LAL News

The winners of this year’s WELS Student, Tutor and Teaching Excellence Awards were announced at the virtual WELS Teaching Excellence Day on Tuesday 5 October. In total, 21 awards were made across the three categories.

The WELS Teaching Excellence Awards seek to recognise outstanding teaching that promotes our students’ success. In 2020 and 2021, many projects and programmes had to adapt rapidly and creatively to challenges posed by pandemic restrictions and the way our colleagues have embraced and boldly addressed these challenges is reflected in three nominations that stood out from the crowd and were presented with awards.

Every year, the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) recognises students for their achievements through the WELS Student Awards. This year another eight talented students received awards in two categories, in a recent virtual ceremony.

Every year the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) recognises students and projects that have gone above and beyond what is expected of them. This year, for the first time, the WELS Tutor Awards provided students with the opportunity to recognise the dedication and skill of their tutors.

Education Scotland has endorsed The Open University’s Masters in Education qualifications. Their endorsement of the four MA Education specialist pathways was based on an application process and panel interview, in which they explored the extent to which the programme aligned with Scotland’s national model of professional learning.

When redundancy hit Jonathan, he took the opportunity to make some lifestyle changes, changing career and following his passions of travel and learning.  Now an OU Modern Languages student, we spoke to Jonathan about his experiences.

Dr Caroline Tagg has been awarded a British Academy Fellowship for a project that aims to better understand the nature of 21st century communication and the role mobile phones play in people's busy lives.

A study which measured and analysed scholarly literature, including research by academics from the Faculty of WELS, has found the OU to be second highest for publications in the field of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), with 75 articles identified.

Marielle began study on the Applied Linguistics pathway of the OU Masters in Education whilst living in Spain and working as a private language tutor. The timing - and the course - could not have been more perfect for her, as she explains here.

Academics from WELS will present their work next week at the “OU COVID-19 Research: Online Learning and Education” seminar. The event showcases OU-funded projects which have aimed to improve and support aspects of online learning and education during the COVID-19 pandemic.