Erasmus Intensive Learning Course at the Faculty of Arts of Porto University: a Blended Learning Experience Fátima Silva 1,2, Ana Isabel Fernandes 1, Ana Paula Teixeira 1, Ângela Carvalho 1, Teresa Correia 3 Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto 1 ; Centro de Linguística da Universidade do Porto 2 ; Unidade de Novas Tecnologias da Universidade do Porto 3 (Portugal) mhenri@letras.up.pt, aijesusfernandes@gmail.com, ana_amorim_teixeira@hotmail.com, angela.cf.carvalho@gmail.com, tcorreia@reit.up.pt Abstract This study presents an Erasmus Intensive Language Course in Portuguese for beginners and intermediate level students, held at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, and financed by the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Programme Erasmus. The main goals of the course are to prepare Erasmus students for their mobility by developing their language skills in Portuguese, such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking; rising the students ability to communicate appropriately and accurately in spoken and written Portuguese, encouraging students to communicate in Portuguese; enabling students to discover and learn Portuguese by and for themselves; and providing students with Portuguese cultural awareness. The students are chosen according to the criteria established by Grundtvig, namely (i) priority to students whose L1 is quite different from Portuguese; (ii) different countries; (iii) several studying areas; and (iv) the creation of a multinational, multicultural and multilingual context. Having in mind the above mentioned goals and participants, a blended-learning (b-learning) course was designed as following: 2 weeks of online training using the Moodle platform, for a total of 20 hours; 3 or 4 weeks of in-class training, with online support, for a total of 76 hours; 4 afternoons for the cultural component, for a total of 12 hours, and 72 hours of individual study. This paper discusses in detail the course s technical and content framework, the advantages of a b- learning approach to teach foreign languages, specially considering there will be an initial e-learning contact with Portuguese, whether to introduce the students to Portuguese sounds and most basic structures before their arrival in Portugal, or by allowing the students who had already had formal contact with Portuguese Language to revise their knowledge and assess their level of proficiency. This approach has proved to be a better choice compared to other intensive courses of the same level and similar background students with only in-class teaching. 1. Introduction This study presents an Erasmus Intensive Language Course in Portuguese (EILC), funded by the Grundtvig Lifelong Programme Erasmus, through the National Agency PROALV, that has been taking place at the University of Porto since 2010, and has been designed following a blended-learning (blearning) approach. After an overall presentation of the course concerning its design, its goals and participants, we present the technical and content framework of the course, mainly focused on the online component, but also its articulation with classroom and cultural visits, aiming to discuss the advantages of taking a b-learning approach to foreign languages teaching. 2. EILC: overall presentation This course is intended for European students who come to Portugal to do their Erasmus Mobility, and who have never studied Portuguese, or have already completed the beginners level at their university. The main criteria for their placement are: having a first language very different from Portuguese; coming from several European countries; guaranteeing equity of gender; and attending different faculties. So, priority is given to a multinational, multicultural and multilingual learning context, which is in total agreement with the Erasmus Program, and underlies the planning of this course, as well as the choice of the abovementioned approach. In fact, this course aims to prepare Erasmus students for their mobility period by developing their language skills in Portuguese language; rising their ability to communicate appropriately and accurately in spoken and written Portuguese, enabling them to learn Portuguese by themselves; showing students the typical way of living of the Portuguese people; encouraging their citizenship and broadmindedness.
