Institute of Romance Languages

and Translation Studies

Halina WIDŁA, Ewa PÓŁTORAK,

Izabela MROCHEN

Supporting the learning through the use

of Distance Learning Platform

The Institute of Romance Languages and Translation Studies at the University of Silesia teaches students in five specialities:

• French language, • Romance philology,• Italian philology, • Spanish language and • Applied languages:

French and English• Canadian subspeciality,• French language

studies in the University's Affiliate in Rybnik.

Each speciality offers two cycles of education:

• the three-year BA studies

• the complementary two-year Master's studies also for college graduates.

• Philological studies are run both full-time and part-time.

Various blocks of courses

• a block of basic courses (including blocks of courses in linguistics, blocks of courses in studies of literature and blocks of the main language's practise courses),

• a block of courses preparing for the teacher's and translator's profession

• a block of general education courses (consisting of subjects such as Latin, philosophy, second foreign language).

The didactic offer for students of French language, Spanish language

and French+English languages

• a block of professional courses:

• marketing,

• economics,

• law or specialist language.

Seminars

• Third-year students of BA studies and students of MA studies are offered four types of seminars on:

• studies of literature,

• linguistics,

• translatorics

• methods of foreign languages teaching.

New motivation

• Another motivation for us was the change which occurred when the graduates who passed the New Matura exam entered the universities. These people took the new IT course according to the new teaching programme. They also adopted habits which were acquired individually by their older schoolmates. It is the first time we have encountered students who begin their integration with creating own websites and portals. These are actvities which would appear rather exotic to their elder mates. For the very first time two groups of students – organisations and scientific societies – appeared asking for server space.

MOODLE

• The Institute of Romance Languages and Translation Studies runs didactic classes in four foreign languages. Of course it also cooperates with various foreign institutions.

• The advantage of Moodle is it's global popularity. No other system has ever been massively tested in such manner.

• Neither we, nor our partners are forced to learn how to use a new administration panel (in any such case, even an uncomplicated panel requires additional time and training).

• While it might not be disturbing for a person with technical education, a person with human studies takes it into consideration primarily.

The advantage of Moodle:

• It's global popularity

• Internationals partners

• Many schools decided to install the platform in order to improve the international cooperation concerning student exchange programmes

MAYETIC• The registration and launching the platform takes only few minutes• There is a tutorial (in French, English and Spanish) in the form of a

slideshow accompanied by a video presentation, consisting of lectures which the user can open according to his/her needs

• The administration panel is user friendly and easily adaptable• No other platform is as suitable for project activities as Mayetic,

because it allows to create any number of groups and sub-groups, to which the same people can be assigned (depending on their status in the sub-group)

• This system, only seemingly complicated, enables teachers to easily organise joint tasks by distributing tasks to different groups of users, with particular internal hierarchy of individual persons responsible for respective parts of the project

• The activities are synchronized in accordance with the schedule• The teacher can choose coordinators of the respective parts and

assign them to supervise the tasks of the sub-groups• The teacher remains the main coordinator of the works and monitors

the group's progress

Nowadays there are widespread complaints among distance learning specialists about reluctance of their colleagues to introduce this form of education.

They should give up attempting to convince the stubborn and instead make efforts to ensure thet the next generations, accustomed to the new methods, choose those institutions in which not only is this offer available, but is also of high standard.

USE-LMS

• A very well-designed on-line deans office panel is the unquestioned advantage of USE-LMS. It transparently allows to monitor the students' progress, while giving them a chance to correct their shortcomings. Didactically (i.e. the easiness of validation and control over documents concerning progress) this platform outstandingly meets any demands of a teacher.

Project Activities

• Working on the platform can be divided into a few steps:

• joint working on a general plan and a topic of the lesson,

• a division into smaller teams responsible for creating the particular “moments” of the lesson,

• joint concluding the overall shape and course of the lesson.

Other benefits:

• training in both individual work and teamwork, • providing new opportunities to shape language

and communication skills • Mastering media competences • Intensifying students' scientific attitudes • Increasing students' creativity• Developing authonomization of language

teaching/learning• Individualizing processes of foreign language

teaching/learning

Linguistics:

creation of an e-dictionary of specialist vocabulary.

• Within the block of the main language's practises, students can work together on exercices and evaluate their essays during the written language classes.

MAMS

We assume that persuading the staff to introduce this way of working will result in an attempt to implement the MAMS system. There is a good opportunity, because for the first time we are starting up a speciality which includes teaching a foreign language for beginners. Strenghtening this offer by a set of interactive exercises, as an additional chance for people who need more revisions, should bring the expected results.

Block of Translatorics

TranslatIion of a selected piece of literature.

The entire group of students could be divided into smaller teams (responsible for particular fragments), consulting their results in order to give the translation an overall shape

Block of Professional Courses

• Most popular solution:

• a virtual enterprise.

A particular function may be appointed to each students – each of them would have to do the duties in order to ensure that the enterprise is functioning properly.

Specialist Language Courses

• French language in business.

• The students can virtually create models of selected types of commercial / administrative letters, correct them together and consult them with the teacher.

Studies of Literature

• Within the block of studies of literature, project activities may base on a joint analysis of a piece of literature.

General Education Courses

• On the basic level, the activities can involve preparing short essays, created and corrected by all members of the group, or creating bilingual micro-dictionaries (of the first and the second foreign language).

• On the advanced level, the activities may be extended and include more linguistic situations, such as those based on real life situations transferred to virtual reality (e.g. a simulation of a job interview, writing application letters etc.). Effects can be later presented and analysed during classes.

SEMINARS

The cooperation on the platform can be also used to execute projects which arise from programmes of particular seminars.

It can serve as a method of joint compiling necessary scientific tools and discussing their usage.

CONCLUSIONS

• During the philological studies, working on the distance learning platforms can serve:

• As a training laboratory for project exercises• As a form of a virtual, individual course of purely linguistic

studies: a language course taking into account needs of both those exceptionally gifted and exceptionally incapable of meeting the requirements

• Another stage of having the use of the platform should be an individualised offer of language teaching, taking into account students' widely grasped linguistic biographies: not only age and competence, but also already posessed knowledge and skills in other languages, which will strongly accelerate the acquisition of next languages.

Thank you

for your attention