LOAF: a mixed-mode plan for teaching languages

In March 2020, teaching at the University of Nottingham was moved to the online environment following the governmental health and safety directives imposed by COVID-19. Measures for Emergency Remote Teaching (Hodges et al. 2020) were quickly put in place to support the transition. Technology rather than pedagogy took the centre stage to ensure that teaching could continue despite the lack of a physical classroom. The next step saw many educational professionals devising teaching delivery plans able to cope with a second phase of COVID-19 due to start in September 2020. The goal was to move from Emergency Remote Teaching towards delivery models that would prioritise pedagogical considerations over technological ones.

The purpose of this webinar is to present and reflect on the response model, acronymed as LOAF, implemented by the Language Centre at the University of Nottingham. LOAF (Live Online, Asynchronous, Face-to-face teaching) offered a mixed-mode teaching replacement to the face-to-face pre-COVID-19 provision that engaged language students with 3 weekly contact hours.

LOAF boasts a significant degree of flexibility to cater for students’ changing needs during the pandemic, including unpredictable patterns of self-isolation, while at the same time providing a solid structure to scaffold students learning as well as tutors teaching. LOAF addresses specifically the needs of language teaching by putting live interaction and communication to the fore.

The webinar will further report on the results of two surveys (one for staff, one for students) that sought to capture the successes and challenges of the LOAF model in order to inform future pedagogical solutions.

Cecilia Goria is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Nottingham. She holds the role of Director of Digital Learning in the Faculty of Arts and is the Academic Leader of the distance learning Master’s Degree in Digital Technologies for Language Teaching. Her research interests are concerned with the design, principles and practice of open learning, active learning, participatory pedagogies in online and blended teaching and learning.

Oranna Speicher is Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham, where she is the Director of the Language Centre. A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, she has taught German in HE for over 20 years, and her research interests are second language acquisition, scholarship of teaching and learning, as well as technology-enhanced language teaching and learning.