How to Identify Quality Digital Based OER Language Teaching Resources with LinguApp

There is the need to offer professional guidance to content teachers who, set within formal educational contexts, need structuring and counselling at this process. When the teacher’s guidance is key to achieve successful learning process, it becomes necessary that the selection of the resources is done in an appropriate, systematic and neat way.

This professional aid can come in many ways. One of these is to offer a scientific evaluation of the quality of available and reliable OERs. Such evaluation has been carried out by a group of researchers under the frame of a research project entitled LinguApp: Asegurando el acceso al aprendizaje universal e inclusive de segundas lenguas (PRY 208/17), granted by the 2017 competitive call of the Fundación Andaluza Centro de Estudios Andaluces. These researchers wanted to consider not only specific language issues that could arise in the learning process, but also which of these OERs (and the resources available within) would provide the learner with better resources from both technical and pedagogical viewpoints.

It is of high importance that lecturers have clear understanding of all those aspects that are to be taken into account when identifying and selecting the appropriate resource for their instructional aims. These key concepts are motivation, self-efficacy of both the learners and the instructors, learner autonomy and learning environment. Knowing the key concepts promotes and supports finding both the appropriate technical instrument and content material.

From the technical point of view, the LinguApp technical instrument has been used (Gómez, Huertas, & Espejo, 2019). This tool establishes five weighted dimensions and 30 indicators. The dimensions considered refer to: quality of content (with 40% of weight on the total score); learning objectives (30%); feedback, interactivity, motivation and user loyalty (20%); accessibility and usability (5%); and, finally, technical requirements and intellectual property (5%). From a linguistic perspective, LinguApp also provides a tool to measure the skills that the OERs caters for bearing in mind the linguistic level established by the European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Online Resources

Hartnett, M. (2016). Motivation in Online Education. Springer, Singapore. pp. 5 – 32
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315033704
The first chapter of this book is an introduction into learning as a process of knowledge construction and the increasing role of digital technologies in this process within tertiary education contexts. This is followed by an introduction to online learning along with definitions, discussion of foundational online learning concepts and contemporary pedagogical approaches used in online learning environments.

Research Project about LinguApp: Centro de Estudios Andaluces. LINGUAPP: Asegurando el acceso al aprendizaje universal e inclusivo de segundas lenguas
https://centrodeestudiosandaluces.es/cea-proyectos/1429
This website collects the official information about the Research Project in which the methodological tool that will be implemented in this module was created, developed, tested and finally published.

Gómez, M. E., Huertas, C. A., & Espejo, A. R. (2019). Estudio para la validación de dos instrumentos para la evaluación de sitios web de aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras. Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, 25(1), 62–80.
https://ojsspdc.ulpgc.es/ojs/index.php/LFE/article/view/1048
This publication describes the planning, the development, and validation of two instruments for the evaluation of foreign language learning websites. The first one assesses the technical characteristics of the resources, while the second instrument specifically addresses which skills and how they are developed, taking into account the contents and activities offered by the website. This paper presents the statistical results of this design and validation process, concluding that this type of tool can contribute decisively to the development of research in this area, where technology has substantially modified the process of learning and teaching second languages.