How can learners stay in touch with you or with other learners?

       A very important part of TELL is the face-to-face meeting with a tutor. Thiswill, of course depend on the type of course you are running – if it is an offcampusdistant course, you might not even meet the learners personally. Whilein a blended type of course you might meet them more often. If the conditionsyou work in allow for more than one plenary meeting within the course, it isuseful to have a meeting at the beginning of the course, a midcourse meetingand the final meeting at the end of the course. The initial meeting serves fordiscussing issues connected to the course, to highlight the most importanttechnological, pedagogic and organisational aspects, to make learners awareof potential problems. The midcourse meeting is a useful tool for checkinghow the learners are doing, seeing which areas might appear problematic forthem and trying to offer possible solutions. The final meeting is more aboutmutual feedback and a recap of the course. Whatever conditions we work inthe contact between the tutor and the learners is very important and can bearranged by face-to-face meetings, e-mailing or video sessions. These may beboth individual and group sessions, in any case their importance cannot beunderestimated. Some learners need more attention than others to find theirway through the course and the most suitable way towards their aims, andmay take significant advantage of face-to-face sessions in this respect.

        E-mail is a very useful tool for getting in touch with your learners even thoughyou cannot meet them face-to-face. However, you should decide on certainrules for writing e-mails, otherwise you can end up overloaded by e-mailsfrom the learners. You might ,for example, agree on certain days when youanswer the e-mails to avoid impatient learners sending you an e-mail requestingyour answer twice a day. You might also use group e-mailing which willsave time and send certain answers or directions to all learners.

        Focus groups offer a chance for the learners to discuss various topics in asmall peer group of learners. The theme is usually given in advance so that thelearners have a chance to learn more about it and get their arguments ready.They can prepare new expressions for the discussion which can be used andactivated during the discussion. The focus group discussion can be moderatedby one of the learners. This offers an added value to the task because also themoderator has a chance to train his/her listening skills as well as productivespeaking skills in responding and giving the turns to the other learners inthe focus group. An alternative way of using focus groups can be placingthe theme focus on the learning process. Learners can then discuss how theyproceed, which difficulties they face and how they manage to overcome them.You as a tutor can be a moderator and bring their attention to selected areasin which you anticipate potential problems.

A modified form of focus groups can be forums where we state a topicto be discussed and learners send their contributions to the forum.The students have an opportunity to think about what theywant to say and more time to consider what the others have written.Virtual meetings as well as chatting offer online discussions where studentsnot only exchange their opinions in written form but can see each other. Theseactivities can create the virtual classroom environment and give the participantsopportunity to meet their “classmates”. This might give the learners asimilar feeling of belongingness as in a traditional classroom situation andthey will not feel detached.