Learners as teachers? An evaluation of peer interaction and correction in a German language MOOC

Clifford, Elisabeth; Pleines, Christine; Thomas, Hilary and Winchester, Susanne (2019). Learners as teachers? An evaluation of peer interaction and correction in a German language MOOC. In: CALL and complexity – short papers from EUROCALL 2019 (Meunier, F.; Van de Vyver, J.; Bradley, L. and Thouesny, S. eds.), Research-publishing.net, pp. 88–93.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2019.38.991

Abstract

The benefits of peer interaction, support, and feedback in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for Languages (LMOOCs) are well documented, but there has been little research on peer correction in MOOCs. Classroom-based research suggests that peer corrective feedback has significant potential for language development, but it also identifies a number of conditions for the feedback to be effective, notably a ‘positive classroom atmosphere’; this may be hard to achieve on a MOOC, with its diverse cohort and large number of participants. Our mixedmethod study reveals participants’ conflicting expectations of learning from their peers on the one hand and actively contributing to their peers’ learning on the other. Most participants believe they are not competent to provide helpful corrective feedback, and some think that the expectation to correct creates unwanted pressure and hinders communication. This paper encourages MOOC educators to address the challenge of creating a culture of learning through meaningful interaction whilst also finding ways of exploiting the opportunities offered by constructive peer correction.

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