Proposal

for a New Online French Course Sequence

Introduction
Since 2001, the French program at the University of Texas at Austin has led the
way nationally for successful development and delivery of French language
courses in a hybrid (part online, part face-to-face) learning environment. Its newly
developed fully online French curriculum represents the latest evolution of that
state-of-the-art program and once again places UTs Department of French and
Italian at the cutting edge of pedagogical innovation. In an effort to position the
new online French program for success at UT and beyond, we offer the following
proposal for a new online course sequence.
The present proposal contains two central components. First, we provide a
rationale for a new online sequence for beginning and intermediate French at UT
Austin consisting of three 4-hour intensive web-based courses that can be used
to fulfill the College of Liberal Arts language requirement. Second, we describe
the objectives, content, and expected learning outcomes of the web-based
courses to establish that the new sequence represents the online equivalent of
UTs two 6-hour intensive face-to-face French courses.

Rationale
Why offer French language instruction online?
We took into consideration a number of factors in choosing to offer online French
language courses to students at UT and elsewhere. Below, we identify some of
the major advantages of online language instruction for learners and for the
Department of French and Italian.
Learning Advantages
In making the decision to offer web-based instruction, we gave highest
consideration to ensuring that language learners would be able to take
advantage of the unique capabilities of the online environment. Major benefits we
identified include:

While both face-to-face and digital environments can effectively teach the
same declarative knowledge, e.g., linguistic structures and cultural facts, it
is only in the online environment that students get infinite linguistic
practice along with immediate personalized feedback.
1

Online instruction offers learners deeper insights into target cultures

through the use of integrated media that can virtually put students in those
places.

The communicative interaction so essential to face-to-face classroom

second language acquisition is accomplished online through the use of
social media and communication tools that allow students to connect not
only with peers and their instructors but also with other target language
speakers all over the world.

The online environment encourages students to become more

independent and active learners as they take control over how they learn
and it offers them maximum flexibility regarding when and where they
learn.

By offering our French courses online, we enable more students to gain

access to a second language learning experience that they might
otherwise never have because equivalent instruction is not available
where they live or take classes.

Administrative Advantages
There are clear advantages to the Department of offering online language
courses. The two most compelling benefits include greater facility for credit
transfer across institutions and the addition of new students that would extend
the language programs value beyond the physical campus. Both advantages will
result in increased enrollment for the Department, as explained below:

The Department wants to make it possible for students all over the state to
take language classes online from UT and to transfer those credits to
other Texas colleges and universities. We expect that the added flexibility
will bring in new enrollments.

The Department wants to offer online French courses during shorter

summer sessions to attract transient students. While both face-to-face
FR601 and FR611 intensive classes are currently taught over a 9-week
summer session, adding online courses to the summer lineup will increase
flexibility and attract new students to our program.

Which language sequence best fits the online environment?

Clearly, in order both to meet the needs of the most language learners and to
attain maximum benefit for the Department, it is necessary to create the course
sequence that best fits our online learning environment. We have determined
that a sequence of three 4-hour online courses allows us to maintain our 12-hour
language requirement and also uphold our standards for learner outcomes while
making the language program more nimble and better equipped to respond to
learner needs.
Benefits of a 4-4-4 Course Sequence for Learners
As currently configured, students need to spend approximately 20 hours per
week on tutorial, practice and assessment to complete each of the 6-hour
intensive French courses, which is the equivalent of a half-time job. Since such a
commitment would be out of reach for many non-UT students, a reduction of
course requirements would limit time students spend on each course to more
reasonable levels (e.g., twelve hours per week for a 4-hour course).
Additionally, online learning in and of itself is intensive in nature; therefore, the
intensity of the traditional 6-hour French courses added to the intensity learners
experience in online learning would result in placing extremely high cognitive
demand on students. Moreover, many online learners reportedly feel as if they
are continuously involved in their online courses, a perception that makes the
online environment inherently more stressful than the face-to-face setting. It is
also well known that attrition in online courses can be significant due to the need
for online learners to become more organized and self-disciplined in completing
course assignments. Thus, a 4-4-4 course sequence will spread the intensity of
that program over a slightly longer period of time to foster student success. We
expect that the result will be a tempering of student stress without any sacrifice in
course content, quality or effectiveness. Finally, because splitting the courses
into smaller components will facilitate offering French courses all year round,
including in shorter summer sessions, students may still be able to complete the
language requirement in a calendar year and finish their degrees on time.
Benefits of a 4-4-4 Course Sequence for Instructors
Recent research has shown that online courses often demand more (14% more
on average) of instructors than do face-to-face courses because instructors have
to be available online almost continuously rather than for short pre-defined
periods of time. Instructors also have to work very hard in online courses to
maintain student engagement, which they often accomplish by increasing the
frequency with which they interact with each student. It has been estimated that
online instructors spend up to 3 times more time interacting online with students
and evaluating student work than do face-to-face instructors. Much of that time is

