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

Carolyn Batstone

Lecturer in 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. I have been working at the Open University since September 2000.

Teaching Interests

I am currently 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 also has course books, a website, and assessment materials. Students can choose between optional online and face-to-face tutorials. I was a course writer for the Department's largest German course L193 Rundblick: beginner's German and also for the L231 Motive: top-up, Schreibwerkstatt. 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.

Research Interests

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 am currently involved in investigating oral interaction in tutorials.

Current Research

I am part of the Interaction Study Group. This group of researchers are investigating oral interaction in both face-to-face and online tutorials. We are looking at the quantity of interaction taking place in the different media. This interaction is then analysed according to its function within the tutorial. This is a new an vibrant field of research providing exciting, new research data.

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.