Teaching Languages Online
Additional TLO Resources
Join our CARLA Diigo GroupsÊ- we bookmark articles and other resources in this Diigo group, along with other summer institute participants. When you join, you not only get notified when resources are added, but you can add to the resources yourself - please share what you find.Ê We invite you to join the groups - and contribute to them!
- CARLAtechÊ- this group has a focus of integration of technology in language teaching and learning.
- Learning to Teach Online - many articles from a general context, but a language focus when we find them.
Tips/Best Practices for Teaching Online
- Online Teaching Workshop Archives (video series from NIU)
- Aaron Johnson's Online Teaching Tips (blog)
- Best Practices in Online Teaching Strategies
- Fifty-one Competencies for Online Instruction (download PDF and skip to page 15-18)
** This one is interesting because they also list the competencies in sets for "before, during, and after" the course - iNACOL - Standards for Quality Online Teaching - this is a different checklist from the one you saw in Unit 1course design and focuses more on teacher competencies
- Master Online Teacher Competencies
This one is long! Skip the background text and go halfway down to where you see things in red/blue for the list of competencies. Look for the blue ones for exemplary instructor competencies.
Collections of Tech Tools and Ideas for Using Them
- Tools and Ideas - and other sections of Florencia Henshaw's Technology for Language Teaching and Learning website
- Tech tools for language educators - maintained by University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
- Language Tech Toolkit - filter the tool based on its use, Center for Language & Technology, Hawaii
- LangWitches and their blog
- Larry Ferlazzo's blog (ESL, but lots of ideas for language activities)
- ECML - Inventory of ICT tools and open educational resources - filters by function, type, and skill
- Joe Dale's Collection of Advice and Resources to Support Language Teachers
- also check out language teaching groups on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media
Non-language specific
- Matt Miller's site - he's always sharing lots of creative ideas for teaching. He is also sharing a lot of technology ideas for integration - for free - on his website. For example, 15 Online Whiteboard Options - how to share "writing on the board" in teaching online.
- Free Technology for Teachers
- Tech 4 Teachers
Organizations / Journals focusing on Technology and/or Teaching Online
These 2 organizations have their own journals and major conferences - you should be a member!
- CALICO (Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium)
- IALLT (International Association for Language Learning and Technology)
Language and technology journals:
- Language Learning & Technology
- FLTmag from IALLT
- ReCALL, back issues are available online
Additional journals about teaching online (not specifically for language teaching)
- Online Learning Journal (formerly JALN)
- MERLOT's Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT)
- There are many more... do a Google search!
Both of these organizations have a lot of articles, guidelines, books and research about teaching online on their websites:
- iNACOL (K-12) has now become the Aurora Institute - Resources on Ed Innovation for reports
- SLOAN-C (higher ed) publications
Books about Teaching Online
These first three books have served as course textbooks for TTLO in various years:
- Boettcher & Conrad. (2021). Online Teaching Survival Guide, 3rd ed)
You can find most of the tips on Boettcher’s website, but not organized as nicely as the book, and the book has additional best practices and updated information. -
Stanley, G. (2013). Language learning with technology: Ideas for integrating technology in the classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
This is a good resource as it contains many activity ideas for teaching language using technology. It received good comments from teachers in previous TTLO years! - Ko, S. & Rossen, S. (2017). Teaching online: A practical guide (4th ed.). Good general background information.
Additional books about teaching online
- Egbert, J. & Shahrokni, S. A. (2019 update). CALL Principles and Practices. Now an open text, freely accessible!
- Teaching Language Online: A Guide for Designing, Developing, and Delivering Online, Blended, and Flipped Language Courses (2021) by Victoria Russell and Kathryn Murphy-Judy
- Rice, TK. (2012). Making the move to K12 online teaching: Research-based strategies and practices. Pearson Education, Inc.
K-12 teachers may be more interested in this book, with more of a focus on K-12, but it also has good information for all levels! - Teaching online: Tools and techniques, options and opportunities by Hockly and Clandfield (2010). Delta Publishing.
This book has some background on best practices for teaching online as well as a number of example activities that you can use. It is not specifically for language teaching, but one of the authors is a language teacher - Essentials of Online Course Design by Vai and Sosulski (2011). Routledge.
They have chapters on writing style and visual design that are not in the other books.
- Adding Some TEC-VARIETY: 100+ Activities for Motivating and Retaining Learners Online by Bonk & Khoo (2014). Again, not language or online specific, but some creative ideas for activities using technology that would be useful for both online and language learning. Download this book for free. http://tec-variety.com/
- Recommended by Shannon and Marlene:
e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning (3rd Ed.) by Clark & Meyer (2011).
It is probably the most useful book I have read for my instructional design courses. It is more focused on e-learning, but I think a lot of the guidelines in there are good for online and blended teaching too. ~Shannon
- Creating Online Learning Experiences: A Brief Guide to Online Courses, From Small and Private to Massive and Open (OER, Pressbooks, July 2018) by Matthew Crosslin, https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/
- Teaching Language Online (2nd Ed.) by Meskill and Anthony. (2015). Multilingual Matters.
They use different jargon than FL teachers will be used to ("corralling, saturating"), but there is good information in it about teaching online. They now have another book out - Teaching Children Online. - Delivering High-Quality Instruction Online in Response to COVID–19 Faculty Playbook (PDF). (2020). From the Online Learning Consortium, APLGU, and Gates Foundation. To "ease the process of a rapid change to remote teaching and streamline the course design and delivery process for longer-term online learning opportunities."
Conferences & Courses about teaching technology and/or teaching online
- InSync Training for Synchronous Learners - "Learn How to Learn Online"
A 1-hour virtual training opportunity that might give you a taste of what you could do in a synchronous session.
It's a free course, not specific to language learning, but it would give you an idea of some tools that can be used in synchronous, large group meetings. I would look at it through the lens of “what activities / tools are the moderators using to engage me as a learner and how could I adapt these for language activities?” - ACTFL Distance Learning SIG and Hawaii LRC materials - modules for learning to teaching online
- TESOL's Certificate program for learning how to teach online
- The LARC workshop recordings of their summer sessions are online and worth watching.
- Digital Pedagogy Lab - this is an online conference for those interested in the intersection of digital learning, critical pedagogy, and social justice. Unlike typical conferences, participants choose a track to learn about with a cohort of learners in a participatory and active fashion.
- Online Graduate Certificate in Technology Integration
The Anderson Language & Technology Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder now offers a fully online graduate certificate in technology integration in the language classroom.