spent participating in discussions and evaluating student contributions to those

discussions, in addition to grading all other course assignments.
Clearly, the nature of the course also plays a role in determining the amount of
time instructors dedicate to teaching online. A language course, for which the
main objective is to stimulate engagement in communicating messages and
meaning, by its nature demands significant pedagogical creativity in addition to
learning about the tech tools needed to translate advantages of a face-to-face
language class to the online environment. For these reasons, language courses
in particular require continued maintenance of course content after initial
implementation. Finally, an essential part of language teaching and learning
online involves relationship building, interaction, and establishment of social
presence, all of which can be difficult to bring about in an online environment but
which are also crucial to language course success. These requirements of
teaching languages online demand that faculty give a lot of thought, effort and
time to teaching their classes. Breaking up the intensive FR 601C and FR 611C
sequence into smaller units will allow instructors to give their classes the
attention they require without burning out.
Technological Benefits of a 4-4-4 Course Sequence
French course developers have already determined that an unusually large body
of course content can easily overwhelm any Learning Management System,
including the Canvas system used at UT. These systems simply cannot support
the amount of material needed to offer 6-hour intensive language courses online.
This issue is particularly important because when teaching in an online
environment, instructors need to minimize technological problems that can
detract from successful learning.
Administrative Benefits of a 4-4-4 Course Sequence
By adopting a sequence of 3 4-hour courses, we will make it easier for students
who take UT French courses to transfer credits to other Texas colleges and
universities because the configuration will bring UT into compliance with the
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Boards new 4-hour standard for beginning
foreign languages. Any discrepancies in content that exist from one institutions
4-hour French course to anothers can be managed through placement testing.
Because the newly configured French courses will be more attractive to non-UT
students, enrollments in those courses will likely increase as the reputation of the
program grows.
Adoption of a 3-course sequence of 4-hour courses will also facilitate offering
French courses during shorter 9-week summer sessions. By giving students
another viable option, we expect to make it easier for them to complete their
language requirements.

Proposed Course Sequence

After some study, we have determined that the traditional face-to-face sequence
FR 601C and FR 611C Intensive best translates to the online environment using
a sequence of 3 4-hour French courses and that those courses should be
numbered FR 406, FR 407 and FR 412K. Our goal is to list the first course, FR
406, in the Course Schedule in Fall 2016, the second, FR 407, in Spring 2017,
and the third, FR 412K, by Summer 2017.

Conclusion
The French instructional program at UT is nationally recognized and respected
across the world for its high quality and success. Not surprisingly, the online
French program represents the strongest starting point we have for what we
hope will become a vibrant and viable online foreign language program at UT
Austin. Therefore, it is very important that processes put into place for managing
the new online French courses be well defined from the beginning. Not only will
we ensure the success of those courses now and in the future, but we will also
use what we learn from their implementation to inform our development of other
online language courses going forward.