Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

Conclusion
In this chapter a list of blended learning design-related questions will be presented
for course designers to consider when developing their courses. The questions
have arisen from the advice on blended learning course design that is presented
in the literature and from the experiences of the authors in this publication, including
my own. The questions will be presented under four headings (context; course
design; learners, teachers and tutors; and evaluating and developing the blend),
with examples drawn from the case studies providing suggested answers or
guidance for each.
A principled approach to blended learning course design
The Introduction to this book concluded by stressing the importance of getting the
blend ‘right’, whilst at the same time acknowledging that ‘determining the right blend
isn’t easy or to be taken lightly’ (Hofmann, 2001: 3). Despite these words of warning
the literature provides us with a limited amount of advice on how to blend and
simply suggests that we approach it in a principled way (Neumeier, 2005; Levy and
Stockwell, 2006; Sharma, 2006; Mayes and de Freitas, 2007) because if we do not ‘a
course … may be seen as an “eclectic” blending together of course components and
can end up as rather a mish-mash’ Sharma and Barrett (2007: 8). Therefore, to ensure
that this does not happen and to achieve a principled approach to design in relation
to English Language Teaching (ELT), Sharma and Barrett (2007) suggest that course
designers follow four guiding principles (outlined in the Introduction). Also Dudeney
and Hockly (2007) propose a list of questions under five headings (delivery mode;
task design and materials; learners; teacher/tutors; assessment and evaluation),
which acts as a checklist of key considerations, but does not suggest answers or
provide examples from blends.
Although helpful to a degree, when I was redesigning the Bosnia and Herzegovina
blend (Chapter 16) I did not find this advice detailed enough to guide me and
moreover I was frustrated by the lack of descriptions of blends in ELT contexts. It
was rather belatedly in the redesign process that I discovered Neumeier’s (2005)
framework of parameters, which originated from the design of a 33-hour job
application course in a German university (see Table 1). The aim of this short course
(73 per cent of which was taught online) was to teach the students how to apply for
a job in English and the course’s primary focus was on writing (CVs and covering
letters) and to a lesser degree speaking (interviews). Neumeier (2005: 176) hoped
this framework could act as the starting point for designing a blended learning
environment for language teaching and learning, and that it would ‘help course
designers and practitioners to move closer to answering the initial question of which
combination provides the optimal basis for language learning and teaching given the
particular conditions at hand.’
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