Study On The Teaching Model Of MOOC

With the help of the computer, communication and information technology, the distance education is playing a more and more important role in today’s education. In 2002, MIT launched many courses on the Internet and after that, more and more universities and educational institutes open their courses to the public for free. In 2012, the OER (Open Educational Resources) movement developed into a new level. Many Internet companies provided lots of courses with high quality, including Coursera, EdX as well as Udacity, and that is the reason why 2012 is considered as "the year of the MOOC". MOOC is warmly welcomed by the learners for its many advantages such as free of charge, peer-assessing, sharing ideas, participating in the final exam and getting the certificate at last. In China, many universities have launched their courses online, including Peking University. Principles and Practices of Computer Assisted Translation delivered by associate professor Yu Jingsong and Han Lintao, was firstly opened on XuetangX.com (学堂在线)in Oct,2013 and then on EdX and Coursera in 2014. CAT, which is shorted for Computer Assisted Translation, refers to a form of language translation in which translators can make use of both computer software and hardware to support the translation. In both foreign countries and Hong Kong and Taiwan, the teaching of CAT starts early and they have already formed a completed system about developing professional translators mastering CAT techniques. However, in mainland China, the development of the teaching of CAT has not been developed very well. The Department of Language Information Engineering in the School of Software and Microelectronics, Peking University started to provide a Master program in computer aided translation (CAT) since 2007, which is the first one to start this major in mainland China. According to the questionnaire,68.8% learners have heard about CAT before, but they don’t know how to use it. With many limitations, the teaching of CAT in mainland China has not developed very well. However, MOOC, a new teaching model, provides another forum for learners to get the skills.In this thesis, the author studies on MOOC, introducing the definition and development, the features, international facilitators and the theoretical foundation of MOOC and make a case study on Principles and Practices of Computer Assisted Translation delivered by associate professor Yu Jingsong and Han Lintao, opened on Coursera. In order to analysis the learners’ study behavior and know their attitude towards MOOC, CAT and this course, the author made two questionnaires:a pre-course and a post-course questionnaire. Besides, the author also interviewed some of the respondents. In addition, with the help of lecturer Han Lintao, the author got the data about the MOOC learners of this course.In the thesis, the major findings are:(1) MOOC are more and more popular nowadays and most learners have strong motivation to join the courses to broaden their horizon. On the other hand,52.2% of the learners consider that the courses have too much information, and 48.8% think the learning process is passive and the learners can’t take part in the course-designing process, which make them drop out.(2) According to the data, most learners have a strong motivation to learn CAT. On the other hand, in their opinion, factors like the lack of qualified teachers and other learning resources, theories outnumbering practices and digression from translation practice may limit the teaching of CAT in mainland China. Therefore, in order to promote the teaching of CAT, both the online and offline courses, should try to avoid those matters.(3) Even though the MOOC platform provides community for learners to exchange ideas,82.4% of the learners don’t have the fixed partners or join in any study group. It shows that discussing frequently is not the prerequisite to be a good learner and on the other hand, learners haven’t made full use of the forum and the function of the forum need to be further developed.(4) Among the positive learners,94% of them have interrupted their learning process, which shows that most learners, even the best learners, will stop learning in their online learning process. However,90% of the drop-outs can continue to learn after the interruption and even finish the whole course.(5) In the learners’ opinion, it would be better if the course designer can make some changes, for example, the length of each video and the volume of videos in each lecture as well as the forms of the homework.(6) When learners have problems,20.3% of them choose to ask help from their teachers in university, which is twice as much as the number of learners asking help on the forum. It shows that it will be better if the online course can be combined with the offline teaching. Therefore, the university teachers can make full use of the teaching videos and design their flipped classroom, which can improve their teaching more efficiently.The innovation of this paper is to make research on the new teaching model MOOC and the online course Principles and Practices of Computer Assisted Translation delivered by associate professor Yu Jingsong and Han Lintao. Through analyzing the questionnaires, interview as well as the data provided by Peking University, the author makes a study behavior analysis and put up with some suggestions.