Abstract:

This study focuses on the LMOOC Introduction to Portuguese, delivered on the Distance Education platform of the University of Porto – AcademiaUP. Its objective is to present the course and perform a SWOT analysis based on the results of its first edition.

The LMOOC aims to: provide elementary knowledge of the Portuguese language in basic recurring everyday life situations; offer fundamental linguistic and pragmatic contents; present some aspects of Portuguese culture; and promote an autonomous contact with the Portuguese language and culture at participants' own pace and availability while supporting the development of digital competencies and promoting social inclusion in a multicultural, interconnected community.

The course target is young adults and adults of all ages. It is suitable for audiences with varied profiles, learning styles, and needs like students, professionals, tourists, refugees, lonely people.

The course divides into eight episodes supporting eight didactic units released weekly, with an estimated four hours of work per week. It develops around a designedly-created fiction series, written by a team of teachers and filmed in a natural environment by the TV crew of the University of Porto with a professional film director and professional actors. The audio-visual approach is centred on this miniseries. Short educational video extracts retrieved from it support the explanation of the linguistic content. A simple, mainly graphical, and non-metalinguistic approach underlies those videos, which intend to be simultaneously educational and recreative. The course uses a communicative and learn-by-doing methodology, promoting incremental access to the Portuguese language and culture.

Each learning unit adopts the following plan: viewing of a miniseries episode; watching of the educational video extracts that reuse some short episode sequences with language content organized by topics; practicing through varied exercises at the end of each topic; completion of a self-assessment quiz at the end of the unit, mandatory to obtain the final certificate; and participation on the week's challenge at the end of each unit, aiming at reinforcing interpersonal relations among participants while applying the unit content in a communicative task.

A general collaborative forum is open for students' doubts and suggestions during the course.

The course also provides two additional independent resources: a Phonetic Dictionary and a Grammar Appendix.

All audio-visual content is subtitled in Portuguese and English, activated in YouTube at students' choice.

Although created as a combined set of resources designed as a whole, the LMOOC resources can also be used in a modular way as an open education resource (OER) without losing its coherence and educational productivity when used separately.

The 1st edition of the course had 864 registered participants, 30% of whom obtained a certificate. Mostly female students aged between 20 and 39, from 46 nationalities and 50 native languages, completed the course. In a final evaluation questionnaire consisting of 22 course-related questions, the students evaluated it with 9.31/10, revealing their perceptions in their comments and suggestions.

Considering our course evaluation, completion rate, and students' perceptions, we discuss its main strengths and weaknesses and future improvements.

Keywords:

LMOOC, Portuguese, beginners, language learning, interdisciplinarity.