Elluminate in Language Teaching and Learning

Presentation at CALRG annual conference 2010 by Ursula Stickler and Sarah Heiser.

The Department of Languages at The Open University has been using Elluminate for language tutorials, tutor training, and staff meetings for more than a year now.

All members of staff in the Department of Languages and all Associate Lecturers have received initial training for the use of Elluminate and have continued training and self-training activities with the support of the department's VLE group, regional and national training initiatives and peer-mentoring schemes. Students have been offered voluntary training in the use of the software through departmental, regional and national provisions, as well. Since February 2009, Elluminate is being used across all language courses by 330 tutors and over 9000 students as part of the blended tuition model that provides a mixture of synchronous and face-to-face tutorials, and asynchronous online support.

The presentation gives an overview of the training provided centrally through cascading expertise, with the help of Elluminate champions, and via drop-in sessions. It focuses on the challenges experienced in improving the confidence of Elluminate users for teaching and learning languages online, and the benefits of an online system for speaking practice. Examples of best practice in online tasks for student language learning in various languages are given. A shosrt discussion of the benefits of Elluminate for student self-help groups concludes the presentation.