marcoELE. Revista de Didáctica Español Lengua Extranjera (Jan 2014)
Escaping the large lecture hall: how to turn a large enrollment third-year Spanish grammar class into a hybrid / online class
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to show that a hybrid and/or a fully online course can be an effective alternative for large enrollment classes, summer courses, and/or for non-traditional students. In our situation, we were trying to escape the big lecture hall and the challenges that such a format presents, like finding a successful way to deliver the material to a large number of students, keeping teacher-student and student-to-student interaction, and promoting active learning. This article describes and explains the steps involved in developing and teaching a hybrid and a fully online versions of a third-year Spanish grammar class. Multiple technological resources are employed: Flash Learning objects, such as Adobe Presenter, to transform PowerPoint presentations into Flash, CLEAR Conversation and Skype to have asynchronous and synchronous video conferencing, Googledocs for group homework, and the university’s Course Management System for practice activities and online quizzes, some of them including spoken language samples. The screen capture program (Jing) was also employed to create video tutorials. Detailed information is provided so that similar courses can be created.
