Open Learning initiative is online course website running by Carnegie Mellon University. Its purpose is to "transforming higher education through the science of learning." It is very obvious that most of the online courses in this website are about science, such as chemistry, biology and statistics. Speaking of the English education, it only offers two couses that I think relate to English eduction: American English Speech and Argument Diagramming. The first course is about the English pronunciation which is for the beginning level learners and the second one is about how to write argumentative papers which may suitable for the advanced level students. In each course, there is a syllabus that clearly presents how many units and modules it contains and what the topics for each unit ad module. Learners can study by themselves follow each unit and do the exercises after each lesson. Teachers can use these courses as a guidance or a references of what to teach and how to teach.
It is also very useful for students who are working in science field. They can find learn the science subject and many terms in the field at the same time, which is like hitting two birds with one stone.
Personally, these online courses may only be used for adult language teaching since there are many descriptions and the definitions that may be boring and too difficult for young learners. Too much readings are very hard to keep young students in their seats.
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