What Does Moodle Offer
Language Teachers?
Imagine the things you do in a school—putting up timetables, presenting syllabuses,
having discussions, presenting videos of new materials, organizing tests, collecting
marks, providing feedback to students, guiding students to do their own learning,
building a library… Moodle can do all these things and much, much more.
What is Moodle?

I just googled "Moodle" and got over 18 million hits. Moodle is one of the fastest
growing free, open source VLEs (Virtual Learning Environment) around at the
moment. It is also commonly referred to as an LMS (Learning Management System)
or a CMS (Course Management System). There are already thousands of registered
Moodle sites, as you can see on the Moodle site: http://moodle.org/stats/.
Just in case some of those terms are new to you:
Open source means that the code is available by licensing agreement and that
you can customize it and redistribute it (http://opensource.org). These
have been powerful factors in the development of open source software for
a wide range of free or low-cost software.
A VLE is a way of providing a teaching and learning environment online.
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What Does Moodle Offer Language Teachers?
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Here are some of the things that make Moodle particularly attractive to all teachers:
Easy to use—you don't need any programming knowledge
Access to resources via the Web
Interaction between learners and tutors
Collaboration between learners
Independent learning pathways
Learner tracking
Feedback on tasks
Secure environment
Automatic backup
There are some myths that Moodle is difficult, unsupported, and will eventually
charge users, but these are all calmly deflated at http://docs.moodle.org/en/
Top_10_Moodle_Myths.
Assumptions
Most of this book is a recipe book, a "how-to" book. In it, I'll take activities that you'd
find in a typical language-teaching syllabus and show how you can produce these
on Moodle. I'll provide step-by-step instructions for you to copy examples and
then adapt them according to your own teaching situation. Most of the activities
are ordered so that each chapter starts with easier activities. The ease of setup for
each activity is indicated by a star system. Now and then you'll be referred to other
chapters where an example already exists.
The non-recipe chapters are guides for setting up Moodle (Chapter 2, Getting Started
with Moodle), using Moodle for assessment (Chapter 9, Assessment), making your
Moodle site look good (Chapter 11, Formatting and Enhancing Your Moodle Materials),
and helping prepare students to use Moodle (Chapter 12, Preparing Your Students to
Use Moodle).
I'm making a few assumptions:
You have basic computer skills
You have Moodle up and running
You are not necessarily familiar with Moodle's basic features
You want examples of how you can cover your language teaching syllabus
using Moodle
You don't want to master all aspects of Moodle
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You are not necessarily the Moodle administrator, but have access to
the administrator
You have some experience of teaching
You want to transfer constructivist, communicative language teaching
methodology to Moodle.
In case you're not familiar with these concepts, constructivism is based on the
idea that individuals learn new things (construct knowledge) through experience
by comparing new things to what they already know. They do this by solving
realistic problems, often in collaboration with other people. Moodle was built on
this approach, and many of the core activities lend themselves well to this type of
learning. Communicative language teaching tries to help learners become competent
language users in real contexts. There's more about this later in this chapter.
Who is this book for?
One of the advantages of a recipe-book approach is that all sorts of people connected
to language teaching will find it useful. If you are a teacher, you can dip into it to
find a quick solution for an activity you want to create. If you are a course planner,
you can review the whole book to build up your own language course. These are
some of the people I had in mind when writing:
School language teachers who run at least part of their courses on computers
Private language teachers who want to run their own online language school
Established teachers of English or other languages
New teachers who want clear examples of communicative language teaching
and testing in use
Teacher trainers who want to guide teachers in the use of this
powerful system
Teachers who have been using Blackboard or another powerful commercial
VLE and want to set up their own open source system
Course planners and ICT support staff who want to understand the ICT
needs of language teachers better
An important point here is that there's no single way of using Moodle for language
teaching. I've come across teachers who use it mainly as a repository of materials and
find the indexing facilities of the Database module useful for that. Module, by the
way, is Moodle's word for an activity. Other teachers use it to create supplementary
quizzes for the work they do in class. They find the gradebook, which provides an
overview of all their students' marks, useful. Other teachers make Moodle the base
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What Does Moodle Offer Language Teachers?
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of their course, even though they have face-to-face sessions, because Moodle is
a neat way of keeping important course elements in one place and tracking learner
use and progress. It's also a good way of preparing for classes and reflecting on
them afterwards. Finally, Moodle can be used as a totally online course with no
face-to-face meeting at all.
You might find I'm stating the obvious sometimes, but most hints are included
because there were minor hiccoughs when teachers trialed the materials. On the
other hand, some readers might feel phased by mention of formats they've never
heard of, such as XML or WAV. If that's the case, don't worry! These are usually
extra bits of information that some teachers will find useful to make their lives
easier or improve the Moodle activities. Not understanding them—or not
wanting to understand them—won't stop you from creating the activities.
Why another book on Moodle?
So what's the difference between this book and any other book on Moodle? There's
an increasingly large number of books about Moodle on the market. General
introductions to Moodle, such as "Moodle Teaching Techniques", William Rice, Packt
Publishing and "Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development", William Rice, Packt
Publishing, go through key Moodle modules methodically and then offer examples.
