Open and Distance Language Learning

• This article presents characteristics and didactic possibilities of open and distance learning-teaching systems and their application to foreign language teaching.
• Open/distance learning is unlike that of decades past, now ready to assume new educational responsibilities.
• In foreign and second language teaching, the communicative approach—flexible/learner-centered—is favored by professionals.
• The communicative approach is demanding and often limited by required communicative needs and can foreign language teaching hold a distance setting and follow the communicative approach principles.
• Open and Distance Learning, Communicative Approach, Second Language Learning, ICT, and Internet.

Introduction

• Open and distance learning methodologies are forcefully entering existing teaching specialties.
• Initially restricted to specific disciplines due to communication limitations, these methods now include practical components and communication between participants.
• Language teaching is now able to overcome challenges due to technology, incorporating new uses and adapting emerging technologies which improves activity substantially for teachers and learners.
• Internet's emergence has revolutionized teaching, including foreign language instruction.
• Defenders of the communicative approach aim for quality linguistic competence in foreign language learners.
• Distance education systems, technology, and the Internet create a new educational space to meet foreign language education needs.
• Experimentation, analysis, and investigation are crucial to understand this evolving environment.

Language Teaching Perspective

• The communicative approach has been dominant in second (L2) and foreign language (LE) teaching in Europe for over 20 years as the communicative approach has been enriched to create theoretical models and various methods and courses.
• The focus is on the processes involved in language use, such as meanings, expression, comprehension, and negotiation.
• This language concept incorporates culture for communication to incorporate intercultural understanding.
• The communicative integrates the needs of students and learning and a loss of prominence for teachers and programs, increasing student autonomy and responsibility in decision-making.
• Analyzing needs and negotiating with students become central to teaching.

Origin and Development

• In the 1970s there was the crisis of behaviorist psychology and cognitive models as an alternative.
• Chomsky challenged behaviorist ideas producing a revolution in second language teaching with humanistic methods and the communicative approach in Europe
• The investigation of learning integrates student communicative needs as the focus as nociofunctional programs get adopted into textbooks partially due to backing and resources from the Council of Europe, which based content on a threshold level.
• The language courses include notions like place, sequence, quantity, and time and functions or communicative intentions like greeting, offering, and introducing.
• The communicative approach development involves task-based teaching where meaningful activities become the core of teaching and learning.
• A task involves students in understanding, manipulating, producing, or interacting in a second language, with priority given to meaning over form and grammar.

Methodological Consequences

• From the communicative approach, language learning aims for communicative skills.
• The goal is shared by teachers and students, the students are the real agents where teachers assist their learning and in reality teaches don't have direct control over students since these are an internal process.
• There is a descarting of how we can conceive students as an active process so we must listen to their say.

Teaching and Learning Relationship

• The belief for language learning was to teach well is the apprenticeship and responsibility of the student.
• Now it integrates learning from many forms is subordinate and is responsibilities of the teacher.
• This integrates the Sciences of Education. Also new discoveries from sciences like Linguistics, Pragmatics, or Psycholinguistics, have sustained a altered how people teach and learn and how it's taught.
• In the classroom, the goal is not just to teach linguistics but how communicate successfully and it is important to interpret expressions correctly
• The instructor transmits the teacher's skills like teaching grammar

Open and Distance learning

• This section looks at the new technologies

Teaching and Learning Innovation

• The traditional view is that teachers are just instructors that just taught grammar which we are far from now
• We look now for how facilitate apprentice in the new generations for technological innovation in open distant learning
• The current moment in education has adopted a virtual adjective such as virtual classes of teaching.

Educational Concept

• In this new education concept the current trends in education that integrate every successful features that configure education

Correspondence

• This phase looks at the services of email and more of the traditional face to face learning
• We now incorporate adapted materials for teachers to adapt around it to study
• Also an instructor that takes an active part from a distance to take notes and see students communications.
• Now students study at their own and use the most advanced mediums with communication tools.

OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

• To diminish distance and differences we must make better systems that are innovating and teaching to become more flexible.

NEW CONCEPT learning process

• In this context, the concept makes learning and informal and in a technological medium now more interconnected.
• The mode for education is a continuous process for constant revising.
• New model of the new age like the resources is accessible to find it at a specific moment in the future.
• Each integration is for an non synchronous moments
• Alan Chute proposes for the next century to conceptualize learning

Integration of materials

• Internet has opened new expectation for language teaching. But until now there are not integration from the laboratories in that moment to show a innovative way to teach

Communicative Paradigm

• Teaching divides into three phases of new language expression.
• New teaching is center in the process
• Internet allows a new integration of materials media.
• Audio and Video integration has never been made easier.
• But with many communication this should be a key function. However Internet makes communication for tutor and students to interact which it makes great for any language to evolve

Materials Characteristics.

• Distance lessons are a means to facilitate the presentation of lessons. World is capable of doing multimedia aspects of language skills and culture
• It also gives the importance to access same forms of information
• Students in Internet can learn greatly with inter-learning which creates and results that can benefit many parts
• Inter- learning save much time to study to make better students
• This is a method for many personal styles of each particular student
• This gives a constant and consistent with student

Evaluation

• The means for evaluation is a key proponent that the teacher shows intercommunication that helps a student, so all aspects are clear, and the student can control the evaluation

Quality

• Quality is what all student share within, so to make a more successful learning will help all to learn by each teacher to support one another
• There are many aspects for a teacher to adapt to so all learning is shared.

New models that can do so many things for a language

• There are different materials that can be applied and it needs a way to communicate, adapt and so many different new technological aspects to do so.
• Also media and experts will contribute to students of different new technological aspects like students to share a friendly environment and so on..

Innovation Process

• Here is a innovation process between teaching a language at a distance

Objectives

• The key is that the Internet makes a new approach to the languages.

Structure

• Structures for Spanish Distance include four parts, Initial, Intermedio, Advanced and Superior