Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

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first-hand experience on which they can reflect when they come to approaching and understanding theory. We are also able to make much better use of the face-to-face time that is available for the course because participants arrive with a good level of technical knowledge and sound experiences and have already had some time to absorb many of the technical and theoretical aspects during the first online block of the course. Lastly, through exploiting the social networking and community building opportunities offered during the initial online phase of the course, the participants arrive at the face-to-face part of the course already familiar with each other and this really accelerates the bonding process that groups generally go through during the initial stages of a face-to-face course. Design challenges Both face-to-face and online courses can be problematic for the development of teachers’ techno-pedagogical skills. Face-to-face courses generally tend to be too short and intensive for teachers to get past the ‘shock and awe’ impact that new technology can have, and whereas they can help to build or destroy enthusiasm for technology, it can be hard within short face-to-face courses to develop the degree of balanced critical understanding that is necessary for the effective use of technology. Online courses, on the other hand, tend to be far too theoretical with teachers lacking the practical ‘hands on’ guidance and experience that they can get within the physical classroom. The blended learning structure of the course was employed to address both these areas. Teachers had the opportunity to be exposed through the online course to some of the potential uses of technology to support development within an online environment, and then had the opportunity to employ their insights within a more practical face-to-face workshop environment. Most people still have a limited concentration span for online work. This, mixed with the busy nature of teachers’ lives, influenced the design of the online tasks. Most of the active tasks were developed to be short and doable in chunks of 30 minutes or less. They are also very practical so that participants can immediately implement what they are learning within their own classroom. Future adaptations The course has been designed to evolve as more participants do the course and as the technology changes. Because the online element of the course is Moodle-based it can easily be edited and kept up to date. It is also anticipated that digital artefacts and teaching resources produced by each cohort within the course can be archived and shared and be the basis for the development of new materials for later cohorts. Lessons learned and advice Time management Blended learning is often seen as a time-saving measure both in terms of course design and tutor time for delivery, this is a huge misconception. The development 70 | A blended learning teacher development course
and instructional design of the online part of the blended learning course can be extremely time consuming and complex if you want to take the course beyond the delivery of simple downloadable documents. Delivering any kind of online support for blended learning can also be very time consuming for tutors as many participants feel that an online tutor is available 24/7 and they do not have the limitations of ‘class time’ to restrict access to their tutor. Calculating how much time to allow tutors per student and dealing with student expectations becomes significantly challenging. Moodle limitations Many developers use Moodle as the platform of choice for course development because it is free and has a powerful LMS which can track students’ online attendance and levels of participation. Developing materials using Moodle though can be very limiting as the platform tends to lack structural depth (though much has been done to address this with the more recent versions of Moodle). Most resources and activity types that Moodle enables have to be built from the initial course landing page, which generally means that page can become very long, difficult to navigate and slow to load. During the development of the Blended Learning for ELT course, this problem was avoided through the development of independent content templates which were built separately and then uploaded as files. This enabled an additional structural level for the course, so that Moodle’s internally constructed pages could be used as unit indexes and the initial course landing page could then be a basic contents page. The use of HTML for the independently developed template pages for the tasks also enabled a much greater level of integration with Web 2.0 tools and multimedia online elements, as they could easily be embedded into the HTML templates. Structuring course delivery When course tasks and units depend quite heavily on peer-to-peer interaction it is difficult to decide whether to make units time-bound and only available for a designated amount of time, or whether to make all units constantly available. Making units constantly available enables participants to more easily and flexibly manage their time in a way which suits them, but can lead to some participants, who work ahead, having no one to interact with. It really becomes dependent on the tutor then to monitor this situation and provide interaction for fast-moving students as well as remembering to refer them back to earlier discussions as slower-moving participants start to catch up. It is essential that participants understand that the value of what they learn comes from the learning journey and the interaction with peers, rather than from a race to the end of the materials. Guiding principles and practical considerations Importance of tasks – It is impossible to overstate the importance of active tasks in the online elements of the learning. Passive reading or viewing materials that require no action, interaction or reflection soon tire online learners and do not lead to deeper engagement or learning. Tasks also need to be relevant and applicable to the working context of the course participants and once completed, some form of feedback from peers or the tutor is essential. A blended learning teacher development course | 71
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Blended Learning in English Languag
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ISBN 978-0-86355-706-4 © British C
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Part 3 - English for Specific Purpo
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Acknowledgements We would like to t
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To address this deficit I proposed
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Introduction This introductory chap
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an almost identical definition in h
Page 15 and 16: ■■ Learners’ expectations - l
Page 17 and 18: To achieve a ‘principled approach
Page 19 and 20: its weakness in speaking.’ Contra
