Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

Comments on Part 3
Brian Tomlinson
One of the obvious advantages of using a blended learning approach to designing
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses is the affordance it gives for localising
and even individualising the courses. Each course at a centre can benefit from a
common store of language and activity input but can be tailor-made for specific
clients, specific client courses and specific time allocations and, as a course develops
it can be modified to allow individuals to work at their own pace and in relation
to their own preferred learning styles, time available, needs, wants, problems and
interests. At the same time each individual’s output can be made available (with
permission) for other students to benefit from and for different individuals with
shared needs to collaborate in mutually beneficial projects. This sort of localisation
and personalisation is what the courses reported in Part 3 achieved. It could possibly
have been achieved face-to-face but to do so would have demanded great trainer
skill, considerable investment in time and riches of resources beyond the means of
most of the institutions concerned in the projects reported.
Another obvious advantage is that many ESP students on a course are busy working
most of the week, are geographically dispersed, cannot always be released at the
same time and do not have a lot of time available to work with other members of the
course anyway. In such cases online modules can obviously help to overcome logistical
problems as well as offering such pedagogical benefits as individualised feedback and
focus plus the opportunity to recycle material and activities many times.
The courses reported in Part 3 varied considerably in the percentage of course
time allocated to face-to-face approaches but all of them were agreed that a
face-to-face component was needed partly because of the learners’ prior learning
experience and expectations, partly because the face-to-face mode is the best
way of achieving a team and community spirit and partly, in some cases, because
it was considered that instructors could best introduce, demonstrate and answer
questions on new technologies if they were able to interact with the learners live.
Most courses favoured starting with a face-to-face mode to establish understanding
and co-operation but some actually use it as their prime mode throughout the
course. This is another important reminder that the face-to-face mode should be
treated as an important element of blended learning courses and should not be
considered as a necessary but undesirable adjunct to the superior approaches
offered by new technologies. This needs to be remembered, especially by course
designers who are in danger of being seduced by technologies they enjoy using
themselves, and by administrators who mistakenly think that online delivery of
courses is always much more cost effective than face-to-face delivery.
Comments on Part 3 | 185