Abstract:

This paper summarizes the assessment results of the Language Online project at Carnegie Mellon University. The study investigated the effectiveness of online language courses for students' learning outcomes in four hybrid online language courses (elementary and intermediate levels) and their counterpart conventional (offline) courses from Spring 2000 through Spring 2002. Eleven teachers and 354 students were involved in this study, which included five semesters and 34 sections (13 online and 21 offline). Multiple measurements were used to compare learning between online and offline students in oral production, written production, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, grammar knowledge, and vocabulary. Student and teacher feedback, reflecting attitudes and experiences with the online courses, were used to better understand the comparative results. The results from this study indicate that the hybrid online language courses have been reasonably successful: the students in most online courses made progress in their L2 performance similar to that of the students in the equivalent offline courses. Statistical analyses identified two online courses in which the offline students outperformed the online students on several of the learning measures. The qualitative data suggest that students need instructor guidance and that both students and instructors need ongoing technical support for the successful implementation of online language courses.

Author: N. Ann Chenoweth, Eiko Ushida, Kimmaree Murday