That's a challenging question. Before I took a stab at answering, I reflected back on how Spanish was taught in a distance learning course that relied on television. Back in the eighties and nineties, a course called "Destinos" taught Spanish through "immersion," using a television soap-opera style called a "novella" to immerse learners in la lengua. The course lasted nearly a year and was supported by a vast variety of worksheets, exercises, and assessment tools.
Such a course as Destinos used a mix of media to achieve positive learning outcomes, and I believe the same answer holds true today. I responded that the success of an online course for ESL instruction depended a lot on the design of the content and follow-up activities:
"... I do believe that the content must engage the learner in some way. You gotta hook the fish with tempting bait. What could an ESL teacher do to engage the student?...
I think the instructor would be well served to consult media, or even create media, to enhance the course's ability to engage the student. One could use a webcam and microphone to record short (45 seconds or less) video clips (Windows Movie Maker), and post them to YouTube; then, link those clips to course content-- very possible and feasible to do.
One could also import those video clips to a Powerpoint using Adobe Presenter tools, and publish them to the Adobe Connect server, then link those clips to the Blackboard course as content.
How much does it cost to do all this? Nothing to the USF instructor. The Adobe Presenter and Windows Movie Maker tools are free."
And that's the crux of this post: The tools for designing instructional content that engage the senses (seeing, hearing, and through well-designed exercises: doing), are freely available to USF instructors, with support from your friendly neighborhood instructional designer at CID.
And the learning curve is not as steep as you might imagine. Not in my opinion, anyway.
-- Glen Gummess
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