MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are currently in favour as a mechanism for 'delivering education' on a massive scale, including language education. However, when viewed as a new educational 'technology', they have arguably not yet reached the stage of normalisation (Bax, 2003) at which they might be most productive. This paper examines the current landscape with regard to language learning MOOCs, drawing on a number of successful Open University projects in Spanish and Italian. It looks critically at where MOOCs seem to be potentially most valuable, and also at aspects of the experience which seem to have impeded normalisation. The paper will conclude by looking at how language MOOCs might develop in the years ahead. [For the complete volume, "Flipping the Blend through MOOCs, MALL and OIL--New Directions in CALL," see ED585277.]