The reason for my question is a project on assessing the usability of self-study language learning materials - print and online material - which could be used by adult refugees to learn German as a second language.
The number of teachers for German as a second language as well as the number of facilities at this point is hardly sufficient for offering language courses to all the refugees currently entering Germany. As a result, "some" propose self-study materials as an alternative to language courses. There are quite a few initiatives which now offer online language courses partly for free (e.g., http://www.50languages.com/). However, the question arises to what extent these courses and the materials they provide, are any good for adult language learners. I am well aware that the group of adult learners I am talking about is very heterogenous with respect to previous educational experiences and prior linguistic knowledge. Hence, suitability of materials cannot be generalized to the entire population. Nevertheless, should you have any suggestions for criteria or existing lists of such criteria, I would appreciate your help!
Hi Cornelia
I used these books for designing learning materials
Dubin, F., & Olshtain, E. (1986). Course Design: Developing Programs and Materials for Language Learning: Cambridge University Press.
and
Mishan, F. (2005). Designing Authenticity Into Language Learning Materials: Intellect Books.
within that project I used the following for printed texts (these are excellent resources for considering a text in language learning by Alderson I used them for English language reading texts):
Alderson, J. C. (1996). The testing of reading. In C. Nuttal (Ed.), Teaching reading skills in a foreing language. 2nd.ed. (pp. 212-229). Oxford Heinemann English Language Teaching
Alderson, J. C. (2000). Assessing reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Alderson, J. C., Clapham, C., & Wall, D. (1995). Language Test Construction and Evaluation: Cambridge University Press.
Now, Wray and Dahlia have set a number of criteria to assess reading texts readability.
Wray, D., & Dahlia, J. (2013). Exploring the Readability of Assessment Tasks: The Influence of Text and Reader Factors. REMIE: Multidisciplinary Journal of Educational Research, 3(1), 69-95.
hope this helps.
Try the book Self-Access by Susan Sheerin in the Oxford Resource Books for Teachers collection. I used it quite a lot for a self-access project 17-18 years ago. The problem I can see with the book is that it's from 1989. I can't remember if there was anything on the Internet there, but I shouldn't think there was too much. You could try and supplement it with books that suggest ways of incorporating the Internet into the classroom. Some of these ideas could probably work for self.-access too. One possibe reference is The Internet and the Language Classroom by Gavin Dudeney.
Hi
You can see http://aadivasiman.blogspot.com relating to HINDI Language teaching as foriegn language.
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