Innovation in Language Learning

Many educators argue today that MOOCs present new educational opportunities for face-to-face language classes. With the increasing popularity of MOOCs and OER among learners and due to the innovative trends in higher education in the the Russian Federation, college instructors today are confronted with a lot of challenges: how to integrate MOOCs in traditional or blended learning courses, how to evaluate student participation once a MOOC or some materials from it were implemented in the course, what kind of tasks and activities can be designed using MOOCs, what kind of instructional design to choose for integration, how to pick up a MOOC that can fit the aims and objectives of the taught course. The objective of this action research is to work out the possible ways of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) integration in a blended Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) course to create an authentic online collaborative community. The theoretical framework of the intervention is based on current MOOC theories, connectivism, and the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model by Puentedura for implementing new technologies and open educational resources into teaching. Thirty bachelor students from Moscow State University, enrolled in a Methodology of English Language Teaching blended course, participated in the first cycle of the research. The analysis based on the quantitative data (questionnaire) demonstrated the learners' positive attitude to this intervention due to the following possibilities: getting familiar with the theories and terminology on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching, sharing experiences on the MOOC forums with the learners from all over the world and developing writing skills, etc.