Do you know the term Open Educational Resourcesalso known by its acronym OER? It refers to learning, teaching and research materials in any format or medium that are in the public domain or that are protected by copyright and published under an open license, allowing free access, reuse, repurposing, adaptation and redistribution by others. Its literal translation in English would be Open Educational Resources (UNESCO, 2022).
According to the article published in the blog of Learning Foreign Languages Online (LFLO)Open Educational Resources (OER) grants users rights that are normally only granted to authors and publishers due to an open license, including the freedom to modify the original work and the ability to distribute derivatives for free. The OER movement began as a global grassroots phenomenon in the late 20th century and early 21st century, when educators aspired to develop intellectual content that would be accessible to the Internet public (Blyth, 2017).
Como alternativa a los libros de texto tradicionales y los costosos recursos de aprendizaje basados en la web, los Recursos Educativos Abiertos en el aprendizaje de idiomas han atraído recientemente la atención de educadores de idiomas, creadores de currículos y académicos.
OER provide access to controlled language practice, self-learning, engagement and learning satisfaction, among other advantages for language learners. In addition, these resources can support cutting-edge teaching strategies that address constructivist and interactionist theories of second language acquisition (Scott & Cherrez, 2022).
Open Educational Resources are a unique tool to foster learning and information sharing, which are necessary to establish inclusive knowledge societies and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The OERs, or Open Educational Resources, revolution
The Open Educational Resources (OERs) movement/revolution, open or open education, is based on a set of ideas shared by a remarkably wide range of scholars, including the belief that knowledge should be free and open for use and reuse, that collaboration should be easier rather than harder, that people should be recognized for their contributions to education and research, and that concepts and ideas are linked in unexpected and surprising ways rather than in the straightforward linear ways presented by most textbooks.
La educación abierta promete cambiar radicalmente la forma en que los escritores, profesores y estudiantes se comunican en todo el mundo (Baraniuk, 2007, p. 229). Esta revolución de la educación abierta ha dado lugar al surgimiento del “contenido abierto”, un término utilizado para referirse a cualquier contenido digital publicado que se pueda utilizar libremente.
Open content, in terms of pedagogy, comes with access and open source. Open access refers to material that is made publicly available on the Internet without specific permission to edit it. Open source content, on the other hand, allows users to reuse and repurpose content to create original creations.
To cope with rising costs, OER advocates focused on creating and to disseminate free resources during the first ten years of the movement. However, the movement has begun to focus on empirical research to determine the effect of OER on student learning, including foreign language (LE) learning, in its second decade. In addition, open educators are beginning to investigate various methods for integrating OER into mainstream education.
In summary, the open education movement has four main objectives:
(a) democratizar la educación y, por lo tanto, expandir el “ecosistema del conocimiento”,
(b) reduce the high prices of teaching materials,
(c) accelerate the production of materials and
(d) allow students and teachers to modify materials to make them more appropriate to the particular circumstances of their communities (Blyth, 2012). Here we present some suggestions and accredited OER repositories (ROER) for foreign language learners who are new to OER and find it difficult to recognize credible resources among the plethora of OER:
How to become an informal language learner: Learners should be exposed to the target language as much as possible while learning a foreign language. When learning occurs in non-immersive environments where the target language is not used, it is extremely important to remember this. In addition, learning a language involves much more than learning its grammar and vocabulary; as a result, pragmatic and sociocultural elements should be included in the language learning curriculum and learners should choose to learn through resources that facilitate their language learning.
How to navigate and locate OER? The Internet is undoubtedly awash with resources for LE learners. For starters, students can choose CC Search CC Search Portal (creativecommons.org) where students can find open content in different formats: images, music, text and videos. In addition to OER Commons (OER Commons) there is another OER public digital library.
They can also join accredited ROERs: some well-known ROERs for foreign language learners are the following (Perifanou, M. and Economides, 2021):
- COERLL: The Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning creates and disseminates language OER in the following languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, K'iche', Malayalam, Nahuatl, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, and Yoruba. Sponsors language OER initiatives and professional development for teachers, plans events for open language education, publishes textbooks and and much more. Supports Language OER Network (LOERN), a network of ambassadors, creators, reviewers and teachers of open educational resources.
- MERLOT: multimedia educational resource for learning and online teaching offering peer-reviewed online learning and teaching materials. It lists over 3000 world language resources, including animations, quizzes, exercises and practices, electronic portfolios, online courses, journal articles, presentations, simulations and tutorials. The following languages have OER available: Less Taught Languages, Multilingual Resources. Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Arabic, Chinese, ESL or EFL, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Russian, Spanish and more. Support Language OER Network (LOERN), a network of ambassadors, creators, reviewers and teachers of open educational resources.
- OpenLearn: the UK's supported Open University offers more than 1,000 free courses in eight different subject areas. Courses also include interactive activities, quizzes, audios and movies. Learner can access and download a free participation statement after successfully completing a free course to use with a digital badge (if the course offers one). Most courses have reviews and a Creative Commons (CC) license. There are 67 language e-books and 79 language courses (44 introductory, 14 intermediate and 15 advanced) to study the following languages: Welsh, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, English, French, Gaelic and more languages.
Everyone has the right to the opportunity to study, and society can help people exercise this right by ensuring that education and knowledge is accessible to all. Open education is a strategy that organizations and individuals can use to learn virtually anything, address current problems and seize upcoming opportunities.
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