10-RES-Lagelands

Resources > Lagelands

Introduction
Lagelands is a comprehensive, tutor-supported Dutch language course for beginners, which is used both in wholly on-line and blended learning contexts. The course brings students to level A2 of the Common European Framework. The course consists of ten chapters which all contain three listening and three reading texts alongside sections on grammar, pronunciation and exercises on all language skills. At the beginning of each chapter, students are presented with a clear list of the notions, functions and grammar they will learn, which is complemented by a check list at the end of the chapter where they indicate whether they have acquired these items. Extra exercises can be done to check their performance. Each chapter is rounded off with a comprehensive task, embedded in a meaningful context, covering a range of skills, which brings together notions, functions and grammar students have acquired in that chapter. In the last five chapters, more in-depth readings and listenings are introduced.

Mode of Delivery
Blended Learning
Although all the learning materials for Lagelands can be found online, the course was initially designed for blended learning, as it was to be used for a beginners’ module in Dutch at the University of Hull. In that sense, the basic course structure of ten chapters with six texts each was very much a pragmatic choice: it fitted in well with the module structure at the UoH, where the course was covered in one semester (effectively 10 teaching weeks, with six contact hours each). The online component was intended to be tutor-supported from the start, hence the inclusion of not only self-correcting exercises, but also exercises requiring tutor-feedback. The course is currently still being used at both the University of Hull and the University of Sheffield in a blended learning context.

Wholly Online (tutor-supported)
However, from the outset, the idea existed to eventually offer the course wholly online, again with tutor-support. The course did run in this way between 2002 and 2004, when it was offered by the University of Hull. After a thorough revision, it is now being offered as a short course by University College London’s Department of Dutch (since September 2009). The key differences between the two incarnations of the courses are a more attractive and user-friendly interface, a strong element of self-monitoring progress and much greater emphasis on speaking and synchronous contact, thanks to advances in technology, such as the development of Skype. In order to present more ‘humanity’ to an otherwise quite text-based interface, each chapter is introduced by a short video in Dutch, with a choice of Dutch or English subtitles, as you can see below.

Course Types
Comprehensive Skills
Lagelands is a comprehensive language course, which covers all four language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing, as well as supportive work on vocabulary, grammar and cultural content. For the grammar content, many references are made to the Virtual Dutch on-line beginner’s grammar with self-correcting exercises.

Syllabus Types
Lagelands is a combination of product-based approaches, mainly situational, but with a strong focus on grammar and specific notional-functional exercises. A look at the ‘in this chapter’ page gives you a good idea of the topics covered.
Realistic dialogues and texts are at the heart of this course, which is centred around a soap-style story of a number of students living together in Rotterdam. The course is not entirely product-based as there are some task-based exercises too.

Activities
Reading
Every chapter consists of three reading texts, accompanied by vocabulary lists and comprehension and vocabulary exercises. In the initial chapters, the texts approximate authentic texts, but they are not, as they are specifically written for learners of the language and for introducing certain notions or grammar. From chapter 6 onwards, students get to read more challenging texts from a range of (semi-) authentic sources.

Writing
All chapters have several writing exercises, where students are often asked to write something in the genre of the texts they have read, such as a recipe, a newspaper column, an email, a postcard to a family member and so on. They may also need to consult each other or write something together in a wiki. This can be done in the VLE.

Listening
As with the reading, there is a wealth of listening exercises, which are mostly scripted dialogues, but also radio (e.g. interview) and television programmes (e.g. adverts) later in the course. All listenings are accompanied by comprehension and vocabulary exercises. There are poetry and literary texts as well, which are used for pronunciation purposes. All pronunciation exercises are preceded by auditive discrimination exercises, as students need to be able to distinguish between sounds before they can produce them.

Speaking
In the blended version of this course, most of the speaking exercises would be done in the classroom, but in the wholly-online delivery, speaking is done via Skype for dialogues and via voice recording devices. Pronunciation features heavily in this course, with exercises such as reading poetry aloud. Other speaking exercises include producing dialogues with a partner and recording them, as well as more open conversation in the Skype sessions. The teacher speaks with the students weekly and students talk live (via Skype) together to work on collaborative assignments. There is a very strong element of vocabulary training in this course, with plenty of self-correcting drill and practise exercises, as well as writing and speaking exercises where the vocabulary needs to be applied. All reading, listening and pronunciation texts have detailed vocabulary lists with handy boxes covering notions such as ‘days of the week’, ‘colours’, etc.

Grammar
The course contains concise grammar explanations and numerous exercises. The exercises tend to be self-correcting, using a variety of drag-and-drop, fill the gap and multiple-choice exercises. For more details and practise, the course links to the on-line Virtual Dutch beginner’s grammar.

Transferable Skills
Students are encouraged to monitor their own learning through clear benchmarks throughout the course. After completing the checklist and related exercises, they tackle the ‘final task’ which consists of a few tests on vocabulary and grammar, and a more comprehensive reading or research task, as you can see below:

Students are also asked to create their own home pages to which they add text and audio throughout the course, which helps them monitor their progress and take ownership of their learning, as it is ‘their’ space, that other students also contribute and link to.

Activities using authentic materials
From chapter 2 onwards, authentic materials are used, sometimes slightly adapted. Students are often asked to look at Dutch and Flemish websites to extract information. The scripted readings and listenings also try to emulate authentic styles, even though they are adjusted, and for the listening, speed is also slightly adapted to the learning audience. The voices used for recording the dialogues include various Dutch and Flemish accents, in order to familarise students with the variety that is ‘out there’, rather than sticking to one standardised form.

Multiple Skills
The final assignment of each chapter is usually a writing task, that needs input from other skills, such as listening or speaking, in order to be brought to a good end. There are more exercises that combine two or more skills.

Levels
Beginners
By the end of the course, students should have obtained a level of proficiency equivalent to A2 of the CEF. This means that they are able to understand everyday spoken language and participate in conversations of this nature. They will also be able to read short texts (ca. 200 words) and write texts of a similar nature (ca. 150 words). They will have an active vocabulary of ca. 1,000 words.

Progression
Linear
Progression is linear, reinforced by the storyline which runs through the course, but given the wide range of exercises, the student does have a degree of choice as to what s/he wants to cover. Also, although we suggest a way of working through a particular chapter, this is not prescriptive.

Assessment
In a blended learning context, the assessments (a number of tests) and exams are done in the university face to face setting.
In the wholly online, tutor-supported version of this course, students were continuously assessed, based on fulfilling the eindopdracht (final task) at the end of each chapter.

Web applications
The course content is on a website, complemented by a VLE. All the assignments, texts and exercises are on the website, whereas the VLE will be the place where students can post work, contribute to forums and find course information. Some of the tasks involve students communicating via Skype and recording their Skype sessions to be sent to the tutor. The tutor would also have one to one Skype sessions with each student once a week. Students communicate on the forums in the VLE or work on writing exercises in a wiki (also on the VLE), as well as maintaining their own homepages where they store, display and discuss information about themselves and their Dutch language work, which could involve audio, video and blogs (see Web 2.0).