as Professor David Nunan, who gave the first plenary session, Scott Thurnbury and Gavin Dudeney.  The talks were not only about technology, but about more general issues in language learning, and the participants could choose between two concurrent sessions as in any “live” conference.

What a conference participant could see on his/her computer was the presenter’s overheads at the top of the screen, and a chat room at the bottom.  Here participants could comment on what was being said, ask questions or just talk to a colleague. The chat room could be turned off if the participant or speaker found out it too distracting.

It is not quite clear yet whether this is the way to go for all conferences, but at least it offers certain advantages: it is a way of making them less expensive, no travelling hassles, and they can be “attended” right from home or the office. Of course, the time difference can sometimes be a problem, and there is no substitute for the social contact, despite the social chat room provided by the organizers. If you would like to see a sample session go to http://www.eltoc.com/

Advantages of Long Distance Teacher Education

Long distance teacher education, be it formal or informal, offers several advantages. Participants can work at their own pace and time. This is invaluable for teachers who have other commitments such as a family, a job or several jobs.

It also provides individualized learning and can thus be very learner-centred.  There is the possibility of student-to-student interaction.  Tutors usually give immediate feedback or assistance.  The wide range of materials available through multimedia caters for various learning styles.  Even in the most informal discussion group there is an international group of people, bringing together a rich source of experiences, and hence the possibility of a rewarding intercultural exchange. Because of this, and the fact that a good range of expertise is found in international groups, scaffolding can take place in a wide range of ways.  Perhaps one of the most important advantages is that it is relatively inexpensive for everyone, mentors and teachers in training, experienced teachers who want to improve their qualifications and so on.

Disadvantages of Long Distance Teacher Education

There are a few disadvantages and many issues that still need to be researched (see below).  Probably the most obvious disadvantage is the feeling of isolation and hence demotivation students may feel after some time. Some cultures are not used to individualized learning and some teachers might find it hard to keep up with the assignments when tutors and classmates are far away.  Many people feel that socializing is an integral part of the learning process and that exchanging e-mail messages or even chat rooms or virtual conferencing does not make up for it.

An obvious drawback is the fact that  a certain degree of computer literacy and experience with the use of a keyboard is expected and probably necessary.

Issues for Research

Online discourse: the patterns of turn-taking, initial turns, turn changes, use of smileys and so on.

 Learning styles: some are easily catered for using CMC, but people who need a more “social environment” might not feel at ease.

Assessment. There are many sub topics involved: from security and plagiarism to validity and reliability.

 Learning strategies: perhaps new ones are need to be researched.  Independent learning asks for certain strategies that are not likely to be required in F2F lessons: e.g. analytical and more reflective strategies.

   There are still no methodological advances that allow us to see computers for what they are: a tool. Maybe this is the area where more needs to be done so that mentors, teachers and learners can benefit from the advantages provided by computer-mediated communication.

Conclusion

Despite technological advances, the human being remains largely unchanged and is likely to remain so. However, language teachers ought to be as up-to-date as possible when it comes to the use of multimedia and the Internet.  Probably the best way of doing this is by getting involved in some sort of distance learning environment, be it in a formal or informal way, so that teachers gain an insider’s perspective. This should result in more research carried out so that some sort of methodological and pedagogical view will make the new media more useful and beneficial for learners.

References

Barfield, A. and Haruko, K.  (1996) Mastering Distance Learning TLT. Online JALT http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt/96/dec/teachered.html

Distance Education at a glance: http://www.uidaho.edu/evo

Chapelle, C. (2001) Computer Applications in Second Language Acquisition  Cambridge University Press: Cambridge

Pincas, A. (1998) Successful  online course design: Virtual frameworks for discourse contrstruction Educational Technology & Society 1(1) http://ifets.gmd.de/periodical/vol_1_98/pincas.html

Sperling, D. (1997) The Internet Guide For English Language Teachers Prentice Hall: New York

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©Alejandro G. Martinez 2002. All rights reserved.