This article explores the findings of a qualitative case study of journal entries by 10 final-year English pre-service teachers during their five-week practicum in disadvantaged schools in South Africa's Gauteng province. The study sought to investigate the nature and depth of reflection as well as student teachers' perceptions regarding the…

The first module of the online Master of Arts (MA) in Translation at the Open University, Introduction to Translation Theory and Practice, includes a language development strand which encourages students to diagnose their own language development needs and introduces them to tools, resources, strategies, and learning communities that will enable…

This paper addresses the lack of research into satisfaction assessment of post-graduate students of the Blended Distance Learning Master's Course for Teachers of German as a Foreign Language offered by the Hellenic Open University. Through the compilation of previous questionnaires implemented for other DL programs and newly defined research…

The pedagogic practical knowledge that teachers use in their lessons is very difficult to make visible and often remains tacit. This chapter draws on data from a recent study and closely analyses a number of Open Educational Resources used by three language teachers at the UK Open University in order to try to capture how their use of the…

We report on a case study of high Japanese student failure rates in an online MBA programme. Drawing on interviews, and reviews of exam and assignment scripts we frame the problems faced by these students in terms of a "language as social practice" approach and highlight the students' failure to understand the specific language games…

Learners and teachers of a foreign language in online and blended learning environments are being offered more opportunities for speaking practice from technological developments. However, in order to maximise these learning opportunities, appropriate task-based materials are required which promote and direct student to student interaction in…

This case study focuses on two learners who took part in an intensive online German course offered to intermediate level students in the Department of Languages of the Open University. The course piloted the use of a Moodle-based virtual learning environment and a range of new online tools which lend themselves to different types of language…

This book, written by authors representing 12 countries and five continents, is a collection of international perspectives on distance learning and distance learning implementations in higher education. The perspectives are presented in the form of practical case studies of distance learning implementations, research studies on teaching and…