Taking into account the features of Erasmus Program, the goals of the course, the participants, their communicative needs, the learning context, and the human and technological resources available, we opted for a b-learning approach. This approach has already been described extensively with respect to its advantages and disadvantages, and has shown to be very productive in different learning contexts (e.g. Oliver & Trigwell 2005 [1]; Scida & Saury 2006 [2]; Sharma & Barrett (2007) [3]). Overall, it consists of a model that combines the methods of classroom teaching with online learning strategies (Figueiredo 2009 [4]). The last author summarizes the general organisation of a b-learning course pointing out that it offers an integrated environment for teamwork among students, and between students and teachers, who use and integrate multimodal environments, namely synchronous and asynchronous modalities, in order to consider the different learning styles, the choice of the most adequate learning strategies and materials according to the needs of the students and the available resources. 3. EILC: course organisation The EILC course is organized as follows: 2 weeks of online training in the Moodle platform prior to the attendance of classroom lessons, for a total of 20h; 3 or 4 weeks of classroom training, with online support, for a total of 76 hours; 4 afternoons for visiting, for a total of 12 hours, and 72 hours of individual study. In this section, we describe the course in more detail, beginning with the presentation of its online component, followed by a brief overview of the classroom and cultural components, and, finally, the discussion of its results. 3.1. The online component The design and implementation of the EILC online component was done by the U. Porto team of New Technologies in Education (NTE), who used the platform Moodle, which is used worldwide by a significant number of Universities, including the University of Porto, where the Moodle platform is restricted. The role of NTE team in the course had greater emphasis in its first edition, although it has maintained its support throughout the other editions. In fact, first, the NTE group met with the teachers of the course to set together the goals for the online component, and designed the course structure, which was defined and developed using the content seen on Figure 1. In the following editions, some of the contents were updated, new exercises were added and new users were managed by the NTE team. Figure 1: Overall presentation of the EILC course on the Moodle platform
In general, the collaboration of NTE team consists essentially of technical support, namely: creation of new contents on the platform; management of users; teachers training in the use of the platform; production of study materials based on a teaching guide developed by the teachers; recording and uploading of small video tutorials that allow students to learn how to perform simple tasks in the platform; recording and uploading of video presentations of the teachers; problems solving, mostly related to user content and activities. Related to the use of the platform, two main topics must be considered: the functionality of the online component within the global organization of the course, and the use of the platform according to the students level. The online component has a double function: as an online autonomous module of 20 hours, representing the first contact of the students with the teacher, the colleagues and the course; and as a complementing tool during classroom lessons and individual study. To the students attending the beginners level, the online course enables them to make the first contact with the Portuguese Language. Since one of the first difficulties of learning a foreign language is the phonological system of a language, this first e-learning approach focuses on this topic, as well as on basic vocabulary and structures from Portuguese. Before starting the classroom lessons they should achieve the following goals: stress words correctly; discriminate one phoneme in the syllable and the word; be familiar with the phonemes of Portuguese; develop skills regarding oral and written expression; acquiring new vocabulary. To do so, the platform offers several tools: learning contents (phonemes, very frequent words or even simple sentences); a glossary (providing the audio of all the words that appear in the learning content, organized alphabetically or by categories); various types of exercises (specially listening, listening and writing, picture and word matching). These materials, generally involving animations with sound and text, are produced by NTE team using Adobe Flash TM, according to the guidelines provided by the teachers. Figure 2 presents an example of that implementation, consisting in explaining the production of a phoneme of Portuguese. All the students are assessed during the online course on synchronous and asynchronous tasks, respectively chats and exercises and/or tests. During the classroom lessons, there is a complementary use of the online component, with online review exercises of the matters addressed during the week available at each week s end. Figure 2: Worksheet for the distribution of a sound produced for beginners level With respect to the intermediate level students, the online component of the course presented a manual produced by the teachers which allowed them to familiarize with the platform Moodle, the programs of the e-learning and the classroom components, the course goals, the timetable, as well as the evaluation criteria. The aim of the first 20 online course hours is to review the contents of the previous levels. The page is organized in modules which are made available periodically. As the background of the students is quite diverse, they are completely free to do the exercises they want, in order to solve their doubts and to develop the skills they need most. The exercises focus on reading comprehension, expansion of vocabulary, structural, oral, and writing skills. Despite the freedom and
