Blended Learning in English Language Teaching: Course Design and Implementation

Figure 5: The projects page carries links to a variety of different formats for input
and presentation of finished products.
d. Exam practice
There are one or two exam task types in each block for individual exam practice.
These are from past papers. Participants are free to do them under exam conditions
or not as they see fit, but are strongly encouraged to upload them for feedback from
a tutor. This includes individualised comments on what they have done well, where
they need to change their approach and things they might do to work on an area.
Course development
The process so far has been one of organic development rather than of having an
end goal ‘grand design’. Prior to the Modular DELTA our online support was a matter
of electronic access to documents. The change to Modular came at a time when
we were beginning to realise that the ubiquity of the web and Web 2.0 were things
we should explore and exploit, not just regard as potential storage. Reworking the
course to break it into three meant additions and some of those additions could be
in ways we had not previously been able to consider. There are still things that were
part of the original ideas that have not yet been written; every new run of the course
throws up questions, things that need to be tweaked, new ideas that could and should
be developed. It has worked well for a lot of teachers and even now is working well,
but there are always further things we would like to do to make it better and it is the
online side of the course that has made this a more organic process. The technology
has demonstrated many advantages: access to resources, a medium through which
to interact and collaborate, provision for individual learning pathways in a secure
environment. We can monitor and see how people are interacting with the online
components and can react accordingly. It is easy to trace what is being accessed
more, by whom and when. It is far more flexible than books; we can adjust individual
components to meet need or demand within a course while it is being used.
Some matters that have been perennial issues have been
exaggerated by blended courses
The training ethos at ITI is ‘do as you would be done by’. The approach of the tutors
is to guide trainees to rational positions/answers/conclusions rather than to tell
them. The materials on the websites are designed in the same way. However, the
reaction of trainees to the more digitised delivery is that more should be delivered.
Exhaustive and comprehensive lists of what should be ‘learned’ are sometimes
asked for. Such lists are neither available, nor in a sense desirable. Participants
106 | Creating a blended DELTA Module One