This book takes the opposite approach: it starts with examples based on what you
need for your language teaching and shows which bits of Moodle you need to make
them. As such, it isn't a comprehensive guide to Moodle, but it aims to provide
relevant information for language teachers. There is no one way to organize a
language course. It depends on the level and age of students, the language learning
goals, and learning style preferences, amongst other things. But most language
courses include a focus on the skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing,
and also offer support for vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. This book has
taken those areas as its starting point.
Moodle's popularity has led to the development of hundreds of add-on modules.
The list is available at http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009. A useful
service a book like this can offer is recommending which add-on modules are worth
getting. For example, a VLE for language learning without a speak and record
facility would be incomplete. I've chosen a simple sound recorder called NanoGong.
Why? Because it is supported for Moodle 1.9; it's very easy to install and works well
on a variety of browsers. You can also set up Moodle activities without NanoGong,
simply by recording directly onto the computer, but you'd lose the advantage of
being able to manage your recordings inside Moodle. There's a useful discussion of
available recorders at http://metamedia.typepad.com/metamedia/listen-upaudio-
in-moodle.html.
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Voice recording in future versions of Moodle
It's uncertain whether NanoGong will work with Moodle 2.0,
but a similar recording plug-in is being developed for it
(see http://docs.moodle.org/en/GSOC/2009).
Meanwhile, NanoGong is probably the simplest choice.
As well as providing an overview of core Moodle modules, Chapter 2, Getting Started
with Moodle will take you through all the add-on modules you'll need for this book.
The reasons for choosing them are the same in each case:
Ease of use
Available support
Suitability for language learning
It is important to remember that add-on modules may not work with future updates
of Moodle, but I've chosen ones which look likely to receive continued support. All
the examples in this book work with Moodle 1.9.5.
Sometimes I've recommended an alternative to the core modules, simply because
they are better for language teaching. For example, Moodle has core Blog and Wiki
modules, but they don't work with NanoGong, the recording tool, whereas the Open
University versions named OUblog and OUwiki do work.
Assessment
There are also some aspects of assessment in Moodle which have a specific
language-teaching slant in this book:
Moodle allows you to provide detailed feedback to your students on specific
areas of language performance. So you can give separate marks on areas such
as grammar, fluency, and pronunciation, for example. You do this by setting
up rating scales for each type of activity. In Moodle speak, categories for
assessment are called Outcomes (see Chapter 2, Getting Started with Moodle
for more information).
Moodle also allows us to create marking scales which relate specifically
to language work. One example of this would be the use of the language
achievement evaluation scales set by the Council of Europe's Common
European Framework. (http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Linguistic/
CADRE_EN.asp). We can customize scales to suit our school or institution.
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What Does Moodle Offer Language Teachers?
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Many Moodle activities can be assessed. All the marks can be collected in
an online gradebook. Moodle also provides some basic statistics which
teachers can use to see how well their tests are working, and to improve
them if necessary.
There is also an add-on ordering task for the Quiz module. This lets students
practice ordering the words in a sentence, sentences in a paragraph, and
paragraphs in a text, and putting a sequence of events in chronological order.
Making Moodle look good
The success of any activity also depends on how good it looks. Chapter 11,
Formatting and Enhancing Your Moodle Materials takes a look at some basic things
you can do to make your Moodle site look better and, therefore, more attractive
to your students.
Communicative Language Teaching
The book is firmly rooted in a communicative approach to language learning. It
therefore tries to make the student the center of the learning experience wherever
possible. It looks at ways of encouraging interaction, making materials engaging
and effective, and of encouraging reflection and self-improvement on the part of the
language learner and the teacher.
A PDF by Jack Richards (http://tinyurl.com/cltarticle) gives a good overview
of the status quo of various approaches to communicative language teaching.
In the article "Understanding and Implementing the Clt (Communicative Language
Teaching) Paradigm", George M. Jacobs and Thomas S. C. Farrell, RELC Journal, Vol.
34, No. 1, 5-30 (2003), the authors highlight some of the key features of CLT. As the
following table shows,

Moodle accommodates these features well.
Key features of CLT (based on Jack
Richards, 2006, and Jacobs and Farrell, 2003)
Moodle features which support CLT
Learner autonomy: Giving learners greater
choice over their own learning, both in terms
of the content of learning and processes they
might employ. The use of small groups is
one example of this, as well as the use of
self-assessment.
Customization of learners' home
pages if My Moodle is turned on
Using questionnaires and polls
(Choice module) to allow learners
to influence curriculum
Use of wikis for learners to
determine processes
Group and groupings feature for
dividing students
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Key features of CLT (as per Jack Richards,
2006, and Jacobs and Farrell, 2003)
Moodle features which support CLT
The social nature of learning: Learning is
not an individual, private activity, but a
social one that depends upon interaction
with others.
Interaction is built into Chat,
Forum, and Wiki modules.
Assignment and Workshop
modules allow collaborative
writing.
