Third Language Blog » OU

Open University: learning a foreign language – is the OU better than evening classes

Bill Ferguson — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:49:59 +0000

Question from a reader

"I hope you don’t mind my contacting you. I have read your interesting blog. I came across the sentence "the OU is trundling off in its own direction and making it hard for students like me to stay with them.".

Can I ask you how/why you feel this way? Is it expense, or quality of teaching, or what? I am seriously thinking of embarking on one or two language modules with the OU, and am interested in your views on whether they are as good or better than the conventional evening classes or even just ‘teach yourself’ books. I should add that I do have (ancient) O level passes in the languages I’m interested in, so I will not be a complete beginner…well, maybe not! Thanks for any help you can give."

OU Results L140

Bill Ferguson — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:55:48 +0000

At last the results have come out for L140. Sadly none of my group of "study buddies" or me, made distinction level (85% or better in each component) but we didn’t disgrace ourselves and we all passed. Here is my long awaited letter from the OU:

Open University L140 Results letter

Strangely I didn’t feel like celebrating, maybe because the gap between end of course and results was so long. The other reason is perhaps a sense of disappointment that the OU is trundling off in its own direction and making it hard for students like me to stay with them.

Here is my summary of my OU Spanish experience after 2 years

L194 is excellent – it takes you from nothing to better than most ex-pats in a year, it was fun to do and a little bit of work each day kept me up to date. My tutor, Gemma was exemplary, even gave out her personal mobile number.

L140 is a good course, apart from the eluminate online tutorials which were unhappy events. It’s a bit heavy on old fashioned drills and exercises even though they are done in a modern way with CD-ROM. Once again I was lucky to have a good tutor, thanks Laura! so I could get help by email when I needed it.

The biggest problem, that I keep harping on about, is lack of conversation practise. I think it should be an intrinsic part of the course. Talking to other students this was a common criticism and probably part of the reason that hardly anyone intended to continue to the next level with OU. Maybe a tie up with a Spanish institution who teach English would be possible, one-to-one "intercambios" between students on Skype, half an hour a week might do the trick (wish I’d thought of that sooner).

No matter how well you can conjugate irregular imperfect subjunctives, when someone grunts and mumbles something to you in a noisy bar it is a good idea to have a phrase or two ready in response. I feel poorly equipped with "Spanish sounding phrases " for daily use "on the street". I intend to work on this on my next trip to Spain, I want to take all the podcasts from Notes in Spanish with me, and try out some of the phrases that Ben suggests will make me sound "like a local".

To finish this post, here is a link to a catchy piece of Spanish music that I like.

After Open University, Adult ed and Kindle 3

Bill Ferguson — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 08:31:00 +0000

There is a space of less than a week between finishing L140 with Open University and starting a level 7 Spanish course with Kent Adult Education. This is going to be interesting: the prospectus suggests that I am going to struggle at this level but 2 years ago I was attending French at level 7 and we had quite a spread of ability in the class, so I hope that the range of proficiency in the new class will be broad enough for me to slip in somewhere above worst. Vamos a ver (we will see).

Kindle 3

As always I am looking out for helpful technology. I had noticed the Amazon Kindle making the news from time to time and it had never seemed anything more than an irrelevant techie gadget. Until a few days ago. I came across a blog post from someone who had designed a Spanish dictionary for Kindle, he says that if you highlight a Spanish word it will translate it instantly and that stopped me in my tracks. I have been slowly and painfully wading through books written in Spanish. Not as real books but as electronic versions on my PDA and PC. The possibility of having a reader with an interface that is kind to the eyes and the chance to instantly translate the words I didn’t know was seductive.

Then I read how the next generation of Kindles had been streamlined to pocket size and lighter weight. I checked out a couple reviews on You Tube and decided to risk it. I pre-ordered as Amazon were out of stock and reckoned on a month or two to wait. Today I had an email from Amazon telling me it has been dispatched – watch this space for a review. Spanish books I have been reading: Stieg Larson "Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres", Harry Potter, Stephanie Meyer "Crepusculo", Isabel Allende "La casa de los espiritus". I’ve got them all as text files or PDF’s so theoretically I can get them onto the Kindle. I also have a dozen or so books that I haven’t even started yet.

