Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Coming This Year: A MOOC for English Language Learners

The University of California, Berkeley will offer another free online course in writing under the title College Writing 2x: Principles of Written Communication.
College Writing 2x is a writing course designed specially for learners of English. It will be offered through edX.org, and will be completely free. It will use some of the most advanced tools in online writing instruction. Students will have meaningful ways to practice their writing and get feedback on how well they are doing.
The course will be taught by Maggie Sokolik. Dr. Sokolik received her Ph.D. in applied linguistics from UCLA. She has taught writing and technical communication at UC Berkeley since 1992. She is the author of over twenty ESL and composition textbooks, including Sound Ideas, co-authored with Michael Krasny. She has also written for and been featured in several educational video projects in Japan. She travels frequently to speak about grammar, writing, and instructor education.
The course plan includes:

 - 5 weeks studies of Written English (A review of basic grammar terminology and understanding; writing effective sentences and paragraphs; introductions and conclusions; strategies for writing longer texts; thesis statements);

 - 5 weeks studies of Techniques in Editing and Revision (Proofreading and self-editing; revision vs. editing; common errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling; understanding tone and diction; vocabulary development.)

- 5 weeks studies of Modes of Written Communication (Formal and informal writing; effective email communication; academic writing; memos; project proposals; creative writing; technical writing)

The initial plan is to make the course available twice a year. The first course starts in September 2013.

Source: http://writing.berkeley.edu/classes-and-awp/mooc

6 comments:

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  2. Great that you found it, Silviah! This course can be quite useful especially when you are starting to write your masters thesis soon. Good luck and keep me posted!

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  3. Thanks so much Evelin for sharing. I registered and waiting for this awesome experience. I hope to see you there!

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  4. Azhar, thank you for the comment! Who knows I might take another course in September to continue to collect the online learning experiences.

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  5. Thank you for posting this--I look forward to "meeting" students this September. -- M. Sokolik

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