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Saturday, January 19, 2019
The Language of MOOCs - Roberto Rey Agudo, Inside Higher Ed
Can providers of massive open online courses achieve their goal of educating the most possible people when their offerings are overwhelmingly in English? No, Roberto Rey Agudo argues. Much has been made of the global nature of MOOCs, and the fact that these courses are enabling students from many countries to learn together. Coursera has 181 partners in 27 countries; edX has 130 partners worldwide. In spite of their international reach, English is the language of instruction for over 80 percent of their courses. In contrast, English makes up about 50 percent of internet content, and English speakers 30 percent of the total users. Can edX and Coursera be global platforms and be functionally monolingual?
https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2019/01/09/moocs-overwhelming-dependence-english-limits-their-impact-opinion