Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

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6 Reversing the blend: From online to blended Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly Introduction At The Consultants-E, we offer fully online in-service training courses for practising language teachers. All of our training courses focus on helping teachers to learn how to effectively integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) in a principled manner, in their face-to-face and/or online teaching. The course This case study looks at one of our longer courses, the Cert ICT: Certificate in Teaching Languages with Technology, which is fully validated by Trinity College London. The course itself grew from a shorter, four-week course that was the recipient of a British Council ELTon in 2007. In its current form the course was first developed and run as a completely online 120-hour course. We launched an additional blended version of the qualification in 2009. In the blended Cert ICT, 50 hours of the total 120 hours are offered face-to-face. This is followed by the remaining 70 hours being taken online. Our decision to review a blended approach responded to the inherent advantages of both face-to-face and online instruction: Those who use blended approaches base their pedagogy on the assumption that there are inherent benefits in face-to-face interaction (both among learners and between learner and instructor) as well as the understanding that there are some inherent advantages to using online methods in their teaching. Thus the aim of those using blended learning approaches is to find a harmonious balance between online access to knowledge and face-to-face human interaction. (Osguthorpe and Graham, 2003) Added to these general notions of playing to the strengths of each method, we also identified a number of pedagogical and practical reasons for deciding to offer a blended version of the course: ■ ■ The course content (the development of ICT skills) lends itself well to face-to-face delivery, as tutors can physically help participants while they work with a range of ICT tools, in situ. Although this is also achievable online, the process of identifying issues and providing hands-on help can be more challenging online for tutors, and require Skype calls, or developing screencasts to help with specific issues. In this respect we refer to issues with learning and manipulating software Reversing the blend: From online to blended | 75
packages, setting up online accounts with Web 2.0 services and other activities that are necessary at the start of the course prior to engaging with the actual learning content within the course itself. ■■ A part-time blended model allows participants from similar teaching backgrounds to work together on the course, as they are usually living locally, whereas the fully online version of the course always has international cohorts. Both local and international cohorts have their advantages (one is not intrinsically ‘better’ than the other), but offering an additional blended version of the course allows participants to choose which group environment they would prefer to work in – by choosing a part-time blended option, they will work with local teachers. ■■ A blended model increases the market reach of the course, by appealing to teachers who may be concerned about embarking on a fully online training course. As one blended course participant put it in feedback: For me as a learner, the face-to-face part was great and was a stimulus to do the course. I’ve never done an online only course before, so this ‘blended’ approach appealed to me more. I think having the ‘blended’ approach has alleviated this fear. I feel better prepared and more open now to the online part. The participants Participants on the Cert ICT are qualified in-service language teachers. The Cert ICT focuses not just on ICT tools and techniques, but also on general concepts and areas such as online assessment, integration of ICT into the curriculum, mobile learning, e-learning and blended learning. As such, the scope of the course is not restricted merely to English language teachers and we have also occasionally had teachers of other languages on the course in the past (French, Spanish, Chinese and German). However, the Cert ICT is validated by Trinity College London, so there are clear entry requirements: teachers must hold an initial teaching qualification, and non-native speaker teachers need a minimum level of English (IELTS 5.5 or equivalent). The needs of the participants on the Cert ICT are usually fairly defined: they want to, or need to, learn more about how to use ICT in their classrooms. Specifically, they would like to learn to use technology tools with their learners in their face-to-face teaching, and want ideas about how to do so effectively. The participants are usually fairly experienced teachers, with a minimum of two years’ experience, up to 20 years or more. (See teachers talking about their course expectations on the Blended Cert ICT: http://youtu.be/M0WrjdjXTTg) Generally, our course participants have received little or no technology training in the past. But we do get a range of teachers on the course, from those with almost no experience, to a few who are already fairly proficient users of technology. The course is, in fact, designed to take this into account, so that tasks are open ended, allowing participants to complete them to the level of their own ability. As practising (and often experienced) teachers, participants frequently realise this early on, as this comment from one more tech-savvy course participant shows: It was good because it was viable for all levels so to speak – you could work at your own pace and also help others and get help. 76 | Reversing the blend: From online to blended
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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
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■■ Learners’ expectations - l
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To achieve a ‘principled approach
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Page 21 and 22: References Adair-Hauck, B Willingha
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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
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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
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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
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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 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
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Page 115 and 116: ■■ Fine-tuning of online course
Page 117 and 118: Comments on Part 2 Brian Tomlinson
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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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Comments on Part 3 Brian Tomlinson
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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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Comments on Part 4 Brian Tomlinson
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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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