Abstract

In response to feedback from students on an MA TESOL Independent Distance Learning (IDL) program, this chapter is chiefly concerned with understanding the efficacy of adding more digital and interactive content to core program modules. Analysis of online posts and retrospective reflections on the course, using an exploratory practice framework (Allwright, 1992), offers insight into how trainee language teachers constructed different professional identities for themselves through online interaction with their peers and instructors. The data also highlights some issues and concerns related to successfully transforming an IDL course in this way, however, and an unexpected finding from analysis of the student interaction data was the fact that several students had in fact barely participated at all. What this might mean in the context of the increasingly online nature of higher education is discussed.