Moodle 1.9 for second language teaching : engaging online language-learning activities using the Moodle platform

In Detail That word Moodle keeps cropping up all over the place - it's in the newspapers, on other teachers' tongues, in more and more articles. Do you want to find out more about it yourself and learn how to create all sorts of fun and useful online language activities with it? Your search ends right here. This book demystifies Moodle and provides you with answers to your queries. It helps you create engaging online language learning activities using the Moodle platform. It has suggestions and fully working examples for adapting classroom activities to the Virtual Learning Environment. This book breaks down the core components of a typical language syllabus - speaking, pronunciation, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and assessment - and shows you how to use Moodle 1.9 to create complete, usable activities that practise them. Each chapter starts with activities that are easier to set up and progresses to more complex ones. Nevertheless, it's a recipe book so each activity is independent. We start off with a brief introduction to Moodle so that you're ready to deal with those specific syllabus topics, and conclude with building extended activities that combine all syllabus elements, making your course attractive and effective. Building activities based on the models in this book, you will develop the confidence to set up your own Moodle site with impressive results. A recipe book for creating Moodle activities based on a communicative language teaching approach Approach The author's experience as a teacher enables him to combine a simple, descriptive how-to approach with enthusiastic insights into the rich potential of Moodle for creating engaging, useful language learning activities. The book is based on Moodle 1.9 and gives clear instructions with lots of screenshots. There are dozens of examples of activities that you can use to create your own online activities. Who this book is for This book is written for teachers, trainers, and course planners with little or no experience of Moodle who want to create their own language learning activities. I am an EFL teacher, program administrator, and co-moderator of the Moodle for Language Teaching Community. Six reviewers on this site have given a highly critical but positive review of Jeff Stanford's book. In over ten chapter-by-chapter reviews, we provide a detailed analysis of each activity in this massive encyclopedia of knowledge of Moodle in foreign language teaching. A downloadable, electronic version of the book is available from the publisher, Packt Books. If you are interested to read over 15,000 total words of commentary, I refer you to the forums on moodle dot org (registration required). Look for the "course" called "Moodle for Language Teaching". Here is an except from one of the reviews: "Released in November 2009, Jeff Stanford has produced a herculean, 500-plus page handbook for applying the Moodle open source LMS to the specific needs of foreign language teaching. Given the pervasive use of online LMSs in teaching today, any language teacher needs to be aware of the options available for enhancing the online components of teaching and learning in their `blend' of face-to-face and web-based activities. Though anyone can suggest omissions to the book, it is actually hard to argue that any more needs to be added to this already comprehensive edition. In addition to the ten chapters provided in the print and pdf-file versions of the book, two additional chapters, Chapter 11: and Chapter 12: are available for download at the Packt website. Furthermore, Chapter 8, on listening skills, is available from the publisher for free download as a sample to encourage readers to purchase the book. The full Table of Contents is viewable as well." "One of the qualities of this book, is the recipe-book structure that it sticks to throughout the chapters. This has been pointed out by earlier reviews (see Miguel Guhlin and Mary Cooch for example). By recipe-book, I mean the book walks a teacher through, step-by-step, how to accomplish various objectives, often with detailed screenshots. What is the best structure of a book on language learning? The outline of this book suggests it favors a skills approach (four chapters on speaking, reading, writing and listening) supported by a knowledge approach (2 chapters on vocabulary and grammar) and class management approach (3 chapters on setup, assessment, and extensions). I like this because these categories are familiar to most language teachers and thus will be easiest for them to locate information. It assumes you will browse, like a reference book, rather than read start-to-finish. It does not offer a complete course or curriculum, instead of resists promoting one method, offering more generic tools that all can use. For this reason, reviewing the table of contents is essential first reading as it will guide your browsing. Unfortunately, I found the table of contents somewhat difficult to read due to formatting or font selection. In future editions, formatting across the book needs attention so it is both easy and a pleasure on the eyes." "This book demystifies Moodle and provides you with answers to your queries. It helps you create engaging online language learning activities using the Moodle platform. It has suggestions and fully working examples for adapting classroom activities to the Virtual Learning Environment. This book breaks down the core components of a typical language syllabus -- speaking, pronunciation, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and assessment -- and shows you how to use Moodle 1.9 to create complete, usable activities that practice them. Each chapter starts with activities that are easier to set up and progresses to more complex ones."--Resource description page. "This book will show you how to create Moodle courses specifically for teaching foreign languages. You'll develop learning activities to help students understand, speak, and write in the foreign language. The book is ideal for teachers who want to teach a foreign language to English speakers, or for teaching English as a second language"--Cover