flexibility given to the choice of the exercises, two of which, respectively a forum and a gap-filling exercise, are shown on Figures 3 and 4, and to the skills at stake in each one of those exercises, all the students have to perform a test at each one of the two week's end of the online component. Besides, the activities, participation in discussion forums, and synchronous chat sessions are mandatory. The written record of the various chat sessions is later made available to students with the respective correction of its inputs. As for the synchronous sessions, three sessions of one hour each allow the students to deal with the platform, to ask questions about the content and the exercises, as well as a first contact between their teacher and colleagues, which makes classroom work easier. During the classroom lessons, Moodle remains active and supports the classes regarding the materials used, other relevant materials, such as audio files or videos to listen again or to work with at home, and the sharing of work done by students. 3.2. The classroom lessons and the cultural component Classroom lessons are intended to develop listening, reading, writing, speaking skills, and also communicative grammar. In fact, the course includes different topics, based on dynamic strategies and methods of continuous interaction developed in sessions dedicated to the in-depth study of the structure of the language, to writing practice, and to conversational practice. This involves very different activities, namely listening to and watching audio and video documents, role-playing, basic oral presentations, computer-assisted grammar and lexical work, and production of simple written texts, allowing students to put acquired linguistic competence into practice. The practical exercises are intended to prepare the students in a way that they will be able to develop the proficiency needed to the common use of the language in different situations. All teaching materials (audio, video, written) hook up students with the Portuguese way of life and culture. Conversation classes emphasize relevant aspects of Portuguese recent history, society, teaching system, political, social and economical contemporary aspects, and significant personalities. Figure 3: Guidelines for a forum produced for intermediate level
Figure 4: A gap-filling exercise produced for intermediate level Considering that language cannot be dissociated from the people who speak it, their traditions and habits, learning a language means necessarily learning a culture. Thus, the Portuguese course also includes four guided visits to Porto and surrounding cities, aiming to make students aware of the similarities and contrasts between their own cultures and the Portuguese one, broaden their horizons and stimulate their understanding and tolerance towards different cultures. 4. Discussion of the results and conclusion The EILC course represents to the teachers of the Faculty of Arts and the NTE team a continuous challenge, implying an interdisciplinary work and research on new learning approaches and tools. In general, the results of this course proved to be very productive with the students: they had the opportunity to begin or to revise their contact with the Portuguese language and culture prior to their arrival in Portugal, they were able to combine different types of learning styles, to be progressively autonomous in their learning process, to make use of their digital literacy, to amplify the possibilities of interaction, to promote social integration and interpersonal skills, and to communicate in Portuguese and live Portuguese daily routines and cultural events. However, some weaknesses remain to be solved in the future, namely the development of the oral expression and interaction on the Moodle platform. Table 1 sums up these results and the challenges that lie ahead on the form of a SWOT analysis, and should be read as an open conclusion. B-learning approach STRENGTHS Promotes different types of learning experiences Allows the access to different types of materials, activities and experiences Avoids the lack of interpersonal interaction associated to exclusively online approaches The Moodle platform Regulates the quality and quantity of the students participation Allows the introduction of different kinds of resources, granting both participation and evaluation B-learning approach WEAKNESSES When the digital environment is not adequate or fails, the online approach gets difficult It usually implies the students ability to be autonomous and disciplined in their studying It implies a great work of teaching organisation and coordination in order to make the combination between online and classroom The Moodle platform The knowledge of the platform resources by teachers and students The need of developing exercises and activities to enable the improvement of students oral skills, both production and
Enables teacher s feedback to students in various ways Promotes interpersonal interaction between teachers and students OPPORTUNITIES The application of this approach to other courses held by the Faculty of Letters Interdisciplinary research between teachers and NTE to create new tools and resources in the University of Porto interaction The continuous updating of the platform and its tools to improve the platform functionality THREATS The limitation in the interpersonal relations The benefit of one or more skills against others, preventing students from developing complete proficiency in Portuguese Table 1: SWOT analysis of the EILC course results and future developments References [1] Oliver & Trigwell (2005). Can blended learning be redeemed? ELearning, 2 (1). [2] Scida & Saury (2006). Hybrid courses and their impact on student and classroom performance: a case study at the University of Virginia. Calico Journal, 23(3). [3] Sharma & Barrett (2007). Blended learning: Using technology in and beyond the language classroom. London: MacMillan. [4] Figueiredo (2009). Estratégias e Modelos para a Educação Online. In Miranda (Org.) Ensino Online e Aprendizagem Multimédia. Lisboa: Relógio d Água.