Collaborative Online Instruction for the Teaching of Internet, Language and Culture Skills from a Distance

When you can't bring students to your campus for a high quality face-to-face cultural and language learning experience, can you effectively take the experience to them, thousands of miles and many time zones away? This is a question TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) educators around the world are asking themselves, both because of and in spite of the current state of computer-based technology. At the University of Oregon's American English Institute (AEI), our Intensive English Program has developed a successful model where our instructional services have become an integral component of distance education courses with non-U.S. institutions. Course objectives are established each term, and appropriate computer-based technologies are selected and used to help reach those goals. Faculty from the two institutions work in tandem through the planning, implementation and evaluation phases. This session will describe the pedagogical, logistical and administrative underpinnings of these courses. Examples available through the http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~aei/senshu.html web site.