"The teaching model of the UOC School of Languages is unique"

Joseph Hopkins is the new director of the UOC School of Languages. Hopkins, who joined the University as a lecturer in English in 2001, has received a Jaume Vicens Vives Award this year for the work carried out by the UOC School of Languages on the use of e-learning tools in language training. Hopkins, who is passionate about language learning and the use of ICT, talks about how the School has evolved since it was founded and some of the challenges for the coming years, such as introducing more advanced levels and certification exams.

Joseph Hopkins is the new director of the UOC School of Languages. Hopkins, who joined the University as a lecturer in English in 2001, has received a Jaume Vicens Vives Award this year for the work carried out by the UOC School of Languages on the use of e-learning tools in language training. Hopkins, who is passionate about language learning and the use of ICT, talks about how the School has evolved since it was founded and some of the challenges for the coming years, such as introducing more advanced levels and certification exams.

Great. The number of students is constantly growing. This semester we're introducing new materials and a new level of German: B2.1. We're also preparing a C1 level - an advanced level - in English, because more and more students are asking for it. We're thinking of offering Spanish for foreigners, though first we need to define who these courses would be aimed at. One thing is Spanish for European students, and another is Spanish for Asia. Asian learners will need a different methodology. We're also planning to offer certification exams for students who need to demonstrate the level they've achieved. More and more students need this kind of document for civil service or other job applications. We'll offer these exams starting in the 2015-16 academic year. We've grown quite a lot in recent years. We started out with just UOC students, and since we opened the courses up to the general public - four years ago we decided to open our courses to everyone - there's been a lot of growth. Lots of people who see the appeal and potential of studying online have signed up - people who know us and trust in the quality of our courses. Yes, absolutely. We've succeeded in creating a language teaching system that covers all the skills. Distance language learning used to mean working with a CD or doing closed exercises. There was no way to regularly engage in oral interaction. At the UOC, through research and innovation - with projects like SpeakApps - we've created an online learning system that covers all language skills and guarantees quality. When the crisis hit, a lot of people signed up for the so-called "languages of the future", such as Chinese and German, but as it's dragged on we've seen a return to the "refuge" language: English. There's been a surge in English at the expense of other languages, though in the latest enrolment period there was a big increase in French and Japanese. It's still too soon to know whether the steady growth in English has come to an end, or if what's happening is that we're gradually becoming more European. More and more people now realize English isn't enough, and that you need to know other languages, like French. Mainly flexibility and - though it's a bit hard to explain if you're not a student - the experience of being immersed in an online learning community. When students enter the classroom they think learning is going to be a very lonely process, but they immediately connect with other students and the teacher. The interaction is really intense. Also, we've been teaching languages online for almost 20 years, since '95, so we have a wealth of experience. Our strong commitment to innovation is another important factor: we have a very flexible system, so courses can evolve very rapidly in terms of quality. This is the opposite of what happens in other online education systems, where everything is done, published and closed, and changes come much more slowly. The teaching model of the UOC School of Languages is unique. You might think it's similar to the model used at the Open University in the UK or the UNED [Spain's national distance education university], but in fact those systems are based largely on self-study with the occasional face-to-face tutorial. Some language schools have a hybrid system: part of the learning is online - grammar exercises, for example - and interaction between students happens face-to-face. But as we've shown at the UOC School of Languages, it's possible to do everything in a 100% online environment, with the advantages of an online learning community that I mentioned before. First, I see the award as a recognition of a group effort, for all the work carried out at the School of Languages over the years. We work as a team, although the award was given to me as a representative of the School. The breakthrough for us came in 2008 when we redesigned the undergraduate English and French courses, incorporating oral interaction and group assignments. Then came the SpeakApps project, led by the UOC lecturer Christine Appel, and innovations like pronunciation modules and the ones students use for learning the Japanese writing system. I think the award is a very positive development, because we've received external recognition for the work we've done over all these years. It matters in two ways: universities have recognized online language teaching, and they've highlighted the importance of language teaching more broadly. Language learning has always been seen as falling outside the remit of universities, as something that should be dealt with at the secondary level. We want to continue innovating. Right now I have an idea for a mobile app that learners could use to work on grammar during downtime, whenever they feel like it, on the underground, for instance. A major challenge is to disseminate what we've learned about teaching languages online. Over the next year or two we're planning to offer a postgraduate specialization in language teaching and ICT. We've been involved in the ICT-Rev project since 2009 - training language teachers - and now we're starting a new stage to train teacher trainers. Last year we travelled to countries like Finland and Norway. We use our experience to train teachers, though it was also a great learning experience for us.