Hundreds of thousands across the world enroll in a MOOC that targets English.

MOOC-english-ELLThe humanities aren’t often known for their pull when it comes to attracting a MOOC crowd, but one online learning platform may have found a global crowd pleaser with its current English Language Learning (ELL) course that’s quickly become the largest attended MOOC on record.

The biggest single run of a free online course began on FutureLearn last month, with more than 400,000 learners enrolled from over 150 counties.

FutureLearn, the first UK-based provider of massive open online courses, began offering courses in October 2013. As a social learning platform – designed to enable learning through conversation – the platform tries to focus on interaction between course participants to bolster the learning experience.

FutureLearn is wholly owned by The Open University (OU) which has 45 years of expertise in distance and online learning. More than 1.6 million learners from 190 countries have registered since the first courses began in October 2013, generating more than 3.2 million course registrations between them.

The record course – ‘Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests’ –  is run by FutureLearn partner, the British Council, with the record registration numbers demonstrating what the partners say is the massive global demand for English Language learning resources.

A demand that showcases to online course providers, including colleges and universities, that there are basic, fundamental skill sets outside of business and STEM courses that resonate with large learning populations—especially when those skills are bolstered by internationally accepted tests and certifications.

“English is a language of opportunity and these sign-up figures show just how much people across the globe want to use English and the IELTS exam to open up doors, whether it be for work, education or to better connect with the growing millions of English speakers around the world,” explained Sara Pierson, head of English for Education Systems at the British Council. “As an organization, we have been teaching English internationally for more than 80 years – using innovative platforms like this MOOC allows us to share our expertise and the well-respected IELTS exam with an even wider audience and give them the chance to realize their English language ambitions even sooner.

(Next page: How the course works and understanding the pull of ELL’s IELTS)

The six week course, which is now entering its fifth week, is designed to prepare learners for the IELTS test, a globally-recognized, and popular, English language test for higher education and global migration. IELTS is accepted by over 9,000 organizations worldwide including universities, employers, immigration authorities and professional bodies. Over 2.2 million IELTS tests were taken globally last year.

FutureLearn’s ELL MOOC is aimed at non-native English speakers at around intermediate level (approximately B1 on the CEFR) or above, and will help course participants to become familiar with all parts of the IELTS test, understand how the test is assessed, and have an opportunity to have written and spoken English assessed by other learners.

The course is taught by Chris Cavey, open learning manager at the British Council, who says in a blog post that though he’s been developing online learning content for the last eight years, his English-focused MOOCs feel “like the biggest classroom[s] I’ve ever operated in!”

According to Google Analytics, learners for the ELL MOOC come from 153 countries, with a large proportion from the Middle East, as well as Asia and Latin America. And according to the pre-course survey run by FutureLearn:

The course has a predominantly female learner base (55 percent, compared to 45 percent men).

  • The biggest age groups represented are 18-25 and 26-35 year olds, both accounting for 41 percent, followed by the 36-45 set at 12 percent.
  • The majority (42 percent) of the respondents identified as being in full time employment, followed by 21 percent in full time education, and 17 percent looking for work.
  • The largest employment areas represented are Teaching and Education (18 percent), Health and Social Care (15 percent) and Engineering and Manufacturing (12 percent).
  • 52 percent of the teachers who responded focus on English Language.
  • The top three learner motivations are: Improve English (80 percent), learn new things (47 percent), and prepare for further studies (44 percent).

“I think it’s an opportunity to build a real global community and, for most people, a really new learning experience,” writes Cavey. “It really is the more, the merrier – the more people we have, the more difference there is for us to work with, to make a rewarding and enjoyable course.”

“As pleased as I am about the record that FutureLearn has set, this is so much more than a simple volume game,” noted Simon Nelson, CEO of FutureLearn. “The quality of courses coming out of this UK-based platform is set to be a game changer for the provision of free online courses as a whole. We may have been late to the party, but there’s a reason why our learner satisfaction scores are consistently over 90 percent.”

Peter Horrocks, vice-chancellor of The Open University and FutureLearn’s founder, said that he hopes the relationship between the OU and FutureLearn,will continue to “flourish and drive innovation in online learning even further, opening up access to more learners worldwide.”

It will be interesting to see how many learners actually complete the course and obtain a certificate when the course ends in two weeks.

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