Classification and quality criteria for Open Educational Resources in the field of foreign language learning

Foreign language teachers use online repositories on everyday basis to find appropriate activities for their lessons. The question is: How can content providers support them in finding exactly what they need and in retrieving high quality resources? This question has been discussed in the context of the European project “Open Discovery Space”. The answers are: a taxonomy of searching mechanism and quality criteria of online resources from the methodologic point of view. Correspondingly, this paper introduces a classification of digital resources according to the four skills (speaking, writing, reading, listening/watching) and two language use types (grammar, vocabulary), representing the changing paradigm of foreign language teaching and learning. Further the paper identifies quality criteria for designing online learning materials with regard to content, methodology, technic and design. Finally, the findings are illustrated by an example of a learning scenario.