Promoting Listening Proficiency in Iranian Pre-intermediate Learners of English through MOOCs

We are in the midst of an unprecedented growth in innovative approaches to distance education. Never before in history have so many people been engaged in the development, delivery, research, and evaluation of learning that is not confined to a specific time, location, and instructor of record. The digitalization of all aspects of modern life shows additional trends influencing learning(Bonk, Lee, Reeves, & Reynolds, 2015). It is an indispensable fact that today’s technologies provide learners with increasing opportunities to participate and learn from a distance in an interactive and often highly collaborative manner. One of these new trends of technology is MOOC. Recently, the development of MOOCs has caught people’s interest both inside and outside the academic world and these courses have been portrayed as a revolution in teaching and learning (Chacón-Beltrán, 2014).The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of MOOCs in promoting listening proficiency of Iranian pre-intermediate learners of English. To achieve this purpose, triangulation of quantitative (quasi experimental and survey methods) and qualitative methods (interview and observation) was used in order to collect the data from a range of sources and participants engaged in the FutureLearn platform. There were two groups of participants: experimental and control. The experimental group were 10 learners who attended English courses at Mahras Language Institute in Shiraz and all of them were at pre-intermediate level studying for up to 10 hours per week. During the study the experimental and the control groups went through different treatments. The experimental group who received the treatment had been taught through using a MOOC created by FutureLearn platform entitled ‘Basic English 2: Pre-Intermediate’, offered by Kings College London, within four hours\a week for four weeks. On the other hand, the control group composing of the same number of students did not receive any treatment. They followed the booklet extracted from Real Listening and Speaking (Miles Craven, 2008) and Tactics for Listening (Richards, 2008) along with its CD with the same number of hours by the same teacher. The results of the study showed that the participation in the experimental group reported higher listening levels than those in the control group. Therefore, the use of MOOCs in the English classes to practice listening skills had a significant effect on enhancing the Iranian EFL learners’ listening comprehension levels

Keywords:

MOOC , Listening Proficiency , Traditional Courses , Iranian Pre-Intermediate EFL Learners