Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

Why blend?
The decision to offer this course as a blended one was made for the
following reasons:
1. To motivate the students to write, which is cited in literature as one of the benefits
of using Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis in courses of writing (for example,
Turgut, 2009; Krebs et al., 2010). It should be mentioned that though using these
tools for peer-revision does not necessarily automatically motivate students to
write, they can, however, contribute to the students’ motivation to write for a wider
audience (Lee, 2010; Richardson, 2010), to encourage them to come up with ideas
for their writing that can appeal to their peers and enhance their confidence in it
(Turgut, 2009; Pinkman, 2005; Zhang, 2009).
2. To create a space for them to share their experiences (Davoli et al., 2009;
Richardson, 2010; Solomon and Schrum, 2010).
3. To give the students opportunities to provide each other with feedback on
their writing (Davoli et al., 2009; Richardson, 2010; Solomon and Schrum, 2010).
4. To encourage informal communication (Richardson, 2010; Solomon and
Schrum, 2010).
5. To support course management (Bonk and Graham, 2006; Davoli et al., 2009;
Solomon and Schrum, 2010). Through the course’s wiki the students can access
the course materials uploaded to it and complete the course assignments
they receive. The wiki is also equipped with the tools for synchronous and
asynchronous communication providing additional channels for it. Besides being
used for the course activities throughout the course, the wiki is also used for
formative and summative assessment, with the students completing quizzes as
well as creating and submitting their e-folios at the end of the semester and the
academic year to the wiki.
6. To provide additional channels for interaction and opportunities for collaboration
(Richardson, 2010; Solomon and Schrum, 2010).
The choice of workspace
The foreign languages department is equipped with a multimedia lab which is used
to deliver the course. However, the department does not use the university’s virtual
learning environment for teaching, nor does it provide the finance to purchase
software and tools necessary to run courses like mine. Thus in choosing the
software and tools to teach my course I am limited to those available for free.
The course is taught using PBWorks, a free hosted workspace which allows
collaborative editing of pages and files (http://pbworks.com). It was chosen as one of
the learning environments for the course because it met this requirement. In addition,
it is distinguished by a relative ease of use and accessibility, which is very important
in my learning context, since in the first place my course is aimed at the development
of the students’ writing skills. What is also important, is that PBWorks is free from
advertising, which I see as its significant advantage over some other online services.
44 | A blended English as a Foreign Language academic writing course