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Faculty of Education and Language Studies > People Profiles > Carolyn Batstone

Carolyn Batstone

Lecturer (German)

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


Profile

I am a lecturer in German in the Department of Languages, at the Open University.

Teaching Interests

I have worked on all levels of Open University German courses from beginners' (L193) through to advanced (L313). I have been involved recently in re-writing the second edition of L193 Rundblick: beginners' German.

In the past I was responsible for the re-make of L130 Auftakt: get ahead in German. This is a level 1 German language course. The course is the first in the department to develop an interactive DVD-ROM designed to teach speaking and listening skills to students. The course has course books, a website, and assessment materials. Students can take part in online and face-to-face tutorials. I was a course writer on L231 Motive. I have taught on Open University residential schools for level 1 courses Kapriolen, level 2 Motive, and Variationen (L213). I was part of the University's award winning team in 2001, which produced teaching materials for the first online tutorials attached to a course.

I am interested in how cultural knowledge can be taught at all levels through authentic target language materials.

 

 

Research Interests

I am currently investigating modern foreign languages in mainstream schooling.  I am particularly interested in the status of German language teaching.

Since joining the Open University I have focussed on a range of research questions investigating adult language learners. I have looked at the integration of computer-based German teaching into residential language courses. I have studied how distance language learners choose to engage with the distance learning materials they are provided with.

I was a founding member of the Interaction Study Group involved in investigating oral interaction in tutorials. We researched oral interaction in both face-to-face and online tutorials, looking at the quantity of interaction taking place in the different media. This interactionwas then analysed according to its function within the tutorial.

Current Research

I am currently investigating moern foreign languages in mainstream schooling. I am particularly interested in the status of German language teaching.

Publications

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.