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Curricular integration: The connection
between different strands of the curriculum
is emphasized, so that English is not seen
as a stand-alone subject but is linked to
other subjects in the curriculum. Text-based
learning reflects this approach, and seeks
to develop fluency in text types that can be
used across the curriculum. Project work
in language teaching also requires students
to explore issues outside of the language
classroom.
HTML pages with hyperlinks and
webquests are good examples of how
Moodle can be linked to the outside world.
Focus on meaning: Meaning is viewed as
the driving force of learning. Content-based
teaching reflects this view, and seeks to make
the exploration of meaning through content
the core of language learning activities.
It's easy to incorporate authentic spoken
and written texts into Moodle and activities
based on them.
Diversity: Learners learn in different ways
and have different strengths. Teaching needs
to take these differences into account, rather
than try to force students into a single mold.
In language teaching, this has led to an
emphasis on developing students' use and
awareness of learning strategies.
Learners can go at different speeds.
Learners can be grouped according
to interests, level, and needs.
Teachers can help learners
use the glossary to build their
own records.
The Journal module allows
learners and teachers to reflect
on learning processes and make
changes as a result.
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Thinking skills: Language should serve as a
means of developing higher-order thinking
skills, also known as critical and creative
thinking. In language teaching, this means
that students do not learn language for its
own sake but in order to develop and apply
their thinking skills in situations that go
beyond the language classroom.
Wide range of tasks is possible.
Chapter 6, Reading Activities
shows how Bloom's taxonomy
can be used to foster higher-order
thinking tasks.
The Webquest module is a
good place to develop critical
evaluation skills.
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What Does Moodle Offer Language Teachers?
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Key features of CLT (based on Jack
Richards, 2006, and Jacobs and Farrell, 2003)
Moodle features which support CLT
Alternative assessment: New forms of
assessment are needed to replace traditional
multiple-choice and other items that test
lower-order skills. Multiple forms of
assessment (for example, observation,
interviews, journals, portfolios) can be used
to build a comprehensive picture of what
students can do in a second language.
Moodle offers traditional tests as well as
journals and add-on portfolios.
Teachers as co-learners: The teacher is
viewed as a facilitator who is constantly
trying out different alternatives; that
is, learning through doing. In language
teaching, this has led to an interest in action
research and other forms of classroom
investigation.
The Workshop and Questionnaire
modules make it easy to get
learner feedback.
Teachers can also monitor the
popularity of different activities
by tracking student use.
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Age and level of students
Moodle can work for learners of all ages. The examples in this book show how young
learners, adolescents, and adults can use Moodle. Clearly, you will need to adapt the
example activities for your particular students. Make sure they have the content and
tasks that they are likely to enjoy and find useful.
If you are creating tasks for pre-adolescents, you might find it useful to use this book
in conjunction with Moodle 1.9 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds: Beginner's Guide, Mary
Cooch, Packt Publishing, which offers some useful guidelines on things to look out for
with this age group.
It is important when working with learners of all ages that you have:
Learning pathways
Instructions
Materials
Duration of activities
Cognitive complexity of tasks
As for language level, it's possible to create simple low-level tasks, or quite
difficult ones.
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You'll need to consider whether the whole site is written in the target language. This
is probably only appropriate for higher level learners. It may be more effective for
lower level learners if you frame the activities in a language they understand better.
You can include the option for learners to change the language for the headings and
help files, though help files are not available in all languages. You may need to check
with your Moodle administrator that the appropriate language pack is installed. By
clicking on the language selector in the top right-hand corner of the screen, users
can change to the language of their choice. Contact your Moodle administrator if the
languages you want are not there.
Add-on modules are unlikely to have help files and instructions for all languages.
If you find that help files are not available in a language you need, you could write
to the authors via the moodle.org website, or write them yourself. One of the great
things about this open source software is that you can make your own contributions
to it. Your Moodle administrator should be able to help you install your new files.
You can also edit existing help files by going to Site Administration | Language |
Language editing.
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What Does Moodle Offer Language Teachers?
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What languages can you teach using Moodle?
All the examples in this book are of ESOL (English as a Second or Other Language).
However, Moodle can by used to teach a vast variety of languages. All the
instructions in this book are in English, but for lower-level learners you may wish
to consider changing the base language to the students' first language (L1) and
providing instructions in the L1, too.
The official Moodle site offers several support sections for non-English language use:
http://moodle.org/course/ is a directory of Moodle forums in many
languages
http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=31 is a forum for language
teaching
http://download.moodle.org/lang16/ provides a range of language
packs, which you'll need to change instructions and labels to other languages
Suggested approach to using the book
The introduction to each chapter gives an overview of the whole chapter. So it's
worth reading first.
Several reviewers have suggested that a good way to approach the activities in each
chapter is to skim through the whole activity first to get a feel for it and then to create
the activity step by step in your Moodle course.
Try to make yourself familiar with Chapter 2, Getting Started with Moodle. There is
frequent reference to it throughout the book. It contains key information on setting
up Moodle modules and add-on modules, using extra programs, combining Moodle
with other programs, and advice on things such as uploading images and other files
or embedding audio and video in Moodle. Happy Moodling!
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