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Faculty of Education and Language Studies > People Profiles > Annette Duensing

Annette Duensing

Staff Tutor (Languages)/Senior Lecturer

The Open University Faculty of Education and Language Studies Department of Languages


Profile

I have been working for the Open University since February 1997, first as Lecturer in German and since August 2006 as Staff Tutor for Languages in Region 6, East of England, which comprises Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Here, I am responsible for the recruitment, induction and staff development of all language tutors. Before I came to the Open University, I was Lecturer in German at the University of Luton.

Teaching Interests

As a Lecturer in German, I worked on the development of L213 Variationen and L230 Motive. Later I was course team chair for L130 Auftakt for several years and led a team in developing and then running the first free-standing residential school in German at the OU, LXR132 Kapriolen. I have jointly edited and partly authored a coproduction with Routledge, a reader to enhance the development of reading and writing skills for higher level German students: Duensing, A. & Baumann, U. (eds) (2006) Developing Writing Skills in German. London: Routledge. I have taught residential schools in Jena and Manchester for both Kapriolen (LXR132) and Motive L203, and course directed German and French residential schools in Jena, Manchester and Caen. I was also an associate lecturer on two of the German courses, L313 Variationen and L130 Auftakt. Externally to the Open University, I have been an academic editor for three German A-level text books published by advance materials (www.advancematerials.co.uk).

Research Interests

My main research interests lie in the area of skills development and assessment for language learning in general and in particular in the open and distance learning (ODL) context. I have previously worked on integrating the development of basic computing skills into an intermediate level German course and the development of speaking skills in ODL. At present, I am involved in several research projects with colleagues, e.g. the "Interaction project", comparing the different interaction patterns observable in face-to-face and online tutorials, and a further study of developing speaking skills in ODL.

Current Research

Interaction Study (with C.Batstone, A.Duensing, B.Heins) Speaking Skills Project (with Christine Pleines)

Publications

Book Chapter
Duensing, Annette and Harper, Felicity (2011). The role and nature of assessment in blended contexts. In: Nicolson, Margaret; Murphy , Linda and Southgate, Margaret eds. Language Teaching in Blended Contexts. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press Ltd, pp. 59–74.
Furnborough, Concha; Duensing, Annette and Truman, Mike (2005). Assessment. In: Hurd, Stella and Murphy, Linda eds. Success with Languages. London: Routledge, pp. 185–213.
Conference Item
Stickler, Ursula; Batstone, Carolyn; Duensing, Annette and Heins, Barbara (2006). Distant Classmates: comparing online and telephone language tutorials. In: ICL 2006, 27-29 September 2006, Villach, Austria.
Stickler, Ursula; Batstone, Carolyn; Duensing, Annette and Heins, Barbara (2005). Distance and virtual distance: Preliminary results of a study of interaction patterns in synchronous audio graphic CMC and face-to-face tutorials in beginners’ language tutorials. In: Proceedings of the 2004 International Symposium on Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching, Beijing and Shanghai, Aug 2004, Beijing and Shanghai, China.
Journal Article
Stickler, Ursula; Batstone, Carolyn; Duensing, Annette and Heins, Barbara (2007). ‘Distant Classmates: speech and silence in online and telephone language tutorials’. Eurodl, 2007(2),
Heins, Barbara; Duensing, Annette; Stickler, Ursula and Batstone, Carolyn (2007). Spoken interaction in online and face-to-face language tutorials. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(3), pp. 279–295.
Stickler, Ursula; Batstone, Carolyn; Duensing, Annette and Heins, Barbara (2007). Distant Classmates: Speech and silence online and telephone language tutorials. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2
Duensing, Annette; Stickler, Ursula; Batstone, Carolyn and Heins, Barbara (2006). Face-to-face and online interactions - is a task a task? Journal of Learning Design, 1(2), pp. 35–45.