ABSTRACT
The field of language teaching has been somewhat of a latecomer with respect to online education and, in particular, in the case of MOOCs, because of the assumption that languages are not amenable to distance, asynchronous learning. From the sidelines, we have seen how other fields have experimented with and embraced technology-enhanced teaching as research that proves its effectiveness has become more and more frequent. The U.S. Department of Education released in 2010 the results of a meta-analysis of 45 studies of online and blended courses, all published after 2004, and found that, on average, “students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving F2F instruction” (p. ix). Yet, even today, many foreign language practitioners still question the extent to which online language instruction can deliver the type and amount of interaction that is necessary to foster language acquisition. The resistance is even more pronounced against language MOOCs (LMOOCs) which, in addition to the lack of F2F contact, violate another long-held belief that structured language acquisition requires small groups of learners.
