drs. J. (Jeroen) van Engen

Introduction to Dutch (2014-current)

Free online introductory Dutch course offered through www.futurelearn.com. I am one of the initiators, developers and lead educators of this three-weeks online language course, which ran in March 2015, and attracted 33,000 participants from all around the world. More information can be found on the website of the Language Centre and on FutureLearn.

Online Dutch from April 2015

In the slipstream of the popular Introduction to Dutch course, we are also developing online language courses with Blackboard and SpeakApps. These eight-week courses will be offered from 8 April 2015. I am the coordinator of the online courses. 

Portal Academische Communicatievaardigheden (2014-2015)

In het kader van een e-learningprogramma van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen hebben we bij het Talencentrum een portal Academische Communicatievaardigheden ontwikkeld met tekst-en-uitleg, oefeningen en bronnen voor schrijven en spreken. 

SpeakApps 2 (2013-2014)

SpeakApps 2 concentrated on (online) teacher training courses and workshops to reach out to other educational sectors (secundary and vocational sectors) and other languages besides the main project languages. Our workpackage focused on teacher training. We delivered teacher training events in the Netherlands and Germany with our associated partner from the Language Centre of the Ruhr-University of Bochum. 

Magicc (2011-2014)

• The MAGICC-project deals with transnationally shared learning outcomes, aligned activities, assessment forms and criteria and competence level benchmarks at European level
• The project builds on the well-established reference levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
• All the elements will be available in an academic ePortfolio
• These complementary reference tools will be specific to the needs and aims of the higher education sector and the multilingual and multicultural academic communication core competences, including academic mother tongue competences
• The MAGICC-project will be of interest to students, teachers, faculties and employers

http://www.unil.ch/magicc

SpeakApps 1 (2011-2012)

The SpeakApps project focuses on creating a free and open source online platform that gathers ICT-based applications and pedagogies to practice oral skills online. The SpeakApps platform would thus serve a community composed of foreign language teachers and their students with:

1. Easy access to innovative and interactive online tools for learning and teaching languages.
2. Virtual classrooms to carry out pedagogical activities.
3. Exercises and tools for managing materials for synchronous tasks.
4. Technical and pedagogical guides to assist SpeakApps users.
5. A common space to exchange ideas and methodologies.

The SpeakApps project was inspired by a common set of challenges that the language learning community faces on an everyday basis, including:

• Formal second or foreign language acquisition settings do not provide enough room for everyone to practise the language.
• The ephemeral nature of speaking which makes it difficult for students to obtain feedback on their performance, preventing them from properly revising and improving their oral skills.

SpeakApps, granted by the European Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), aims to fill these gaps by designing a popular language learning site supported and built by a large community that enjoys and takes advantage of the possibilities offered by e-learning.

http://www.speakapps.org/