Page 21 and 22: References Adair-Hauck, B Willingha
Page 23 and 24: Rossett, A, Douglis, F and Frazee,
Page 25 and 26: 1 A collaborative online reading an
Page 27 and 28: engaging approach to teaching, wher
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Page 31 and 32: Conclusion Students received course
Page 33 and 34: 2 Blended learning in English for A
Page 35 and 36: All in the blend Reports on the app
Page 37 and 38: level of agreement or disagreement
Page 39 and 40: Hyland, K and Hyland, F (1992) Go f
Page 41 and 42: Why blend? The decision to offer th
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Page 45 and 46: In addition, there are a number of
Page 47 and 48: Turgut, Y (2009) ‘EFL learners’
Page 49 and 50: ■■ English for Academic Purpose
Page 51 and 52: Figure 1: Stages of the incorporati
Page 53 and 54: Table 3: Schedule for Unit 1 Week U
Page 55 and 56: Internet - links and WebQuests: Som
Page 57 and 58: References Allan, M (1985) Teaching
Page 59 and 60: My advice to intending EAP course d
Page 61 and 62: 5 A blended learning teacher develo
Page 63 and 64: The face-to-face element Because of
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Page 69 and 70: Encourage learner autonomy and refl
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Page 73 and 74: Clearly there are advantages to hav
Page 75 and 76: Lessons learned When deciding what
Page 77 and 78: References Osguthorpe, RT and Graha
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Page 83 and 84: where possible, to bring them toget
Page 85 and 86: 8 Blended learning: The IDLTM exper
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Page 89 and 90: There is a fourth activity type in
Page 91 and 92: their own style of learning. At the
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Page 95 and 96: variety of teaching contexts (e.g.
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Page 105 and 106: ■■ Cambridge ESOL was reporting
Page 107 and 108: ■■ Including later units on, fo
Page 109 and 110: The rationale behind the blend The
Page 111 and 112: Figure 2: An example screen from a
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Comments on Part 2 Brian Tomlinson
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Learning a new language and reflect
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11 Blended learning: Podcasts for t
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to the content (see below). Additio
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Making recommendations My friend An
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Sustainability Blended learning oft
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Kukulska-Hulme, A and Shield, A (20
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The face-to-face aspect of the cour
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The course covers listening, speaki
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latest, most secure and flexible pr
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not so much for language improvemen
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the reader/listener as customer) an
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2. ‘Technology is only important
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14 A longitudinal case study of the
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In the next version (v3) of the cou
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of a blend in Collis and Moonen’s
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of telecoms engineers, but it was w
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15 Using a wiki to enhance the lear
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The ‘history feature’ which can
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Figure 4: Student created listening
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Teaching methodology The blended de
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Figure 8: Student reaction to probl
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Lund, A (2008) Wikis: a collective
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hazard a guess that it was over con
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the management of the centres would
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There was a steady increase in the
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3. User experience - feedback on th
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17 A thinking-based blended learnin
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In each of the above parts, the lea
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Figure 1: Cycle of working with gra
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Model by JP, Form 10 Structure Mode
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Recommendation 2 Ensure that the on
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Sokol, A (2008) Development of Inve
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Moreover, as a result of increased
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In general, the students remarked t
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19 Students’ CALLing: Blended lan
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The students were taken to the comp
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When considering blended learning,
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Introducing Macmillan English Campu
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In both scenarios, the ratio of con
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attending scenario 1 courses. The o
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Conclusion Claire Whittaker
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Table 1: Neumeier’s (2005) framew
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Reasons given in the literature for
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Software Author and Chapter New Lea
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Keedwell’s (Chapter 13) blend on
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Table 7: Learning theories, languag
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What will the interactional pattern
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Whittaker (Chapter 16) believed tha
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Summary This chapter draws on the l
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Appendix 1 - Questions for blended
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Contributors Peter Aborisade lectur
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Jody Gilbert taught in post-seconda
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Juanita Pardo-González (BA Hons in
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The British Council is pleased to o
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Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

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