LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Online teaching skills for language tutors

Regine Hampel and Ursula Stickler - 9 March 2006

Online teachers need different skills than those normally employed by tutors trained to teach languages in a face-to-face classroom and they also require different skills compared to online teachers of other subjects. Research shows that the medium influences the form of communication and interaction (see e.g. Hutchby 2001). The asynchronicity of communication in written conferencing and the lack of non-verbal clues in audio-conferencing are examples of new challenges for online language tutors.

Training the trainer: language teaching assistants

- 12 December 2002

Quality requirements mean universities must ensure suitable training for all language teaching staff. Courses for language assistants are most effective when divided into two parts, with a combination of initial intensive input and subsequent reflection on practical experience in the classroom. Foreign language assistants, part-time tutors and postgraduate teaching assistants have differing developmental needs which can be met through modular elements. All assistants can qualify for membership of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education via one of two routes.

Training the trainer: staff development for language teaching

- 4 December 2002

Support for the professional development of full-time staff teaching languages in higher education is poor, particularly because universities' initial training programmes tend to be exclusively generic. Furthermore, most academics' expertise is in non-language areas and there is no real culture of language pedagogy. The DELPHI programme offers a completely free online distance-learning programme in language teacher development, suitable for all university teaching contexts.