The University of Southampton will become the first institution to offer scholarships associated with a course on the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform FutureLearn.
Scholarship applications will be open to learners who complete more than half of the course steps in the free, four-week ‘Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching’ course, developed with the British Council.
“We hope that many participants will want to move onto study these areas in more depth through the online MA”
The “small” but as yet undecided number of scholarships will cover the first year of fees for the university’s two and a half year online MA in English Language Teaching, a spokesperson told The PIE News.
They will be awarded by lead academics on the MA programme, based on personal statements submitted by eligible applicants.
The MOOC, which begins this week, follows the marked success of the British Council’s first course offered through the platform, Exploring English, Language and Culture, which was recently shown to be the site’s most popular offering, with more than 120,000 signups.
Vicky Wright, Director of University Language Strategy at the University of Southampton, said she hopes that it will help to generate interest in the Masters course.
“The MOOC showcases a lot of the latest research and practice in language learning and teaching and in language use and we hope that many participants will want to move onto study these areas in more depth through the online MA,” she commented.
“These scholarships from the University of Southampton are a fine example of potential of free online courses to create routes from informal to formal learning,” Simon Nelson, Chief Executive of FutureLearn, added.
The scholarships will be awarded in January for courses beginning in November 2015.