Open University – an update

Bill Ferguson — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:54:06 +0000

It’s late July and suddenly the end of L140 is in sight. The 4th TMA is due in 4 weeks time then soon after is the end of course assessment – an essay and a telephone interview. And that’s it. I think I’ve reached the end of the line with OU for now. The next course is more demanding, 15 hours a week! In my experience when OU says 15 hours/week, it means 15 hours to read and do the material if you already know it, or are blessed with a photographic memory, otherwise you can safely double that estimate.

So I need to fall back on my original principles:

study stuff that is interesting
do something each day
make it fun

The dreaded TMA

Bill Ferguson — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:53:31 +0000

If you have ever studied with the OU (Open University) you will know what I mean. The TMA (tutor marked assignment) is something that is capable of reducing a sensible, mature adult to tears of grief, rage or frustration.

SECTION 1 STUDENT INFORMATION

SECTION 2 TUTOR INFORMATION

Name
Address
OUCU
EMail
Personal Identifier
Sent By Student	01-Apr-2010
Course	L140 Feb 10	TMA No.	02

Tutor’s Name
Tutor’s Number
Appointing Region
Date Returned	29-Apr-2010

Question Grades/Scores

Overall
Grade/Score

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
90	70	75																		235

The psychology of the OU is very clever. Like any successful cult it lures you in by being nice, you see the potential, if you only do one or two little things, to gain a big reward. So you follow the trail of crumbs more and more intently, quite enjoying the cycle of small effort and reward until suddenly the TMA hits you. The System is in your face demanding that you prove yourself worthy by completing a task. No more Mr Nice Guy! Nit-picking purists will pull your assignment to pieces. They will subtract marks ruthlessly at the slightest excuse, sometimes telling you nicely where you went wrong, and you can see the post mortem when your computer spits out the results sometime after the cut-off date.

If you do well it feels good and you carry on until the next one, and next time because you want to do well again, the pressure is greater. If you did poorly, the pressure is on to make up for it by doing well next time. Either way the pressure grows and you find yourself taking more and more time to study until eventually the Course dominates your life.

So that is the reason I haven’t posted here for a few weeks

TVE, TV Canarias, TV Madrid – Spanish TV

Bill Ferguson — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:42:58 +0000

It’s been a month since the new satellite dish was installed and I am still very happy with it. The station I watch most is TVE but when they revert to old movies I go first to TV Canarias then TV Madrid. Canarias has programmes about cooking, local politics, games shows and quite a lot of wrestling. The wrestling might be a seasonal sport I’m not sure yet, it happens outdoors inside a sandpit arena, the audience are in tiered seating around the arena and there are groups of musicians who play during the bouts. It reminds me of Thai boxing where the musicians encourage the fighters by playing uplifting music.

TV Madrid has a lot of talking heads and a few game shows, one of them involves the contestants answering questions then we see them singing (usually very self-consciously) on a recording. The quizmaster is a professional extrovert who keeps breaking into song, joined by the audience (well primed), sometimes he even sings the questions. Good tacky fun.

I still use the TVE website, radio nacional and classical are good background and I am wading through Aguila Roja, I am up to capitulo 12, it’s like Robin Hood with more angst and more cleavage – and lots of sword fighting.

Update on Open University – I’ve just sent in my second TMA, two weeks ahead of the deadline which is a relief. The coursework is getting harder now, we are meeting lots of new vocabulary and moving from imperativo to preterito tense ready for the next assignment.

Maintaining French – this is becoming more of a worry, I have almost stopped watching french TV and reading french newspapers, mainly due to lack of time but I have started translating some of my internal dialogues into both spanish and french. If I didn’t have to work full time I am sure this wouldn’t be such a problem.