In recent years, automated feedback (AF) has greatly increased its applicability as a mean to support development of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing competence in the context of face-to-face education. This study examines contribution of AF to the development of writing competence of EFL learners in open and distance learning…

This paper introduces a blended learning context that creates a community of practice. This community of practice presents a combination of face-to-face facilitated learning, e-learning, and self-study. A set of in-class and online linguistic activities was used in the implementation of this experiment to investigate the efficacy of performing…

Success and failure in language learning are partly determined by the learners' ability to regulate their emotions. Negative feelings are more likely to frustrate progress, while positive ones make the task of learning a second language (L2) a more effective experience. To date no significant body of research has been carried out into the role of…

Much Second Language Acquisition research focuses on young learners in the conventional classroom. Instructed adult learners, and in particular those who are learning at a distance, have attracted less attention. This group is substantial and growing: the Open University, the largest higher education language provider in the UK, alone recruits…

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…

This qualitative study examines perceptions and use of assignment feedback among adult beginner modern foreign language learners on higher education distance learning courses. A survey of responses to feedback on assignments by 43 Open University students on beginner language courses in Spanish, French, and German indicated that respondents can be…

This paper discusses a framework for designing online tasks that capitalizes on the possibilities that the Internet and the Web offer for language learning. To present such a framework, we draw from constructivist theories (Brooks and Brooks, 1993) and their application to educational technology (Newby, Stepich, Lehman and Russell, 1996; Jonassen,…